One Size Fits All?

Posted by Christian St John in Faithblogs | 0 comments

Yesterday I had to delete a post in which I interviewed Dale Thompson of hard rock band Bride. This is something I felt I had to do as it was bought to my attention (via several emails from faithful HardcoreFaith readers… thanks guys!) that Mr Thompson is a proponent of Christian Universalism.* What’s the big deal, you may ask? Well, Christian Universalists believe some core theologies that the evangelical community in general believe is heresy. For example, Christian Universalists believe that all of mankind will eventually be saved. They say that it doesn’t matter what you do in this life or what you believe, eventually everyone will be saved. They also believe in the reality of an afterlife without the existence of a literal eternal hell, because according to the Universalist mindset, everyone will be saved and therefore there is no need of hell.

As this stands in direct opposition to what I personally believe I felt I had no choice but to delete this post. (I believe there is a place called hell (more below) and that not everyone will automatically be saved… it’s a choice. For the Bible tells us, “if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” Romans 10: 9-10)

I am sorry I had delete the post but the last thing I wanted to do is post something that may cause someone to begin looking into and even believe something that the majority of evangelical Christian’s believe to be a false doctrine; something I myself believe is a false doctrine. Jesus himself testified, “Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord,” shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?” And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.” Matt. 7:21-23

As stated above, Christian Universalism is the belief that all mankind will eventually be saved through Jesus, whether or not faith is professed in Him in this life. It claims that God’s qualities of love, fatherhood, sovereignty, justice, etc., require that all people be saved and that eternal punishment is a false doctrine. Salvation, they claim, is not from hell or death, but from sin. My problem with Christian Universalism is that when you break it down to the basics it’s a nice idea (who really wants to think of souls in hell?) but it’s really nothing more than a universal get out of jail free card, because as they claim, no matter who you are, what you believe, or what you do, you will be granted salvation in the end – the “one size fits all” form of salvation.

However, the Bible clearly states that this is not so. Again Jesus taught, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’ Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” Matt. 25:31-46

Notice that Jesus said two things: 1) The righteous will have eternal life and 2) the wicked will “go away to eternal punishment.” Eternal punishment! And hey, these are Jesus’ words not mine!

Now I’m not here to point fingers and say who will be in with the sheep and who will be in with the goats because God is the Judge who will judge all people justly and fairly according to his standards. And please don’t think of me as Mr Fundamental, I just believe Revelation 21: 6-8 when it says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

To be brutally honest, if universal salvation is true then what’s the point of following Jesus, being good, following God’s commandments, loving everyone, and so on? I would think that it’s easier just to live as you want and… “hey presto” saved anyway!

I believe in the F.A.I.T.H. way of salvation, which is through Christ alone.

F stands for FORGIVENESS. We cannot have eternal life without God’s forgiveness. Ephesians 1:7a says, “In Him (Jesus Christ) we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.” So first we must be forgiven.

A is for AVAILABLE. Forgiveness is available for all. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” But forgiveness is not automatically given to everyone. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,” says Matthew 7:21a.

I is for IMPOSSIBLE. It is impossible for God to allow sin into heaven because of who He is and because of who we are. God is loving and just, but His judgment is against sin. James 2:13a says, “Judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful.” We are sinful people. Romans 3:23 tells us, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

T is for TURN. To turn means to repent. We can repent — or turn — from our sin and from ourselves, to deny self. “But unless you repent, you too will all perish,” Luke 13:3b says. Fortunately when we turn from sin and ourselves we can turn to someone else, we can turn to Christ. Romans 10:9 tells us how: “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”

H is for HEAVEN. Heaven = eternal life. In this life it means we can “have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10b) In the hereafter, it means the promise of heaven: “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:3)

May peace and grace surround you as you seek to follow him who desires that we “deny self, take up our cross daily and follow him” (Luke 9:23) yet gives us so much more in return.

Christian St John M.Div, BChM, ACS
April, 2009

Picture by Ralph Aichinger

*Since deleting the post I have been in contact with Dale Thompson and we have spoken in depth about the issues mentioned above… in the end we agreed to disagree. But he does raise a good and valid point… “If (Christians) truly believed in hell themselves wouldn’t they be begging their loved ones daily to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth?”