Universalism Promises Life as it Depreciates the Key to Life

 
All forms of equality have become popular rallying points today. It’s not just a matter of income but also spiritual, cultural, and religious equality. The idea that there should be one world religion to bring us all together, in which everyone will get to heaven, has become the hope of many. Therefore, they are quick to denigrate the Christian faith as an exclusive “us vs. them” club rather than a “us with them” religion.

 There has even arisen a group called “evangelical universalists,” (EUs), which tries to make its case from the Bible. Although there is no verse that says that, EUs reason that, eventually, everyone will go to heaven and have collected an inviting set of verses in their favor. For instance, there are several verses that claim that Jesus will reconcile everything to Himself:

·       For if [Israel’s] rejection brought reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? (Romans 11:15)

 ·       For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Colossians 1:19-20)

 However, the EU ignores the context. Colossians 1:22-23 cites the necessary condition of faith for salvation:

·       But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel…

 Well, will Christ savingly reconcile the entire world to Himself? The Hebrew Scriptures provide the answer. They claim that, in the end, all who remain alive after the final battle will be saved and reconciled to our Lord:

 ·       Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles. (Zechariah 14:16, 3)

This is a portrait of salvation but not for everyone. Only in the end, among those who survive the final battle, there will be a worldwide salvation:

 ·       Therefore, wait for me,” declares the Lord, “for the day I will stand up to testify. I have decided to assemble the nations, to gather the kingdoms and to pour out my wrath on them—all my fierce anger. The whole world will be consumed by the fire of my jealous anger. Then I will purify the lips of the peoples, that all of them may call on the name of the Lord and serve him shoulder to shoulder. (Zephaniah 3:8-9).

 There will be one people of God, standing “shoulder to shoulder.” Along with Israel, the nations shall repent and receive forgiveness:

·       The earth will become desolate because of its inhabitants, as the result of their deeds…Nations will see and be ashamed, deprived of all their power. They will put their hands over their mouths and their ears will become deaf…Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? (Micah 7:13, 16, 18)

 Notice, that God only pardons the sins of “the remnant,” rather than of all, as the EU claims:

 

·       “I will set a sign among them, and I will send some of those who survive to the nations—to Tarshish, to the Libyans[b] and Lydians (famous as archers), to Tubal and Greece, and to the distant islands that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory. They will proclaim my glory among the nations…From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me,” says the Lord. “And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.” (Isaiah 66:19, 23-24)

 

These verses do not support EU. Those who remain and are saved will have a constant reminder of the fate of those who were not saved. The fact that the fire will continue to consume these bodies is a testimony against the false hope of EUs.

 

False hopes must be challenged. They lead people away from the one true Hope. If everyone will be saved, then there is no compelling reason to follow the Christian faith – praying, studying the Bible, obeying, and certainly not evangelizing – since there are no enduring consequences for rejecting it.

 

In their denial of eternal judgment, those who teach EU are like the false prophets who had also denied God’s coming judgment:

·       Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly…if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. (2 Peter 2:3-6, 9)

A faithful ministry requires us to warn, as the Apostles and Jesus had done, even if the world scorns us for such words.