The good news of universal reconciliation is not just found in Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Far from it! There are scores of passages within the New Testament that clearly teach the eventual salvation of the entire cosmos, including every single human being. In this part of the series, I will cover some of those New Testament passages, and in part 4, I will address some Hebrew Testament passages that clearly teach universal salvation. Of one thing I am convinced: the entirety of scripture, both Old and New Testaments, presents an overarching vision of a reconciled cosmos, and this is the lens which makes the most sense of the Christian story.
Many Christians who hold to an exclusivist view (that some people will spend an eternity of suffering in hell) of salvation claim that Christian Universalists ignore the “plain meaning” of passages that seem to speak of eternal torment. I will show how those passages – far fewer than the infernalists maintain – are either misinterpreted or mistranslated in a later part of this series. However, the ironic nature of this accusation is that infernalists must ignore the plain reading of scores of passages that clearly teach universal reconciliation, especially when considering the original languages of the scripture. Scripture is replete with passages that show Christ Died for all, that he gave His life as a ransom for all, that His sacrifice leads to acquittal and life for all, that He appeard for the salvation of all, that He will unite all in Himself, and that God the Father desires (i.e. intends is a perfectly acceptable translation of the Greek) all to be saved.
It is quite surprising that so many who hold to the traditional, infernalist view perform such extraordinary feats of twisted exposition and hermeneutics to try to explain away so many verses that, on their face, teach universal salvation. Let’s consider some of those passages outside the Book of Romans that present the actually good news of God’s plan of cosmic salvation.
“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (I Corinthians 15:22). This closely mirrors Paul’s teaching in Romans 5:18. This parallel structure between the first Adam and the second Adam appears to be a central motif in Paul’s writings. It would be almost humorous to read some Calvinists expositors try to twist these passages into support for eternal punishment if it were not so serious, and if I may, blasphemous and dangerous. For those who claim to treat the scriptures with such high regard, it is odd, to say the least, to watch traditionalists do such violence to passages that do not fit their theological presuppositions. Paul is clearly teaching here that death through sin entered the world through the first human, and that absolutely all humanity was affected. The “all” who were made alive in Christ, then, must be at least as extensive as the “all who have experienced death through Adam. “All” in the second case cannot mean fewer than the “all” in the first case. In short, Paul teaches very clearly that all humans will be made alive in Christ.
“For the love of Christ controls us because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised” (II Corinthians 5: 14-15).
“God our Savior, who intends all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all” (I Timothy 2:3-6).
“…the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all mankind” (Titus 2:11).
“And I, if I be lifted up from the Earth, will draw all mankind to me” (John 12:32).
“…he is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (I John 2:2).
” The law and prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and every one enters it violently” (Luke 16:16). All of these passages are clearly universalist, but this last one seems the most interesting to me in terms of translation. There is a strong case to be made that the “violence” in this passages is on the part of God, not humans (see That All Shall be Saved by David Bentley Hart and “The Good News of God’s Kingdom is Proclaimed and Everyone is Forced Into It” by Ilaria Ramelli).
In other words, God seems to be somehow involved in actually forcing humanity into salvation. I do not read this “violence” as “coercion” necessarily, but as a hyperbolic statement that God’s intention that all be saved will be accomplished (can God be thwarted?), regardless of human will, because the force of His love and mercy is too strong to resist forever. All human hearts will eventually be melted by that all-encompassing, intense love sooner or later.
Some traditionalist who hold to the infernalists view will attempt to hermeneutically maneuver out of a universalist interpretation of I John 2:2 above. The passage itself certainly seems to deal a death blow to the notion of limited atonement. However, infernalists appeal to other biblical passages that speak of Christ His people, His church, or His sheep. But here’s the thing: the universalist reading makes sense of these other passages; the infernalist reading does not. Considering the entire scriptural witness, it is valid to say, ” Christ died for all and for His Church, sheep, etc.” It is akin to saying that Christ died for you and me, but not just for you and me. You see, the universalist interpretation fits nicely, and does not require hermeneutical gymnastics. The infernalist interpretation, however, does real violence to the text. No, scripture is clear: Christ died for His church, Christ died for His sheep, Christ died for his people, and Christ died for all. None of these claims excludes the other.
It is also clear in the New Testament that Christ’s universal salvation is not just limited to humanity. It includes the entire cosmos:
“For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:9-10).
“He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first born from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, and though him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:18-20).
There are two more crucial New Testament passages that strengthen the universalist view:
“….to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all mankind, especially of those who believe” (I Timothy 4:10).
Again, some infernalists maintain that “all” does not really mean “all” in this passage, presumably because they do not want “all” to mean “all.” Their theological biases prevent it. They would like us to believe that Paul means “all sorts of humans.” But is there anything in the Greek to make us think Paul does not actually mean “all”? No, of course not. The Greek word, panton, is the common Greek word for “all” or “every”. It means exactly that unless something else qualifies it, and nothing else qualifies it in I Timothy 4:10. A literal translation of I Timothy 4:10 must read “all mankind.”
Finally, Paul writes,
“Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11).
This is not some kind of end-time subjugation, but rather a clear reference to the fact that all people will willingly and joyfully confess and praise Christ. The Greek word used here is exomologeomai, and it is used in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament in Isaiah 45:23. It is used exclusively to refer to joyful and voluntary praise (see The Evangelical Universalist, the Biblical Hope That God’s Love Will Save Us All by Gregory MacDonald). We see that, by returning to the original languages, ambiguity can often be solved in passages dealing with universal reconciliation versus infernalism.
In the next part of this series, I will address passages teaching universal salvation in the Old Testament. Also, in future parts, I will address those passages that seem to teach infernalism, and how, when they are correctly translated and understood, actually support – or at least do not object to – universal salvation. Over the next few months, it will become clear that the scriptures are quite consistently universalists when properly understood and translated.
