Your “reconciliation” aligns with the experience I describe as “redemption.” Not only is relationship restored with God, but relationship is restored with yourself – your true inner self, who is a child of God.
I’m not sure it’s possible to get to reconciliation or redemption unless you first wrestle with the gift of forgiveness. It can be hard during our lives as humans to accept that we could ever be worthy of God’s forgiveness, but as souls we strive to “pay it forward” in all our relationships.
Sure, but the person who receives it can decide to refuse it, Christians for examples have never prayed the conversions of demons because they know they will never repent and accept forgiveness. You are depicting it as something wholly unilateral where there is no place for free will.
Again, forgiveness can be given to everyone, even the demons could potentially be reconciled with God, but they never will because they don’t want to. We are not talking about lower animals, in the sense that angels and human beings have the true capacity to result and refuse God’s grace, which is why they can be lost forever.
I am reminded of a portion of the Talmud which involves: Doeg, Ahithophel, Angels, and Ha-Shem (i.e. Yhwh).
Doeg the Edomite was Saul’s chief herdsman, who witnessed David’s interaction with the High Priest Ahimelech. David claimed to be on a secret mission and sought food from Ahimelech. Ahimelech responded by giving David and his men showbread from the altar and Goliath’s sword. Doeg reported the interaction to Saul, who became infuriated with Ahimelech for helping David, Saul’s “enemy”. So Saul ordered some of his own men to execute Ahimelech and other priests with him. The appointed executors refused, so Saul told Doeg to kill them.which Doeg did.
Ahithophel was one of King David’s most trusted advisors. During the revolt of Absalom against his father, King David, Ahithophel advised Absalom thereby aiding and abetting David’s rebel son. When Ahithophel realized that Absalom’s rebellion had failed, Ahithophel put his affairs in order and proceeded to hang himself.
At Sanhedrin 105a [in the Babylonian Talmud], it is written:
"…the ministering angels said before the Holy One, Blessed be He: ‘Master of the Universe, if David, who killed the Philistine and bequeathed the city of Gath to your sons, will come and complain that You gave a share in the World-to-Come to his enemies Doeg and Ahithophel, what will You do concerning him? Will you accept his complaint?’ God said to the ministering angels: ‘It is upon me to render David and his enemies friends with each other, and even David will agree.’ "
I fully affirm what Gospel of John 5:28–29 clearly teaches: a universal resurrection and a real division between those who “rise to life” and those who “rise to condemnation.” There is nothing “scot-free” in my view. Where I think we may differ is in what the word “condemnation” requires us to conclude.
The passage itself affirms resurrection and judgment, but it does not specify the nature or duration of that condemnation. It does not explicitly say eternal conscious torment; it simply affirms a real and serious adverse outcome.
In my view, that condemnation includes full confrontation with the truth of one’s life and its consequences, and the call to reconciliation with God as revealed in Christ. That may involve purgation. But if reconciliation is ultimately refused, then the consequence is not continued life in separation from God, but the loss of that life—since God is the source of life. So I would not describe this as God arbitrarily annihilating the unrepentant, but as the result of a final refusal of reconciliation.
So I don’t see this passage as ruling out my view. What it clearly rules out, in my opinion, is any idea that there are no consequences or no real judgment—which I also reject.
So the disagreement that you and I have, as I see it, isn’t about whether there is resurrection and judgment—we agree that there is—but about what “condemnation” ultimately entails.