Christian Universalism Reason & Scripture
Posted 06-26-2022 at 02:40 PM by legoman
Its very simple.
1. There are many verses that say God will have all people to be saved, God will reconcile all, God's judgments are for learning righteousness, all will be made righteous, death will be destroyed, God will do that which He says, it is good news - all nations will be blessed etc.
2. There are some other verses which say people/entities will be sent to eternal fire, everlasting punishment, judgment etc. There are also verses that say not everyone will enter the Kingdom of God - not even everyone who calls "Lord, Lord" will make it into the Kingdom! This should cause you some pause.
Now these 2 groups of verses cannot be reconciled against each other. One group must be misinterpreted or mistranslated. So how to determine?
1- for one thing we can study the meaning behind many of the words, as has been done in this thread, and other places - we can see there are many translation issues with words like 'hell', 'gehenna', 'eternal' - it has even been shown there are flat-out errors in the KJV that simply haven't been corrected yet. Some people do not accept this though because they believe the bible is inerrant, even though it was translated into English by humans who can make errors and have implicit bias.
2- those who believe in eternal torment protest that all actually won't be saved, God doesn't want to or doesn't plan to (even though scriptures say that - they are not in "context"). He is not going to reconcile all, etc - the only blessing that the nations would receive are minimal at best since they will end up in eternal torment anyway. God is holy so He demands that souls be punished for ever in the worst torture imaginable (even though He is willing to save them all, but there is a deadline at death). Also death and sin are not defeated, and some even believe people will keep on sinning forever.
For me it comes down to being honest to study the scripture, and understanding the nature of God. God does not want people to be in torments forever; this concept of eternal torment is not in scripture at all and is at odds with everything God describes. He is just, merciful, compassionate, loving and holy. He literally is defined as LOVE. There is also a purpose for this all. Under eternal torment belief - there is no purpose for anything except to avoid eternal torment. Once you remove the false eternal torment belief, you can begin to learn what the real purpose is.
Hell mistranslations
'hell' is translated from words meaning "grave" and "gehenna". 'hell' is also used ambiguously as in reference to 'eternal fire', 'lake of fire' etc. I've covered this in other posts.
'forever' mistranslations
The meaning of eternal/forever/everlasting is not literally infinite.
Psalm 90:2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
From 'everlasting' to 'everlasting? Or from 'age' to 'age'...
Aion means 'age', not eternality or 'forever'.
The bible references plural aions, the aion of the aions, the aions, of the aions, before the aions.
Christ does not reign forever, but UNTIL all enemies have been defeated. He reigns for the aions of the aions (not forever and ever).
BEFORE the aions: I Cor. 2:7-- ...before the eons... ...before the ages...
God MAKES the aions Heb. 1:2-- ...makes the eons... ...made the ages...
PAST aions: Col. 1:26-- ...hid from eons... ...from the ages...
PRESENT aion: Gal. 1:4-- ...the present wicked eon... ...present age - an evil one
END of present aion: Mat. 24:3-- ...conclusion of the eon... ...conclusion of the age...
The NEXT aion: Lk. 18;30-- ...the eon to come... ...age that is coming...
FUTURE aions: Eph. 2:7-- ...the oncoming eons... ...ages that should come...
CONTRASTING aions: Eph. 3:21-- ...the eon of the eons... ...age of the ages...
ENDS of the aions: I Cor.10:11-- ...the consummations of the eons ...the ends of the ages...
aionion is the adjective form of aion-> it means pertaining to an age (not 'everlasting', 'eternal' etc.). It has this idea of a long time stretching to the horizon; beyond what we can see.
1. There are many verses that say God will have all people to be saved, God will reconcile all, God's judgments are for learning righteousness, all will be made righteous, death will be destroyed, God will do that which He says, it is good news - all nations will be blessed etc.
2. There are some other verses which say people/entities will be sent to eternal fire, everlasting punishment, judgment etc. There are also verses that say not everyone will enter the Kingdom of God - not even everyone who calls "Lord, Lord" will make it into the Kingdom! This should cause you some pause.
Now these 2 groups of verses cannot be reconciled against each other. One group must be misinterpreted or mistranslated. So how to determine?
1- for one thing we can study the meaning behind many of the words, as has been done in this thread, and other places - we can see there are many translation issues with words like 'hell', 'gehenna', 'eternal' - it has even been shown there are flat-out errors in the KJV that simply haven't been corrected yet. Some people do not accept this though because they believe the bible is inerrant, even though it was translated into English by humans who can make errors and have implicit bias.
2- those who believe in eternal torment protest that all actually won't be saved, God doesn't want to or doesn't plan to (even though scriptures say that - they are not in "context"). He is not going to reconcile all, etc - the only blessing that the nations would receive are minimal at best since they will end up in eternal torment anyway. God is holy so He demands that souls be punished for ever in the worst torture imaginable (even though He is willing to save them all, but there is a deadline at death). Also death and sin are not defeated, and some even believe people will keep on sinning forever.
For me it comes down to being honest to study the scripture, and understanding the nature of God. God does not want people to be in torments forever; this concept of eternal torment is not in scripture at all and is at odds with everything God describes. He is just, merciful, compassionate, loving and holy. He literally is defined as LOVE. There is also a purpose for this all. Under eternal torment belief - there is no purpose for anything except to avoid eternal torment. Once you remove the false eternal torment belief, you can begin to learn what the real purpose is.
Hell mistranslations
'hell' is translated from words meaning "grave" and "gehenna". 'hell' is also used ambiguously as in reference to 'eternal fire', 'lake of fire' etc. I've covered this in other posts.
'forever' mistranslations
The meaning of eternal/forever/everlasting is not literally infinite.
Psalm 90:2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
From 'everlasting' to 'everlasting? Or from 'age' to 'age'...
Aion means 'age', not eternality or 'forever'.
The bible references plural aions, the aion of the aions, the aions, of the aions, before the aions.
Christ does not reign forever, but UNTIL all enemies have been defeated. He reigns for the aions of the aions (not forever and ever).
BEFORE the aions: I Cor. 2:7-- ...before the eons... ...before the ages...
God MAKES the aions Heb. 1:2-- ...makes the eons... ...made the ages...
PAST aions: Col. 1:26-- ...hid from eons... ...from the ages...
PRESENT aion: Gal. 1:4-- ...the present wicked eon... ...present age - an evil one
END of present aion: Mat. 24:3-- ...conclusion of the eon... ...conclusion of the age...
The NEXT aion: Lk. 18;30-- ...the eon to come... ...age that is coming...
FUTURE aions: Eph. 2:7-- ...the oncoming eons... ...ages that should come...
CONTRASTING aions: Eph. 3:21-- ...the eon of the eons... ...age of the ages...
ENDS of the aions: I Cor.10:11-- ...the consummations of the eons ...the ends of the ages...
aionion is the adjective form of aion-> it means pertaining to an age (not 'everlasting', 'eternal' etc.). It has this idea of a long time stretching to the horizon; beyond what we can see.
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