Re: "Pastor" Dave and Universalism

On Tue, 25 Mar 2008 21:24:18 -0400,
in article <IeudnW9RAM1eOHTanZ2dnUVZ_t2inZ2d@xxxxxxxxxx>,
Doug <tcc@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In message
<2e0b4945-eb5f-4dcc-89f4-3a6b1943b667@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
lsenders@xxxxxxxxxxx <lsenders@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Dave has been espousing the position that because "God is love'
that eventually every one, man and angel alike, will be brought to
their
senses and repent, be saved and voila! Shangri-La.

However passionate Dave defends his position with all the bravado
available to him, the doctrine simply doesn't stand the text
biblically or philosophically.

Logically, why would Christ have commissioned His disciples to
spread
the gospel at the cost of all their lives? Why would some one
give their very life for something that will eventually come about
any how?

Mark 16:15
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the
gospel to every creature.

How come Christ commissioned them to preach the gospel to *every
creature*, if utimately, most people are going to receive no
benefit, but will suffer unending infernal torment?


On the contrary, what need is there to preach the gospel to
every creature, if everyone will eventually be saved? And in
direct answer to your question, rejecting a free payment for
sin will demonstrate the justice of God in the damnation of
sinners.


Why would teaching unending infernal torment have endangered anyone?
That is precisely what the ignorant pagans believed! But the gospel
is a great light, which dispelled such superstition. If unending
torment was the punishment for sin, Jesus would have to endure that
for us, and so would still be down there.


That reasoning is based on the assumption Jesus is a finite
being, and therefore would have to suffer for eternity to make
an infinite payment for sin. In fact, He is an infinite
being, therefore the single act of dying, at the briefest
point in time, would constitute an infinite payment for sin.


But he died, and that was
sufficient to take away the sin of the whole world! And he rose
from the grave after 3 days.


ibid. You are now resorting to logic, not exegesis, and even
logic fails you, because the death of an infinite being,
constitutes an infinite payment for sin, regardless of how
long He remains dead. The question in my mind, is not how
could He have paid the eternal debt for all sin in three days,
but why would it take so long for an infinite being to pay an
infinite debt. Well, that's just the amount of time Scripture
predicted He would remain dead, so He was keeping His word.



One of Dave's arguments centers around the biblical word "aionios"
which has various translations but primarily two, "eternal" or
"forever."

According to Rev. John Wesley Hanson, theologians have worked hard
over the centuries to change the meaning of the Greek word aionios,
which in ancient times never had the meaning "eternal"
or "forever." Here is a some of the evidence that he provided:

===========<begin quote >===============

The oldest lexicographer, Hesychius, (A. D. 400-600,) defines aión
thus: "The life of man, the time of life." At this early date no
theologian had yet imported into the word the meaning of endless
duration. It retained only the sense it had in the classics, and in
the Bible.

Theodoret(9) (A. D. 300-400) "Aión is not any existing thing, but an
interval denoting time, sometimes infinite when spoken of God,
sometimes proportioned to the duration of the creation, and
sometimes to the life of man."

John of Damascus (A. D. 750,) says, "1, The life of every man is
called aión. . . . 3, The whole duration or life of this world is
called aión. 4, The life after the resurrection is called 'the aión
to come.'"

But in the sixteenth century Phavorinus was compelled to notice an
addition, which subsequently to the time of the famous Council of
544 had been grafted on the word. He says: "Aión, time, also life,
also habit, or way of life. Aión is also the eternal and endlessAS
IT SEEMS TO THE THEOLOGIAN." Theologians had succeeded in using the
word in the sense of endless, and Phavorinus was forced to
recognize their usage of it and his phraseology shows conclusively
enough that he attributed to theologians the authorship of that use
of the word. Alluding to this definition, Rev. Ezra S. Goodwin, one
of the ripest scholars and profoundest critics, says,(10) "Here I
strongly suspect is the true secret brought to light of the origin
of the sense of eternity in aión. The theologian first thought he
perceived it, or else he placed it there. The theologian keeps it
there, now. And the theologian will probably retain it there longer
than any one else. Hence it is that those lexicographers who assign
eternity as one of the meanings of aión uniformly appeal for proofs
to either theological, Hebrew, or Rabbinical Greek, or some species
of Greek subsequent to the age of the Seventy, if not subsequent to
the age of the Apostles, so far a I can ascertain."

===========<end quote >===============

http://www.tentmaker.org/books/Aion_lim.html

From a philosophical point of view, changing the meaning of words to
support a spurious doctrine is simply "cheating".

From the point of view of the gospel, it is how the sun had been
turned to darkness, and so fulfils the prophecy of Joel, that said
the sun will be turned to darkness. The sun is the symbol of the
gospel, the light which now clothes the church, represented by the
woman clothed with the sun in Revelation 12:1.

Those who defend the pagan superstition of unending infernal
torment, introduced into the church by Augustine, reject the light
of the true gospel. They go back for their old clothes, which Jesus
warns people not to do. [Matthew 24:18]

The apostle Peter foretold the deception that some people would
resort to, in order to mislead the saints:

2 Peter 2:3
And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make
merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth
not, and their damnation slumbereth not.


Christ uses the word twice in Mt 25:46; "eternal
punishment" and "eternal life." In the context aionios is rightly
translated "eternal" when one grants the readership comprising
common
men and women. Theologically, the scholar would have translated
aionios to read, "semptiternal" or "forever." Exegetically, the
word
means "belonging to the age to come." It is contrasted to the
present
age which is transient. i.e. it will come to an end. However, the
next age is endless, aionios, everlasting, having no end.
Commenting on this passage, OC Quick, Regius Prof of Theo at
Oxford maintains that Mt 25:46 and Rev 20:10, 15 affirm permanent
penal pain for some after death, specifically, those whose names
are not written in the Lamb's Book of Life.

However, the doctrine of the eternal punishment of the lost is not
a
two text teaching. In Mt 12:32 which declares, "Anyone who
speaks against the HS [rejecting His outward and inward witness to
Jesus' own identity and role] will not be forgiven, either in this
age or the one
to come. It is better to cut an offending body member off than to
be thrown into Gehenna were the "worm does not die and the fire is
not
quenched" (Mk 9:43-48). John in Rev clearly reveals the
everlasting punishment of the damned as does Paul speaking that
Christ will return in "blazing fire" and will punish those who
have rejected the gospel
in an "everlasting destruction" (2 Thes 1:8-9; cp Rom 2:5-9) The
author of Hebrews likewise warns of "eternal judgment" (6:2)
declaring that "man is destined to die once then comes [certain]
judgment" (9:27) adding that such apostasy leads to a "fearful
expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the
enemies of God. . . It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands
of a
living God" (10:27, 31). All this points to an anticipation of
eternal punishment for the impenitent.

Universalist play lose with Christ and the apostles exhortations,
reducing their statements to an impious bluff. It infers that
their words were meant to manipulate their hearers/readers,
playing on their own prejudices inorder to drive them to faith by
a lie.

A question to Dave and other universalists- how could Christ have
formulated a clearer statement than Mt 25:46?

Elhanan Winchester showed that "everlasting" is often used in the
Bible about things that are not everlasting.

He wrote:

===========<begin quote >===============

"It is so evident that the word which is translated everlasting,
cannot in the nature of things, absolutely signify, without end,
that I should not think it worth while to quote any more passages
in proof of its intending age or ages, only, were it not constantly
used as a great objection against the universal Restoration; I
shall, therefore, instance two or three more in particular, in this
place, and refer to a great number of others, of the same kind; all
tending to prove the same thing. Hab. iii. 6, "The everlasting
mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow." The gospel
is called "The everlasting gospel," Rev. xiv. 6, yet it must cease
to be preached, when it shall be needed no longer. Jonah
saith, "The earth with her bars was about me forever; yet hast thou
brought up my life from corruption; O JEHOVAH, my God." Jonah ii.
6. But it would be the highest absurdity upon the supposition that
the word Legnolam, here rendered forever, properly signifies
without end, for him to say, that his life was brought up from
corruption; and, therefore, we know that he could not use it in
that sense, because, on the third day, he was delivered from his
dreadful prison. There is no doubt but the time that he was there,
seemed an age, and, while he was thus shut up, there was no
intermission to the darkness, and distress that overwhelmed him;
and, therefore he might say, with propriety, that earth, with her
bars was about him, forever (i.e. perpetually without cessation)
during the period he remained in the fish's belly; which appeared
to him, as a long age indeed. But, as it would be a work of much
time and labor to mention all the passages where the word
translated forever, evidently intends only an age, or period, I
shall just direct you to the following; which you may look over at
your leisure.

Gen. xiii. 15. xliii. 9. xliv. 32. --Exod. xii. 14, 17, 24. xxi. 6.
xxvii. 21. xxviii. 43. xxix. 9, 28. xxx. 21. xxxi. 16, 17. xxxii.
13. --Lev. iii. 17. vi. 13, 18, 20, 22. vii. 34, 36. x. 9, 15. xvi.
29, 31. xxiii. 14, 21, 31, 41. xxiv. 3. xxv. 30, 46. -- Numb. x. 8.
xv. 15. xviii. 8, 19. xix. 10. -- Deut. iv. 40. xv. 17. xviii. 5,
28, 46. --Josh. iv. 7. xiv. 9. --1 Sam. ii. 30. iii. 13. xxvii. 12.
xxviii. 2. --1 Kings, xii. 7. --2 Kings, v. 27. --2 Chronicles, x.
7.

Here are more than fifty passages, where the word rendered for ever
intends only age, or ages; to which many more might be added.

===========<end quote >===============

http://vinyl2.sentex.ca/%7Etcc/OP/Univ_Rest_1.html

Since the
presupposition of declaring doctrine is to inform as to the true
reality, the object is to remove all doubt as to the contrary.
Universalist not only can't exegete scripture but they can't allow
for
normal grammatical rules. Language is what they make it to be.
As
with annihilationist, the idea must be read into the texts. For
if the texts are allowed to speak for themselves, neither position
has a biblical basis.

Add to all this the Greek words that express destruction (verb,
apollymi; noun, apoleia and olethros; adjective, olethrios) all
signify functional ruination. Today we would use these words to
describe a car that strikes a concrete median at 80 mph head on.
The
car would be "totaled". The wreckage doesn't suddenly vanish as
annihilationism would have. Nor would the car eventually pop back
to its original form, in fact, even better than original.

Universalism precipitates out into a real moral dilemma. If I'm
going to end up in heaven eventually anyhoo, then WHY NOT eat,
drink and
live a lose life now? Why bother to sacrifice and suffer ridicule
and
rejection trying to fulfill the great commission?

Elhanan Winchester responded to a similar question, with this:

"These kind of reflections are frequently thrown out by the enemies
of the Restoration, to cast an odium upon the doctrine. But if they
were to hear a man say; "If I am just suffered to enter into this
kingdom, and am not condemned as a rebel, it is all I wish; I
desire neither the riches, honors, pleasures, conveniences, nor
even the necessaries that many of the inhabitants enjoy; all I ask
is to be exempted from the pain and shame of public punishment."
And another was to add-- "I can see little or no difference between
being made hier apparent to the crown, possessing all the
privileges, honors, dignities, &c. of a prince of the blood; and
being hanged, drawn, and quartered, for high treason; since even
the punishment, painful and shameful as it is, must come to an
end;" I ask, would they not esteem both these men in a state of
insanity, or worse; entirely devoid of all sense and reason? Yet,
this unreasonable language, is not worthy to be named in the same
day with that which you mentioned. The difference is so great I
cannot find language to express it. I therefore consider all such
persons as madmen, with whom it is not worth while to reason; who
understand not what they say, nor whereof they affirm."

http://vinyl2.sentex.ca/%7Etcc/OP/Univ_Rest_4.html

And even worse,
if everybody is eventually going to be saved, then declarations
such as "There is but one name under heaven by which to be saved"
are
dishonest. In fact, universalism authenticates all religions as
being essentially equal.

Universalism is hardly universal in its doctrinal advocates.
There is a plethora of variations, in fact, specific schools of
thought are
virtually non-existent. Probably the majority hold to a form of
the RC doctrine of purgatory wherein those who find themselves in
hell are
granted a postmortem evangelism with a door at the other end.
It's just a school of sorts that eventually graduates all that
enter therein.

Enough for an introduction. I wait with bated breath for Dave's
exegetical prowess to prove all this wrong.



If your contention is that words like "forever",
"everlasting", or "eternal", really don't mean without end,
when they describe people's eternal destiny, but only for a
while, then you have also just undermined any basis for
believing "eternal life" really means life without end, and
thus, _EVERYONE_ must eventually be annihilated!


©2007 pulpitfire.net, pulpitfire.org, pulpitfire.com
--
Christ died for our sins, and God raised Him from the dead.
Rely on this work alone to escape hell and receive eternal
life (Jn. 3:16; 1 Cor. 15:1-3; Eph. 2:8-10; 2 Thess. 1:8-9).

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself
up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every
thought to make it obedient to Christ. ?2 Corinthians 10:5
.

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