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The purpose of God to save all men is as unalterable as His nature of love and His character of holiness.
Not only has God stated that He will save all men, not only has God promised that He will save all men, but God has SWORN BY AN OATH that He will save all men!
This truth stands forth in clarity in the glorious words declared openly by God Himself.
In fact, when God could find no greater, He swore an oath by Himself, vowing that every promise He had made unto the children of men would be accomplished.
What He had spoken He was well able to perform. God is faithful, who also will do it!
What does God's Oath entail?
We are warned never to swear, or make a vow; either by heaven or by earth.
For it is better never to make a vow, than to make one, and then not be able to keep it.
Great penalty can be incurred upon our carelessly made vows and pledges. We see this in the reckless vow made by Jephthah. In Judges 11:30-40 we read that he "vowed a vow unto the Lord" which caused him and his daughter great pain, sorrow, and loss. -J. Preston Eby-
Are you agitated over the wayward condition of sons and daughters, or of other loved ones?
Then rest in God's provision, for He has appointed a time when they too shall come to Christ.
And if they are not responding to the many attempts to convert them, then it is because God is not calling them yet.
But never fear, in due time He will merely point His finger at them and all of heaven's hosts will converge upon them to bring them to their promised and purchased salvation.
Paul Mueller relates the following story which so beautifully documents Christ's power and ability to draw all men unto Himself:
"Some years ago, during our missionary tour in Nigeria, West Africa, we were told a fascinating story of a people who lived on an island off the coast of Africa. These island people were in a remote area and somewhat isolated from the mainland, but God sought to bring a significant number of people on this island to salvation.
There were no missionaries or other Christians on the island, so the Lord gave a dream to the chief of the tribe.
In the dream, the chief was told to erect a cross and call the entire tribe to present themselves before that cross. As the people came bowing before the cross the chief had erected in obedience to the dream, they came without understanding of the significance of the cross. But they came nevertheless, for it was the command of the chief.
However, as they came and bowed before that cross, they wept in repentance and their lives were changed by the power of God.
Later, a missionary came to the island. He found the people serving God as best they knew, and he explained more fully to them the ways of the Lord" -J. Preston Eby-
Do you know how many times “limited” is used in Scripture?
Exactly once. “You have limited the Holy One of Israel.”
“In order that, by His goodness to us in Christ Jesus, He might display in the Ages to come the transcendent riches of His grace.”
Ephesians 2:7 in order that in the coming ages He might display the surpassing riches of His grace, demonstrated by His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
Transcendent=
Dictionary Definition=
Surpassing others; preeminent or supreme.
Lying beyond the ordinary range of perception.
koine huperballo =
To throw over and beyond.
Exceeding / surpassing.
Are our broadest hopes broad enough? Shall there be a nook or abyss, in all the universe of God, finally unlightened by the Cross? Shall there be a sin, or sorrow, or pain unhealed? Is the very universe, is creation in all its extent, a field wide enough for the Son of God?
"If the Greek words eis tous aionas ton aionon mean endless time, as translated in the KJV, 'forever and ever,' we have a contradiction in Scripture."
-Dr. William Barclay
"This view (Restitution of All) is so clearly Scriptural that the only surprise is that it has not been more definitely and widely held."
-Dr. A.T. Pierson
I believe implicitly in the ultimate and complete triumph of God, the time when all things shall be subject to Him and when God will be everything to everyone (1 Cor 15:24-28). For me, this has certain consequences. If one man remains outside of the love of God at the end of time, it means that one man has defeated the love of God—and that is impossible. Further, there is only one way in which we can think of the triumph of our God. If God was no more than a King or judge, then it would be possible to speak of his triumph, if His enemies were agonizing in hell or were totally and completely obliterated and wiped out.
But God is not only king and Judge, God is Father—He is indeed Father more than anything else.
No father could be happy while there were members of his family for ever in agony. No father would count it a triumph to obliterate the disobedient members of his family. The only triumph a father can know is to have all of his family back home again. –William Barclay
Thou, O Father, wilt not be angry with thy child because he thought—and tried to bid others to think just and noble things of thee; though, O Savior, wilt not frown at him because he trusted in the infinitude of thy compassion; and thou, O Holy Spirit, whose image is the soft stealing of the dew and the golden hovering of the dove, wilt know that if he erred it was because he fixed his eyes, not on the glaring and baleful meteors of anathematizing orthodoxy, but on the star of Bethlehem and the clouds that began to shine above the coming of the Lord; and that—if perchance he erred—the light which led astray was light from Heaven. –Canon F.W. Farrar, b. 1831
The fact remains—we are God’s offspring, created from a foundation of goodness that has gone wrong.
History since the Garden is the gradual story of how God is slowly putting that wrongness right...and will continue to do so. –Michael Phillips
There is a strange and wonderful statement found in Rev. 2:11.
"He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the Churches; He that overcomes shall not be HURT of the second death."
It does not say that the overcomer experiences nothing of the second death, that he does not pass through it, or that its work is not wrought in his life; but the thought is that he will not be "hurt" by it.
It is possible to pass through the most terrible experience and not be hurt by it?
"And these three men Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Then Nebuchnezzar the king was astonished, and rose up in haste, and spoke, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they HAVE NO HURT; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God" (Dan. 3:23-25). Oh, to know that we can pass through the darkest night or the hottest fire and not be hurt by it if Jesus goes with us! How heartening and assuring to read such promises as these: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you: and when you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon you" (Isa. 43:2).
The word "hurt" is from the Greek ADIKEO meaning to be unjust, do wrong, injure or offend.
Armed with this understanding we may paraphrase Rev. 2:11
"He that overcomes shall not be done an injustice, wronged, injured or offended by the second death."
The great difference between the unbeliever and the child of God is that the unbeliever is taken hand and foot and "cast" into the lake of fire, fighting, kicking, screaming, cursing, and resisting all the way, while the child of God willingly and obediently walks into the fiery processings of God hand in hand with his blessed Redeemer.
And, one way or the other, ALL MEN MUST DIE UNTO SIN.
When the natural man becomes the spiritual man, the great change is described by the Holy Spirit as a passing from death unto life. Before the transistion occurred, the practical difficulty was this, how to get into harmony with the new environment of the Kingdom of God?
But no sooner do we enter into the Kingdom of God than the problem is reversed.
The question now is, how to get out of harmony with the old environment of the flesh, the world, and the devil? The moment the new CHRIST life is begun there comes a great anxiety to break with the old, for the regenerated spirit has nothing in common with the old.
The former way of life now becomes embarrassing. Because of "sin in our members" it refuses to be dismissed from our consciousness. It competes doggedly with the new nature of the Christ. And in a hundred ways the former traditions, the memories and passions of the past, the fixed associations and habits of the earlier life, now press in to draw us to walk after the flesh, complicating the new walk. The complex and bewildered soul, in fact, finds itself confronted by two contrasting faculties, the flesh and the spirit, each with urgent but yet incompatible claims. It is a dual consciousness of a double world, a world whose inhabitants are deadly enemies, and engaged in perpetual civil war!
The position is perplexing.
It is clear that no man can attempt to live both lives. No man can walk both after the flesh and after the spirit anymore than one can walk down two roads at the same time. His testimony will agree with the apostle who wrote: "For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot perform it. I have the intention and urge to do what is right, but no power to carry it out; for I fail to practice the good deeds I desire to do, but the evil deeds I do not desire to do are what I am ever doing. Now if I do what I do not desire to do, it is no longer I doing it it is not myself that acts - but the sin (principle) which dwells within me. So I find it to be a law of my being that when I want to do what is right and good, evil is ever present with me and I am subject to its insistent demands. For I endorse and delight in the Law of God in my inmost self - with my new nature. But I discern in my bodily members - in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh - a different law at war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner to the law of sin that dwells in my bodily organs - in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh. O unhappy and pitiable and wretched man that I am! Who will release and deliver me from the shackles of this body of death?" (Rom. 7:18-24, Amplified). -J. Preston Eby-
Do you believe the unchanging love of God can be defeated?
"I believe implicitly in the ultimate and complete triumph of God, the time when all things shall be subject to Him and when God will be everything to everyone (1 Cor 15:24-28). For me, this has certain consequences. If one man remains outside of the love of God at the end of time, it means that one man has defeated the love of God—and that is impossible. Further, there is only one way in which we can think of the triumph of our God. If God was no more than a King or judge, then it would be possible to speak of his triumph, if His enemies were agonizing in hell or were totally and completely obliterated and wiped out. But God is not only king and Judge, God is Father—He is indeed Father more than anything else. No father could be happy while there were members of his family for ever in agony. No father would count it a triumph to obliterate the disobedient members of his family. The only triumph a father can know is to have all of his family back home again. –William Barclay-
From Him the all, through Him the all, to Him the all.
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