Quite so! Jesus died because we (all of us) are in need of salvation.
How so?
If I understand you correctly, you are caricaturing universalism as saying: “everyone is saved anyway, so Christ’s death was unnecessary.” But that couldn’t be farther from the truth. If everyone is saved, then it is only because Christ died for us. In fact it is precisely those doctrines that would limit God’s grace down to just a few elect that make his death on the cross the most ineffectual (i.e. it could only reach a few).
Yeah Jesus died for us. If you want to accept his Grace is free. Its like saying that a extremist fanatical for example muslim who blows up himself over 100 people because the Quran says so will be saved. Thas why Universalism its doubtful in my opinion
Hell was made for the devil and his angels. But the lost will face the lake of fire one day.
Plus as I’m sure you know Jesus himself did not teach universalism.
Matthew 7:21-23 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’
I’m the one here who is probably perceived (whether correctly or not is disputable) as leaning most in that direction. So it’s only me that (perhaps unwisely) disturbed your conversation by bringing it up with Dale again. And since I have little investment with the label, and others have considerable investment in despising it as heresy, I won’t here plant my flag on that hill. Sorry about that. If you really want to discuss it, perhaps a new or different thread might be in order - or even better yet, private messaging; since it isn’t one of the hills on which Biologos would have flags to plant. You can blame me (as a participant here rather than a moderator) for being unable to leave it all well enough alone.
First of all i can sense that i might offended you with one of my posts. If so sorry it wasnt my intention. Second of all i would like to discuss it private if you want. Not a debate or something just a conversation.
No - I’m not in the least offended, Nick! Thanks for being concerned about that. I’ll happily ‘pm’ you some thoughts, and I may include other parties too who are typically interested in this sort of thing - and Dale too, so that he can continue to register his disapproval of my inclinations!
I’m totally with you on the “conversation is better than debate” thing! Conversation is where all the good stuff is at! And a little debate hopefully shouldn’t scare us either as long as we can keep making more light than heat. Look for a pm in a few minutes.
Could you the quotes from Jesus that make this a lie?
Jesus is the judge. How he decides to judge is his decision.
Matthew 28:18 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
In John 5, Jesus said this:
25 “Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. 26 For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself; 27 and he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28 Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and will come out—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.
This says the judgment will based on who does good or evil.
So what I said was that Jesus teaches that he is the way, and he taught his apostles by word, action, and later through the Holy Spirit. The Apostles then inspired by God wrote down the messages and spread them. That’s the New Testament.
Anything that contradicts the truth is a lie.
1 Corinthians 8:4-6 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
4 Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one. 5 For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, 6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.
Mark 12:29-30
29 Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; 30 and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’
Jesus clearly believes and taught there is one God. The Torah teaches this as well. The Apostles teaches it as well.
So my premise is what is found in scripture.
There is one Lord and One God and Jesus is the way becsuse he’s the truth and the light. No other faith can save. Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus teaches that no everyone who says Lord will be saved. The apostles teach that those who pursue evil and reject Christ won’t be saved.
It seems you are arguing that other religions can save. If other religions can save that means Jesus is not the only way. That makes him and all the apostles liars.
For years I am wondering how mankind will be judged by Jesus.
Case-one:
You are born and raised in a Christian country, become a Christian, believe that only Jesus saves, live a devout Christian life. You die and expect Jesus to welcome you. Instead you hear, I am not Jesus, I am Allah. You fall on your knees and beg for mercy. But Allah says: go to hell. And there you are in hell, totally confused, wondering where you went wrong, probably going to hate Allah for the injustice done to you and his lack of mercilessness.
Case-two:
You are born and raised in a Muslim country, logically become a Muslim, live a devout life. You die and expect Allah to welcome you. Instead you hear: I am not Allah, I am Jesus and no one comes to the Father except through me. You fall on your knees and beg for mercy.
Right! which is why the passage in Romans 5:15 that says “But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!”
It’s all symbolic, of course, and as Enns says, Paul is not arguing really that Adam caused us all to die. However, I always thought it was a mistaken argument, as we are getting only a select few saved. I am still figuring this out.
Well, that’s a great way of putting it–because would not a God who decides that way really be a demon? I think it’s a great answer to fundamentalists. Rachel Held Evan’s “Faith Unraveled” put it somewhat this way–she graduated as a devout Christian from Bryan College, when she saw a video of an innocent Muslim woman dying at the hands of the Taliban. The fact that this lady, never having heard the gospel, would go to Hell, made her question everything she had been told. The only way to keep to this cognitive dissonance of universal condemnation is to say that we are all pond scum–but God would then be guilty of the very thing He created us to be, unable to escape Hell.
Do you not understand the parable of the workers in the vineyard?
Grace is still from God and His to bestow. The “reason” is still Christ. Just because you cannot see the connection does not mean that it does not exist or that God is not still applying His own principles.
Unfortunately people who believe in the fallen human race do not consider God to have anything to do with it. They seem to think that man is greater than God and therefore can corrupt what God has made, so the blame is on man, rather than the ineptitude of God for not making man infallible or realising that His perfect creation could do such a thing. IOW if mankind is corrupt it must still, ultimately, be placed at the hand of God, because God is the creator.
So, did God create man to fail? Or is Original Sin just a human myth to absolve people of responsibility. It is not my fault, it was Adam!
