Three prominent beliefs regarding salvation, held by most mainstream church-goers, and supported by texts from popular versions of the Bible, provide a real challenge for thinking Christians. They are:
1. God wants to save all people.
(God) intends all human beings to be saved and to come to a full knowledge of the truth.
[1 Timothy 2 : 4 DBH]
The Lord isn't slow about keeping his promises, as some people think he is. In fact, God is patient, because he wants everyone to turn from sin and no one to be lost.
[2 Peter 3 : 9 CEV]
2. God is all powerful, so always gets what He wants.
Our God is in heaven, he does whatever pleases him.
[Psalm 115 : 3 NIV]
We may make a lot of plans, but the LORD will do what he has decided.
[Proverbs 19 : 21 CEV]
3. Unbelievers will be lost forever.
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.
[John 3 : 36 NIV]
He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might
[2 Thessalonians 1 : 8, 9 NIV]
Now let's put on our thinking caps.
How can all three be true at the same time?
How can we believe that God wants to save everyone, always achieves what He wants, yet many (most?) people will be lost forever?
As a set, the three statements are inconsistent.
A bit like this set of three:
1 + 2 = 3. 2 + 1 = 3. 2 + 2 = 3. They can't all be true at the same time.
Let's see how others handle this problem before I share how I do.
There are some Christians, who follow the teachings of John Calvin, a French theologian whose views became the basis of Calvinism, who believe the second and third statements to be true, so challenge the first statement.
They believe that God wants to save only those He has chosen to save (modified statement 1),
that He will achieve what He wants (statement 2),
so the remainder, the unchosen, will be lost forever (statement 3).
There are other Christians, the majority in my experience, who follow the teachings of Jacob Arminius, a Dutch theologian whose views became the basis of Arminianism, who believe the first and third statements to be true, so challenge the second statement.
They believe that God wants to save everyone (statement 1),
but God does not achieve what He wants because He has given people freewill which can override His will (modified statement 2),
so those who choose not to be saved will be lost forever (statement 3)
Notice that statement 3 (unbelievers will be lost forever) is always held to be true regardless of which Christian group anyone belongs to.
It is the only non-negotiable belief in the vast majority of Christendom, so other beliefs have to be adjusted to accommodate it.
Yet for me, this is the statement that needs to be challenged.
Not because I don't like it (although that is true), but because it is not what the Bible teaches.
Indeed, the Biblical texts which are used to support statement 3 are not correct translations of the Greek text from which they come.
Let's examine the supporting texts for statement 3 from above.
Firstly John 3 : 36.
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.
[John 3 : 36 NIV]
If I use a literal translation for this text, I get the following:
He who has faith in the Son has the life of that Age; and the one rejecting the Son will not see (that) life, but God's ire rests upon him.
[John 3 : 36 DBH]
He who is believing in the Son has life eonian, yet he who is stubborn as to the Son shall not be seeing (that) life, but the indignation of God is remaining on him.
[John 3 : 36 CLV]
he who is believing in the Son, hath life age-during; and he who is not believing the Son, shall not see (that) life, but the wrath of God doth remain upon him.
[John 3 : 36 YLT]
The literal translations show that eternal life is NOT being addressed in this verse (and verses like it), but life in the Age, life in the millennial Kingdom.
Secondly 2 Thessalonians 1: 8, 9.
He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might
[2 Thess 1 : 8, 9 NIV]
If I use a literal translation for this text, those not seeing life in that Age are:
... those who do not know God and do not heed the good tidings of our Lord Jesus - who will pay the just reparation of ruin in the Age, coming from the face of the Lord and the glory of his might
[2 Thess 1 : 8, 9 DBH]
... those who are not acquainted with God and those who are not obeying the evangel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall incur the justice of eonian extermination from the face of the Lord, and from the glory of His strength
[ 2 Thess 1 :8, 9 CLV]
... those not knowing God, and to those not obeying the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall suffer justice — destruction age-during — from the face of the Lord, and from the glory of his strength,
[2 Thess 1 : 8, 9 YLT]
Again, missing out on life in the Millennium in the Lord's presence is the loss worn by unbelievers. It is not eternal destruction.
It is only believers who have been chosen to live and rule with Christ during the age of the millennium kingdom.
However, the unbelievers, who have not been chosen for that role and responsibility, will be raised at the consummation of the ages when death is destroyed (1 Corinthians 15 : 26) and God becomes "everything to everyone" (1 Cor 15 : 28) so that God's plan "to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ" (Ephesians 1 : 10) is completed.
To help convey the correctly translated Scriptures supporting statement 3, I would re-word it so that the set, as a whole, becomes consistent.
Here's the result:
Statement 1 - God wants to save all people. (agreed - it's a good summation of its supporting texts)
Statement 2 - God is all powerful, so always gets what He wants. (agreed - it's a good summation of its supporting texts)
Statement 3 - Unbelievers will not see the millennial kingdom. (agreed - it's a good summation of its correctly translated supporting texts)
Blessings, Barry
The idea for this BLOG was inspired by the theological and philosophical discussions of Thomas Talbott, Professor of Philosophy in USA, in his book "The Inescapable Love of God" published in 1999, and referenced by Gregory MacDonald in his book "The Evangelical Universalist" in 2006. (Gregory MacDonald is a pseudonym for Robin Parry, Professor of Systematic Theology in USA.)
I read lots of creation-evolution literature, mainly to justify and strengthen my Biblical creationist views and to bolster my scientific and theological arguments against Darwin's General Theory of Evolution (GTE).
I haven't written on GTE in my BLOG as the BLOG's focus is on God's extravagant grace and the reconciliation of all creation to Himself through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, I might begin to do so in the future, as belief in GTE (yes, it is a belief system) has some serious implications for Christians and the foundations underlying their Christian faith.
Today's post about Charles Darwin is consistent with my main focus without directly addressing GTE.
There are many quotes from The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–82 by Charles Darwin available on the Internet, but one of them is especially relevant to some of the points I have made in several previous posts.
Charles Darwin was initially training to be an Anglican minister, but "I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation".
"I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine."
We have seen in many previous posts that poor translations in most popular Bibles of verses involving "hell", "eternal" and "age-during or age-ian" have distracted readers from God's true gospel that Jesus' death and resurrection have secured the eventual reconciliation of all His creation. (Check out *God's Biblical Plan* posted on January 8th for a recent quick summary.)
In addition, the mainstream church has rarely preached this gospel message, promoting rather that Jesus' sacrifice on the cross for the sins of the world will not be successful and that God will annihilate or endlessly torment most of His creation at the final judgement.
Who would really want to be committed to such a cruel and unsuccessful god, whose stated purpose for the world could be so easily sabotaged?
But this is not the case at all. The gospel of Jesus Christ is really good news - not a mixture of good news for some and bad news for the majority.
In all his wisdom and insight God did what he had purposed, and made known to us the secret plan he had already decided to complete by means of Christ.
This plan, which God will complete when the time is right, is to bring all creation together, everything in heaven and on earth, with Christ as head. [Ephesians 1 : 8 - 10 GNB]
and Jesus' own words:
"When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to me." [Jesus quoted in John 12 : 32 GNB]
because
Christ himself is the means by which our sins are forgiven, and not our sins only, but also the sins of everyone. [1 John 2 : 2 GNB]
I can't help wondering what Darwin's influence on the world might have been if he had not been so influenced by the incorrectly translated text he was reading, and become an Anglican clergyman instead.
Blessings, Barry
Adjectives formed from nouns have the same basic meaning as their noun.
For example, the noun 'truth' has an adjective 'true' which may be illustrated with "a statement that contains the truth is a true statement".
Another example could be the noun 'day' and its adjective 'daily' which may be illustrated with "each day we wash the dinner dishes, so washing the dishes is a daily chore".
The English words 'age' and 'eon' are nouns that refer to a period of time, often a very long period of time, which has a beginning and an end.
Unfortunately in English we don't have a simple single word adjective corresponding to the noun 'age', although 'eon' does have the rarely used 'eonian'.
The closest we can come to a "single word" adjective for the noun 'age' might be 'age-during' or 'age-lasting', or we might try to use an adjectival phrase like 'belonging to the age', 'pertaining to the age', 'during the age', 'of the age' or 'for the age'.
As difficult as it is to find an adjective for age that we are comfortable with, we should never use words like 'forever' or 'everlasting' - words that convey the idea of never-ending, nor a word like 'eternal' - a word that conveys the idea of no beginning and no end.
In the New Testament, the Greek noun that translates into age or eon in English is 'aion' and its corresponding adjective is 'aionian'. Possible uses might be: We are living in the aion of the church, so we are the aionian church, and, Believers will live and reign with Christ in the coming aion, so they will have aionian life.
Unfortunately, most of our popular English Bibles quite wrongly translate 'aionian' in the Greek as 'eternal' in English. And this error causes us to miss the distinction between eonian life (life during the ages) and eternal life (life beyond the realm of the ages).
Here are a few examples of using eonian correctly.
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him should not perish but have eonian life. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eonian life.
[John 3 : 14 - 16 NIV corrected]
Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my words and believes him who sent me has eonian life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. [John 5 : 24 NIV corrected]
“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, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’“Then they will go away to eonian punishment, but the righteous to eonian life.”
[Matthew 25 : 44 - 46 NIV corrected]
As you know, because of Jesus' death on the cross, everyone will receive eternal life eventually (at the end of the ages), but only believers in the gospel will receive eonian life in the coming millennium, illustrating that although God is the Saviour of the world, there is something special for believers. [see 1 Timothy 4 : 10]
That special something is eonian life, life that continues through the coming eons.
So correct grammar reveals the difference between eonian life and eternal life - between life in the kingdom ages for believers and life in eternity beyond the ages for everyone. Indeed, without this correction, it is difficult to find the millennial kingdom anywhere other than in Revelation 20.
(I
am beginning to use 'eonian' more and more in recent times, instead of the other age-related options, because it
is just one word and because it closely resembles the Greek 'aionian'. Having said that, I am tempted to create my own word: age-ian, which looks very strange but is growing on me.)
Blessings Barry
