The greater issue

Every now and then in Christian circles a strange-sounding idea pops up. It’s deemed “heretical” and “not an option for evangelicals because it lacks biblical warrant.” In the contemporary church, it’s only held by a small and fringe minority. It’s the doctrine and belief that eventually everyone who has ever lived on planet Earth will be saved and spend eternity with God.

Upon first hearing, most Christians reject this possibility without a moment’s thought. To them, it seems so obviously false. Often they are shocked that anyone would believe such an absurdity, especially people in the Church. After thinking about it for a few moments, however, some agree that God could save everyone if He wanted to, but they insist that He doesn’t want to and that the Bible clearly teaches He will not save everyone. At least this is what they have been told, taught, and led to believe the Bible says.

But here’s a bigger, broader, and more “hell-of-a-problem” than hell. We call it “the ‘all’ controversy.” In several places in the Bible, God actually says that He wants to save everyone and that He will accomplish everything He desires. Even more troubling—and in our opinion the irony of ironies and the paradox of paradoxes—is that this belief, which sounds so strange to us today, just may have been “the prevailing doctrine of the Christian Church during its first five hundred years.”

“Hell no!” you say. “Hell yes, it was!” Christian Univeralists retort. One thing we can know for sure, however, is, this issue is not something we can simply ignore or take too lightly.

It’s called “Universalism,” and also “Universal Salvation,” “Universal Reconciliation,” “Final Universal Restoration,” or “Final Holiness.” But it’s not a uniform belief system, as some assume—except for the end product of all people being saved, eventually. Several varieties of Universalism have been and are currently espoused. The differences between varieties basically involve the questions of “how” this saving process happens, “where” it happens, and “why.”

Sources:

1 Hell Yes / Hell No by John Noe