IomAmerica
Vol. 15 | July & August 2015
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WHAT IS IT? HOW DOES IT AFFECT YOU? DR. JIM FOWLER & DR. STEPHEN PHINNEY ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS & MORE
EXPANDED EDITION The Art of Turning Jesus Into a Puppet
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niversalism By Dr. Jim Fowler & Dr. Stephen Phinney
Some philosophers have referred to an abstract universalism wherein all thought must find unification in a particular standard of understanding. Everything, without exception, is alleged to find empowerment and meaning from a common source. The religious expression of this guess work is found in the “Science of the Mind” tenets, which became the foundation of Christian Science and Religious Science. Eastern philosophical and religious expressions of this for m of univer salism ar e for mulated in monistic (single source) concepts of oneness. All is essentially and universally one, despite the illusory appearances of differentiation. If not pantheistic (everything is God), this form of universalism may espouse pantheism (everything is in God, and we must “see God in everything”). Sociologically, some have adopted a moral universalism wher ein ever y individual, without exception, is obliged to seek the highest teleological objective and welfare of all other persons in the society. Such universalistic democratic concern for all within the social community is advocated as a moral necessity for an ideal society. This is where “democracy” was birthed, which is basis for the birth of America. It is the natural tendency of man to convert philosophical concepts into religious beliefs or creeds. The broad concepts of philosophical universalism are transferred into religious universalism. Throughout the history of religious thought ther e has been a r ecur r ent tendency to advocate a blind toler ance of religious differences, and to project an overriding universality to human religious aspirations. All religions are regarded as having equal validity, for all religions are alleged to lead to the same God and to the same destiny for mankind. “All spiritual paths lead up to the same mountaintop called ‘God.’” In this fruitless attempt to promote universal religious unity, all concerns for truth or falsehood, orthodoxy or heresy, are avoided. Indwelt Christianity’s claim of singularity of Truth in the Person of Jesus Christ is particularly offensive to such unification endeavors. In the contemporary social mass media climate of pluralism and tolerance of all variants, this form of pluralistic religious universalism is particularly appealing – no one gets judged. The phenomenon of setting off a ONE WORLD RELIGION has convinced many that pluralistic religious universalism is a necessity. Some self-proclaimed Christians have concluded that world evangelism is a hopeless endeavor. Millions of people pass through human life without the opportunity of hearing or responding to Christ’s invitation on their lives. “Are we going to conclude that the vast majority of the human race are Hell-bound sinners who will eventually be sent to Hell?” “How can we continue to claim that a particular man or prophet is the singular means by which all men are to find salvation and a pathway into Heaven?” Accepting all religious belief in pluralistic religious universalism is regarded as the only feasible course of action.
This demonic movement is infiltrating the True Church – the Bride of Christ! The term “Christian universalism” is r egar ded by tr aditional Indwelt Chr istian under standing to be an inaccuracy in the form of a contradiction - it doesn’t match the Word of God. What cannot be denied, however, is the mushrooming acceptance of universalistic thought among those who call themselves “Christians.” The Truth: It will be impor tant to clar ify how we ar e using the ter m “universalism” in this context. The new 2
covenant gospel of Jesus Christ is universally available to all men, and not limited by race, nation, economic position, or gender (Rom. 3:29; Gal. 3:28). Christ’s death was the redemptive ransom for all men universally (1 Tim. 2:6; Heb. 2:9), with the understanding that God is foreknowing of all who will respond to the universal invite. This is NOT the definition of universalism we are addressing. We are referring to the teaching that “all men universally, without exception, will be included among the saved in heaven with God forever.” Various labels have been applied to this teaching, including “universal restoration,” “universal restitution,” “universal reconciliation,” and “universal salvation.” “You may possess only a small light, but uncover it, let it shine, use it in order to bring more light and understanding to the hearts and minds of men and women. Give them not Hell, but hope and courage. Do not push them deeper into their theological despair, but preach the kindness and everlasting love of God, for he is in all things and all people. Learn to respect his organics of life; his planet, his environment and his people.” - Universalist John Murray Commencing with the revealed truth that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16), some assume that the absolute compassion of God requires He accept and receive all men into His eternal presence. “If God loved men enough to create them, He will love them enough to preserve them” is their reasoning. SOME OF THEIR QUESTIONS: 1. Is God a ‘respecter of persons’? “No” (Acts 10:34). 2. Does God divide people up into ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys?’ No. 3. Is God a self-righteous, unforgiving, cold-hearted God? No. 4. How could a good and loving God condemn mankind, impose death on His created beings, and send people to Hell? He does not.
Implied within their questions is a serious misunderstanding or perversion of true Indwelt Christian theology. As strangely ironic as it may seem, the determined exclusivism of five point Calvinism has been one of the strongest driving forces for inclusive universalism. Many people react to the election doctrines of the Calvinist view of the atonement of Christ – not understanding God’s ability to look into the future and see who responds to the unlimited atonement of Christ. Due to this, universalists have kicked back and reformed a deterministic view of God – a system in which no randomness is involved. TULIP (Total Depravity - Unconditional Election – Limited Atonement – Ir r esistible Gr ace – Perseverance): The “L” of “limited atonement” (in the Calvinistic TULIP crossword) is modified into “limitless atonement.” The other petals of the flower remain intact in the deterministic system that diminishes or denies the conditional faith response of man to God’s action in Jesus Christ. Personal responsibility is ignored, which is one of the primary drawing cards of universalism, and also why it is attractive to the gracialistic community. It is a natural tendency of natural-man (unsaved) to seek a religious system wherein he is relieved of personal responsibility. When God created the human race, He established an eter nal covenant with mankind - an arrangement wherein all human descendants have an inherited participation in God’s covenant blessings. The universalist abnormal form of “covenant theology” reveals an essential weakness of overemphasizing the permanency of covenant benefits extended to all without any conditions – including salvation through one man, Jesus Christ. Here is their deal, when Old Testament persons of faith are regarded as “saints” or “pre-Christ Christians,” having exercised a faith that did not involve validation of knowledge of Jesus Christ, then people in every age can
Editorial Comments: Kathy Hill, CO editor@iomamerica.org Entire content of this publication is under © supervision of IOM America 2015 Reproduction permitted when entire publication remains intact. Digital view or copies can be obtained online at: click here All Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible, © Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963,1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
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be said to have saving faith without explicit knowledge of the historical Christ, His incarnational life (God becoming man), His redemptive sacrifice, or His resurrection restoration of life out of death. This is how they can abuse God’s one-sided divine covenant agreements as their proof that “covenant universalism” is relevant for the world today – without Christ. The study of true salvation, is obviously centr al to any study of “universal salvation.” The Swiss theologian, Karl Barth, emphasized a unique incarnational soteriology that left itself open to “universal salvation.” Barth’s thesis explained that when God became man in the person of Jesus Christ, deity incorporated humanity into Himself to the extent that we can now speak of the “humanity of God” (the title of one of Barth’s books). If Christ’s taking of our humanity causes humanity to be included into God, then the resulting conclusion is that all of mankind is universally drawn into reconciliation with God – as a whole, without unloving exclusion. Thus, early universalists (enlightenment/masons) took advantage of Barth’s loophole and took a free ride into the 20st century after establishing the Unitarian church in 1635.
The answer to their demise is simple. To the univer salist, when “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14) and the Son of God “was found in appearance as a man” (Phil. 2:8), essentially implies that deity became humanity and incorporated humanity into deity – Exchanged Life in reverse. The TRUTH is, Jesus “emptied Himself out of His Godhead (Deity)” so it wouldn’t be incorporated! As the West/United States becomes more and more enamored by Eastern oriental, self-as-god thought, the philosophical and religious concept of monistic (oneness) universalism is often Christianized by stealing sound doctrinal vocabulary and passages; redefining it through their morbid self-interests and beliefs; and then forcing it onto a world who does not want to be judged, but only loved. All “theological” interpretations are defined through the inward god of self, and then reconstructed as “God said.” This is why you can’t debate or argue their points. They are protected by demonic pantheistic self-interpretation – a perfect Satanic tool for the final church (Laodicea), which Jesus will ultimately spit out of his mouth! If “God is all and in all,” then this all-inclusive oneness and unity of the created order implies that all men are universally united with God and are purified, redeemed ,and sanctified through their own efforts. Universalists say that God, the “divine spirit” is alleged to be in every man and to be the energizing source “in whom we live and move and have our being” (Acts 10:28). The “divine light” of Christ (John 1:9) dwells by nature in every person universally (masonic enlightenment), and their only need is to recognize such. A human response of faith is not required, just an expanded awareness of the inner reality of the divine presence of the universal Christ, who is really the anti-christ. The legitimate truth of “union with Christ” can be pushed beyond its relational intimacy into an abstract concept of “oneness universalism.” Organic Universalism is nothing short of Pantheism, which is the belief that the Univer se (or natur e as the totality of everything) is identical with divinity, or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent (inborn) God. Pantheists, thus, do not believe in a distinct personal or interactive God – such as Christ in the believer. Universalism is classically lodged in humanitarian pantheism. But the truth being told, true universalists are respecters of life and any form of life that produces life – plants, animals, climate, water, fish, bugs, humans, and spirits. This is why Unitarians include Satanism as one of their leading global religions of honor, and why the Masonic order has established denominations/churches that support sustainable life forms. They believe that all forms of spirits are to be blessed and honored by the human race – for some reason, excluding the Holy Spirit. Organic Universalists believe that there are spirits in all things, particularly in items that produce life. OU’s believe that all of life starts and finishes with the soil of the earth. This is why the greater percentage of universalists are sponsors of environmental veganism, which refers to the avoidance of animal products in or on human con4
sumption. Since 30% of the “Christian” community has adopted organic universalism, the term “theological reconstructionist” (returning the earth to its original purity) has been assigned to them – while fully knowing God cursed the earth as a part of Adams consequences (Gen. 3:17). “What Clarence Russell Skinner was doing for his time — and challenging us to do for our time — is to continually reshape the churches that we inherit — whether as ministers or as laypeople — so that they can face up to the new challenges and opportunities of the days that lie ahead . . . We must continue the kind of work that Skinner made central to his life's ministry — always building a new kind of church — always reaching out for a vision of the church that lies just beyond our grasp but with hard, dedicated work can be conjured into being.” - Universalist Carl Seaburg Proper theology is the consideration of God’s Person and work (in that order), and is assaulted by the fallacies of universalism. Whereas, “oneness universalism” speculates deity deep down, and within humanity, the study of religious doctrines. “Soteriological universalism” speculates that humanity inherits the Deity of God post-incarnational (once Jesus became flesh). Both of these theses imply a “universal reconciliation” of God and man by virtue of the inherent connection of deity and humanity. “Covenant universalism” binds God into a legal obligation to keep His alleged joint covenant agreement. “Calvinistic universalism” forces God into a non-randomness implementation of His decree to save all men in Christ. “‘God is love’ universalism” likewise creates a logical necessity that demands the salvation of all men in order to justify God’s love. “Organic Universalism” reduces God to being bound by the earth He created. They all impose on God’s absolute divine freedom to act in the expression of His own Being, without any criticisms of necessity. Each puts God in a position of submitting to man. Whether they believe it or not, God is Self-existent, autonomous, and independent. He is not dependent on any other, and certainly not on the human creature He created. Nothing, and no one, can lay claim on God’s mind, nor interpret what He meant by what He says. For there is nothing that necessitates His doing what He does, anymore than anything outside of Himself necessitates His being Who He is. Out of His own Being, He does what He does, because He is Who He is. What He does is always His own Being in action, for He does not act in such a way that is separate from His own Being. God’s action to save mankind, for example, is not demanded by His love, His doctrines, His covenant arrangements, His relational oneness, or the incarnational (becoming flesh) involvement of the Son. His actions cannot be legitimately reduced in importance to logical/mechanical acts of obeying man. NO ONE can hold Him to His word. Indwelt Christian theology must commence with Who God is, His character, and the recognition of how His very Being is expressed in His identity and actions. Universalism may appear to do so, as it typically presents its argument by focusing on God’s love and His conveyance of such by grace. This is deceiving, however, for the major foundation of universalism is the predetermined decree of God’s objective to save all men through a pre-inherent Deity at man’s birth. This mistaken ideology starts with a predetermined objective that is then used to define and justify God’s character of love and His functional grace, resulting in Godship on man’s part. Godship: A simple ter m to descr ibe what the Wor d defines as the number one pr oblem in life—man attempting to function as their own god in the lives of self, others, and even God. You might suffer with divorce, suicide, eating problems, depression, or any other common problem with the self-life. Most of the time, it falls under the category of Godship—finding ways to fix the fix that God has fixed on you, to stop fixing life through self-effort. Our ministry has learned that the act of “playing God” helps us to identify the real problem in each of the lives to whom we reach out. We have also learned that the most common consequence of Godship is “rejection” (Gen. 3:5). Without question, “God is love” (1 John 4:8,16). Love describes Who God is, not something God has in order to distribute to others. The God Who is love preceded the creation of man, and He was complete and fulfilled in His Trinitarian love expression from eternity-past. God did not have to save mankind through Christ in order “to prove Himself” to be love. There was no external logical mandate that necessarily implied that in order “to be true to Himself,” He had to act to save all fallen creatures. This impinges upon the absolute freedom of God to function as the God that 5
He is, and ever so subtly binds God in a logical necessity (which deifies human logic and relegates God as the instrumentation of such). We must beware of any form of theological reductionism that tends to reduce God to a single or primary attribute or character trait, such as love. The “God is love” form of universalism is the most popular contemporary expression of universalistic thought, and its thesis finds its way into the arguments of the other forms. But there is always the danger of attempting to define God only on the basis of His love, or to explain His love in expressions equivalent to human love, rather than in the singularity of the incarnational manifestation of His love and identity in the Son, Jesus Christ. When the omnipotence (power) of God’s sovereign action is logically connected to the character of divine love, Christian theology can soon go astray in asserting that sovereign omnipotence must always achieve what it desires, even if by obligation or force. Though the desire and “will of God” is clearly stated, for “(God) is not wishing for any to perish” (2 Pet. 3:9), this does not necessarily imply that God must bring this to pass in universal enactment. For this, once again, binds God in a universalistic logical requirement. Divine love must be understood in a relational context. For God’s love was eternally expressed in the Triunite relations of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Any mechanical understanding of God’s love as a one-sided force that requires of God to use His power to impose upon man by the “will of God” does violence to a proper understanding of God’s love. Relational love cannot be forced or coerced. On a human level, this is called “rape.” On the divine level, such a ridiculous coercion of Adamic thought to participate in God’s love does violence to the genuine faith-love relationship that God intends by a freely chosen response and willingness of man to be intimately involved with Himself. Such a personal faith-love relationship is what God intended, when He Selflimited His own sovereign authority, in order to grant man a genuine “freedom of choice” that allows a freely chosen relational participation in the inner love relations of the Trinity. Yes, God “desires all men to be saved” (1 Tim. 2:4), but His love and sovereign omnipotence must not be defined, evaluated, and legitimized by effectual universal qualifications in the salvation of all men. God is love, whether He saves all men, or does not save any man. God’s love is not dependent on man’s need of salvation, nor on the result of universal requirements. Since God can see into the future, He knows who responds to His selective process and who does not. If in any manner we reason “God is love because He saves all men,” we establish God’s Being by a practical process that defines God by what He does for man. This is the essence of idolatry, for idols are defined by how they serve, satisfy, and benefit man – this is NOT how it works with God. Idols are constructed for man’s well-being. We must not engage in the idolatry of making God a slot machine of love, in order to benefit man’s ends. Universalism often ends up being both humanistic and idolatrous, as it constructs a “god” who is a universal producer of egalitarian benefits and blessings for man. The benefits and blessings are then elevated for worship, instead of worshipping and glorifying God for the worthiness of His own Being. We do not worship God for what He can do for us, but for Who He is in Himself. Universalists often reacts heatedly to any mention of divine judgment or wrath. What they don’t realize is that God’s love includes divine Judgment, Wrath, and Condemnation. God’s love and justice are not contradictory. God’s judgment is not just an imagined and temporary phase wherein God forces man to repentance and participation in His “universal love.” God judges and determines all things in accordance with Who He is. His all-glorious character alone brings glory to Himself, which is the purpose of all creation (Isa. 42:8; 43:7; 48:11). The loving justice of God implies intolerance and rejection of all evil and sin that are not consistent with Himself. For such thwarts divine glorification and His pre-established structure in Heaven. To expect anything else 6
would be expecting God to rearrange a perfect Heaven for the morbidity of man’s twisted doctrines and behavior; thus. accomplishing Satan’s original goal of attempting to take the throne of God and run Heaven his own way. This will never happen – never! God’s judgment and the lack of election of those who reject God’s definition and function of love and grace do not encompass or reveal a failure on God’s part with His divine sovereignty or love. The tri-personal God of love grieves over those who reject Him, “not willing that any should perish.” But grief and suffering are not indicative of the failure of love, but of love reacting to freely chosen rejection. “Not only does the Lord Jesus live in us, but He becomes the gateway of communication between frail humanity and a God of the Universe. The impotent views of lawless universalists tout ‘no Hell, no judgment, and no condemnation. But as the reality of Judgment Day sets in, their morbid beliefs will only become the oil that helps them slide into Hell. May the God of the Universe save those who use His love to hide their twisted views of selfindulgence.” - Anti-Universalist, Dr. Stephen Phinney Deficient theological understanding of God is often closely allied with a humanistic anthr opology (study of the doctrines of man) that sets man up as a “god,” or makes God dependent on man. Correct understanding of man must recognize that the Creator God is Self-existent, autonomous, and independent. Whereas man, the creature, is dependent and depending upon God, functioning as intended only by being made from the character of God in human behavior.
The modernized logical necessities of universalistic thought regard humanity as the necessary object of God’s action - whether it is His love, His decrees, His covenants, His incarnational reality, or His personhood of being God. As the necessary object of God’s action, man is hypothesized as an independent and autonomous being upon whom God can and must act – almost like being told what to do by man. This humanistic premise of man as a self-existent, “independent self,” which is the foundational premise of most universalistic thought, is contrary to an indwelt Christian understanding of anthropology. “Oneness universalism,” on the other hand, goes to the opposite extreme of theorizing the essential elevation of man, which is just as inconsistent with the indwelt Christian’s recognition of the distinction of God and man that allows for relational life from within. Indwelt Christian anthropology insists that man is not an autonomous, self-existent, independent object that God is obliged to love and save, in order to justify His Being. Nor is man ever merged or absorbed into God; but rather, is invited to join Him in His Kingdom. Indwelt Christian anthropology is unique in its asser tion that the Cr eator God cr eated man as a der ivative cr eatur e whose intended identity and function are reliant and dependent upon dynamic receptivity from God. Unable to function as a self-existent “independent self,” man must derive his being, identity, nature, character, and immortality from God, in order to be man as God intended man to be. Man has no legitimate existence on his own, apart from God. Only when God is spiritually present within man, through the life of Jesus, and man is receptive to God because of His indwelling Life, can man function as God intended - as the vessel of the manifestation of God’s all-glorious character, thus fulfilling his created purpose (Isa. 43:7). It requires God present within, and functioning through a man, for man to be man as God intended man to be – we call this the Exchanged Life. Man’s separation from God is founded on the pr emise that God cr eated humans as choosing cr eatur es. Human “freedom of choice” is not to be equated with any absolute sense of “free will,” which would deny human originality. Man is not a lesser self-generative “god,” who can freely “will” something into being by forming a human-centered opinion. Only God has the “free will” to determine what He will do in accordance with His character, and the inherent power to imple-
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ment His God-sized intentions. Humans, on the other hand, were created by God’s “free will” to be receptive, choosing creatures with “freedom of choice,” which involves the responsibility (response-ability) to continually and dependently receive from God, through Christ, in order to be fulfilled (full-filled) humanity. God’s limitless and absolute “free will” is free to function in so creating man with freedom of choice. For He desired a personal relationship with man through a man’s freely chosen faith-love dependency in His Son. To disallow man the opportunity to choose such a dependent relationship; or, on the other hand, to reject God and experience the consequences (Col. 3:25) of such rejection is to reject His own goal – man choosing to enjoy a loving relationship with Him WITH His conditions intact. Universalism undermines the personhood of human beings by advocating that God imposes His laws upon man without respect for the freedom of choice, which He granted man in creating man as a choosing creature. The divine external universalism recoils at any thought of faith in Chr ist J esus as being a “condition” of an eternal relationship with God. What they fail to understand is the chosen response of Christ’s faith, first, offered as a gift. Secondly, it is through His faith that no conditions are placed upon God to act on man’s behalf. All of the conditions and acting have been, and will continue to be, done through the inward life of Christ. Over all, the anthropology of universalism prefers to avoid focusing on individuals as choosing creatures who can receive or reject the selective process of Christ. Instead, they purposefully stress the collective and corporate aspect of humanity, preferring to view mankind as an all-encompassing whole, with all men in socialistic harmony with one another. This randomized theology removes and erases the entire purpose and work of Jesus Christ. Satan’s goal can then be fulfilled. Universalists often begin with the universal creation of mankind, which they claim cr eates a univer sal har mony of “the Fatherhood of God, and the brotherhood of man.” Likewise, they argue, in the “new creation” of mankind in Christ, mankind is organically and relationally connected as “salvation” implements the universal reunification of the unity of mankind through their human efforts of abiding in the existing universal thought. Although their communist approach to the whole of humanity are not completely off, the indwelt believer (through the new covenant), demands an individual response to the inward LIFE of Christ, with a pro-active corporate involvement in the Body of Christ, the Church. Universalism twists the biblical and indwelt Christian understanding of anthropology by adopting humanistic premises of man as an independent object necessitating God’s action, or by merging man with God in inherent and monistic elevation. Regardless of the starting point, universalists deny that man is a response-able, choosing creature by insisting on the universal thought of all men, collectively, in God’s designs. The tragedy of universalist anthropology is that humanity is depersonalized, and human beings are robbed of the teleological opportunity for participation in a freely chosen faith-love relationship with the inward dwelling LIFE of Jesus Christ - a concept they despise. SUFFER NOT THE LITTLE CHILDREN “I believe that if an angel were to wing his way from earth up to Heaven, and were to say that there was one poor, ragged child, without father or mother, with no one to care for them and teach them the way of life; and if God were to ask who among them were willing to come down to this earth and live here for fifty years and lead that one to Jesus Christ, every angel in Heaven would volunteer to go. Even Gabriel, who stands in the presence of the Almighty, would say, ‘Let me leave my high and lofty position, and let me have the luxury of leading one soul to Jesus Christ.’ There is no greater honor than to be the instrument in God’s hands of leading one child out of the kingdom of Satan into the glorious light of Heaven, for the beliefs of a child’s parents is the child’s doctrinal views of tomorrow.” ~ Dwight Moody Hamartiology comes from the Greek word haartos, meaning sin. Hamartiology, therefore, is the study of sin. From a biblical perspective, the study includes how sin was introduced into the world, how it impacts the world today, the solution to the sin problem of humanity, the judgment of sin, and the removal of sin at the end of time. In short, sin is defined as "missing the mark" of God's righteousness through transgression of His laws or rebellion against His rule. The Bible clearly states that all humans (except Jesus Christ as both human and divine) have sinned and fall short of God's glory (Romans 3:23).
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A child, left to himself to define the boundary lines of God, will be an adult who will emer ge out of the ashes of poor parenting, only to tout their own morbid beliefs of the concept of sin – typically, resulting in a universalist thought of “sin is irrelevant.” On the other hand, children of biblical parents grow up understanding all are born into sin, they have a sin nature, and without a “sin eater,” they would go to Hell for those sins!
When God created man with freedom of choice, He knew ahead of time that His cr eated humanity would r eject the Divine character He Himself put in man. God’s love always involves foreknowledge. This same love demands a test – “God tests whom He loves” (Ex. 20:20), and testing is expectant of outcome. This is opposite of what the Universalists tout. Divine Order: God is God. God cr eated Lucifer . Lucifer chose to “fall short of the mark” (sin). God created a “formless” planet. God put Satan on the formless planet, as punishment. God breathed life into the formless planet. God created Adam. God created many trees, including two significant ones for His Divine testing – the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. God gave Adam a wife. Lastly, God gave Adam the ability to make decisions – just like He did with Lucifer. Adam made his choice; he chose to change fathers , switching over to the “father of lies.” Since nature derives from fatherhood, he adopted the nature of the “evil one” – who committed the first sin. Universalists reject the study of sin – they think it to be unnecessary and pointless. Since their beliefs are focused around “universal salvation” (all of humanity is saved) – the talk of sin is meaningless. Universalism demands that God bow to their interpretations of Him. They not only avoid the talk of sin, but they have replaced the consequences of sin with a rosy optimism of the universal perfection of man, which theologically becomes the oil that Satan uses to usher the “many” into his Hell. “Oneness universalism” identifies sin as an “illusion,” only seen and observed by those with a false sinconsciousness who do not see all things in universal oneness with God. The bottom line is they cannot believe in a God who would “sentence men to death and send them to Hell for sin.” God does not punitively send men to Hell for their sin, for He is “not wishing for any to perish” (2 Pet. 3:9),. But He respects man’s freedom of choice to the extent that He will allow man the results of the consequences of his choices (Col. 3:25). Some universalist teachers have even gone so far as to “reverse the charges” against God, by engaging in the blasphemy of suggesting that if God fails to save all men universally, He would “miss His goal” of universal salvation, and would, thereby, Himself become a “sinner.” Indwelt Christianity is a frequent target of univer salistic teaching, not only because it emphasizes fr ee mor al choices with consequences, but also because it allegedly creates an eternal bondage to the decision of those who do not support biblical views of sin and its consequence of Hell. Indwelt Christian freedom is not to be found in moralism, or the lack of it. But results from the dynamic root of God’s character in man’s behavior, allowing man to be free to be man as God intended man to be, to the glory of God. As Satan posed Jesus with a decision to serve him, God all the more so gives man the decision to serve Him – this is the evidence of true love. The curious mystery of evil set up the illogicalness of the cr ucified Chr ist on the Cr oss on Calvar y to facilitate the “mystery of Godliness” (1 Tim. 3:16), whereby the indwelling Lord Jesus lives His life and manifests the character of God in the believer’s behavior. Who are we to sit in judgment of the redemptive action of God’s Being in His Son, Jesus Christ, claiming (as some universalists do) that “sin is nothing.” Or, implying that there is no relevance or consequence to sin; or even, attributing sin and evil to God, Himself? Not me!
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You want to mess up the minds of your children?
“Here’s how – guaranteed! Rear them in a legalistic, tight context of external religion, where performance is more important than the inward faith of Christ. Fake your faith. Sneak around and pretend your spirituality. Train your children to do the same. Embrace a long list of do’s and don’ts publicly but hypocritically practice them privately… yet never own up to the fact that it’s hypocrisy. Act one way but live another. And you can count on it – emotional and spiritual damage will occur.”~ Charles (Chuck) Swindoll “Training up a child in the box of external performance will lead the child to taking one of two paths – universalism (don’t judge me) or perfectionism (changing externals in order to feel internally in order).” Dr. Stephen Phinney Universalism, in general, regards Jesus as a utilitar ian tool utilized by God, the Father , to facilitate His commanded objective to save all men universally. Most universalistic teaching sees Jesus as but a means to an end - a mindless, mechanical robot and instrumental Savior employed to exhibit God’s love, guarantee God’s covenant, or facilitate God’s decree. They do not take into account that He was and is God.
The deficiency of a traditional understanding of the Trinitarian function of the Godhead should be evident to all – but realistically, it isn’t. The Truth is the Persons of the Godhead do not utilize or employ one another, but always function together as a triune single entity. Remember that Universalists do not acknowledge the biblical definition of sin. BUT God, the Father, obviously considered the consequences of sin to be of such sufficient importance to send His Son to be the redeeming, corrective, and restorative Savior of mankind. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). “He (God the Father) made Him (Jesus), who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf” (2 Cor. 5:21). The logical conclusion: If univer salists don’t acknowledge sin nor that Jesus became sin on our behalf, then they do not acknowledge the True Jesus , and tout that He is like the rest of us fundamentalists. All of the Christianized forms of universalism make reference to Jesus Christ But most fail to understand the full significance of the incarnation whereby, the Son of God became the God-man. “‘God is love’ universalism” views the Person and passion of Jesus Christ as the ultimate love-act of God, revealing to mankind how much He loves them, and His intent to save all men. For “covenant universalism,” Jesus is the last will and testament of the universal covenant, verifying and guaranteeing that all will be included in the eternal covenant. “Calvinistic universalism” regards Jesus as the comprehensive Savior; deterministically applying limitless atonement ,as God universally draws all men to Himself in Christ. “Oneness universalism” speculates that the Spirit of Christ is the intrinsic spiritual reality in all men, assuring them of their universal oneness with God. “Soteriological universalism” has a definite incarnational Christology, but pushes its significance to the extreme, making the incarnation an all-inclusive reconciliation and restoration of humanity within the Being of God. The Person and work of Jesus Christ can only be properly understood in a dynamic incarnational Christology (Jesus became flesh) that recognizes that when “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14), God was revealing Himself in the Person of Jesus Christ. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19),. But this does not necessarily imply a universal reconcilia10
tion that fails to account for a freely chosen relationship through the indwelling Life of Christ from within. Christ Jesus was “made in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:7), in order that “the man Christ Jesus” might be “the one mediator between God and man” (1 Tim. 2:5). For only as man, could He take upon Himself the death consequences of sin; but only as God, could He restore Divine life to men. As the God-man, Jesus was never less than God, and never more than man. In His redemptive mission, Jesus came “to give His life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28; cf. 1 Tim. 2:6), and was “obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8). The cross was not merely an example of self-giving love and sacrifice, as some forms of universalism seem to interpret the crucifixion. “The word of the cross” (1 Cor. 1:18), “Christ crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2), was a legal stumbling block to the Jews, and a logical absurdity to the Gentiles. But to indwelt Christians, the “crucified Savior” is “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:23-24). We must never settle for a static interpretation of Christ’s crucifixion, as a model sacrifice or misguided martyrdom. The dynamic implications of redemption and restoration are evident in the exclamation of the dying Christ on the cross, when He shouted, “It is finished!” (John 19:30). That was no cry of defeat—“mission aborted”—but a shout of triumphant victory announcing “mission accomplished.” For in taking the death consequences of sin upon Himself, Jesus was well aware that He was setting in motion the dynamic restoration of God’s life to man through the indwelling Life of Jesus. “Death could not hold Him in its power” (Acts 2:24),. And by His resurrection, the risen Lord (who is “the resurrection and the life” [John 11:25]), now functions as the dynamic of resurrection-life, whereby all men willing to receive Him can be “born again to a living hope” (1 Pet. 1:3), and “be saved by his life” and “reconciled” by His death (Rom. 5:10). “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Rom 5:10).
If, as universalism reasons, all men are to be saved by the necessity of God’s love, covenant, decree, or oneness, then the question must be asked: “What was the purpose of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ?” The answer and conclusion might be drawn, in likeness to Paul’s statement of Galatians 2:21, “If all are destined to be saved, then Christ died needlessly.” Universalism can legitimately be charged with robbing the death of Christ of its atoning and redemptive significance, and with gutting the resurrection of Christ of its singularly unique dynamic to restore God’s life to receptive individuals. We must never allow the Life and work of Jesus Christ to become an unessential and irrelevant blip on the radar screen of history - for this is Satan’s goal. What we should do is continually expound on the incarnational Christology that recognizes the dynamic implications of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The purposed objective of Christ’s incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection was to take the death consequences of men’s sins remedially, and to save men by the restoration of God’s life. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners (I Tim. 1:15), Paul explained. Jesus, Himself, announced His mission as, “I came that you might have life, and have it more abundantly” (John 10:10), explicitly declaring, “I am the…life” (John 14:6). The person and work of Jesus Christ facilitates a spiritual regeneration (cf. John 3:1-6), which involves the receipt of the very life of the risen and living Savior. The “salvation” we obtain through our Lord, Jesus Christ (cf. I Thess. 5:9) is the dynamic “saving life” (cf. Rom. 5:10) of the living Savior. When the “gospel of salvation” (cf. Eph. 1:13) is cast in static categories of thought that fail to recognize that “the gospel is the power (Greek dunamis) of God for salvation to every one who believes” (Rom. 1:16), then the biblical and Christian understanding of salvation has been cut loose from its moorings in the living Lord Jesus. Universalism is guilty of identifying and interpreting “salvation” in static disconnect from the living Savior. The gospel is often viewed as a corpus of information to be proclaimed, informing men of God’s decree, covenant, love, and oneness, and of the inclusion of all men, without exception, in the benefits of God. But the “good news” is not the message of a deterministic delivery of divine “benefits,” but of the availa-
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bility of the very “Being” of God in Christ to dwell within and function through any one willing to freely receive Him in faith. The gospel is not merely information to be assented to, but the living Word, Jesus Christ, coming to dwell within the spirit of man as the ontological dynamic of God’s life in man. Universalism often ends up being a modernized form of Gnosticism that seeks to find knowledge in the assurance of spiritual oneness with God and a certain security in a promised universal destiny with God. Our security and assurance must be “in Christ” alone, and as we participate in the divine life of Christ we can leave our destiny in God’s hands, for such will be but the continuance of His life and our participation in Him. In universalistic thought “salvation” is often viewed as a static condition confer r ed upon all men, a beneficent r eward, or an assured destiny. Salvation becomes a commodity – a “heavenly entrance pass” or an “eternal life package.” For “‘God is love’ universalism,” salvation is awareness of being loved without end. For “Calvinistic universalism,” salvation is the security of being “elect.” For “Covenant universalism,” salvation is the guarantee of covenant privileges. For “Oneness universalism,” salvation is consciousness of oneness with God. For “Soteriological universalism,” salvation is absorption into deity. Every form of universalism fails to recognize that the living Lord Jesus is the personal content of salvation, that salvation is Jesus the Savior dynamically manifesting His “saving life” in a faithfully receptive Christian individual, now (cf. Eph. 2:8) and forever (cf. I Pet. 1:5). When we fail to understand and experience salvation as the dynamic life of the living Savior, Jesus becomes a Dues ex machine, a problem-solving, fix-it savior who is the “dispenser of salvation.” As noted previously, to view Jesus in such a mechanical and instrumental way does violence to the Trinitarian revelation of God, and transforms the gospel into a selfaggrandizing acquisitional endeavor. A biblical understanding of “salvation” must take into account that the Gr eek wor d for “salvation,” sozo, has the meaning, “to make safe.” Christian salvation is not to be regarded as merely being “made safe” from erroneous thinking in order to develop a correct epistemological belief-system. Neither is Christian salvation an escapist incentive of being “made safe” from going to hell (which many universalists deny the existence of). It might be legitimate to indicate that salvation is being “made safe” from the dysfunctional humanity that is diabolically misused and abused as an individual derives evil character from the wrong spirit (cf. Eph. 2:2) who expresses such in self-orientation and self-sufficiency, but this negative interpretation still views salvation from an escapist perspective. Salvation must be given its positive content in the person and work of the living Lord Jesus. Stay Tuned—much more to come!
Listen to dr. Phinney’s Podcast series †
UNIVERSALISM (Part One): Jesus Is Not a Universalist
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UNIVERSALISM (Part Two): Knowing the Types
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UNIVERSALISM (Part Three): The Fallacies of Universalism
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UNIVERSALISM (Part Four): Hell No—No Judgment
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UNIVERSALISM (Part Five): Christ And Universalism
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UNIVERSALISM (Part Six): Tuesday, August 11, 2015
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UNIVERSALISM (Part Seven): Tuesday, August 18, 2015
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