Some Thoughts on Pope Francis

It’s another week and thus another interview with Pope Francis. This one, I’m sorry to say, is more than just confusing. It’s a theological wreck.

 

In an interview with La Repubblica, in response to a question about whether there is a “single vision of good,” the Pope said, “Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place,” and “The Son of God became incarnate in the souls of men to instill the feeling of brotherhood.” When the reporter commented, “Some of my colleagues who know you told me that you will try to convert me,” the Pope also said “Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us.”

From Augustine’s Confessions to “Well, everyone has his own ideas about good and bad…” is a mighty long path.   Continue at Russell D. Moore

Christian Universalism

By Randy Alcorn

 

There’s a movement among Christians today towards what’s called Christian Universalism. It’s a belief that everybody ultimately will be saved—there will be no Hell, or at some point Hell will be depopulated and everyone will live forever with Christ in Heaven. It’s a wonderful thought. But does the Bible really teach it?  

In the following video and transcript, I share some thoughts:

A lot of people look at all the passages where Jesus talks about Hell and immediately and intuitively realize that no, of course that’s not taught in Scripture. But at the same time, there are passages (which I believe are taken out of context) that “Christian Universalists” cite to prove their viewpoint.

One of those passages is 2 Corinthians 5:19, which says, “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ.” They point out, “Look, it says ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.’ That means not just Christians, but the whole world is reconciled.”

I heard in an interview a Christian Universalist (C. Baxter Kruger) say that there are (according to this passage), 1) those who know they have been reconciled to God in Christ, and 2) those who do not yet know they’ve been reconciled, but the point is that all of us have been reconciled and one day all of us will know that. That sounds pretty persuasive to a lot of people. It certainly sounds attractive.    Continue at Randy Alcorn

The Atonement in Hebrews

“Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.” – Isaiah 53:11

What was God’s intention from all eternity in the atonement? What did He intend for Christ to accomplish by His death on the cross?

Orthodox Christians are not universalists (universalism is the ancient heresy that teaches that all people will eventually be redeemed). Instead, we are particularists, believing that only some (and not all) will be saved. The Bible makes it clear that some people will in fact be lost, ultimately lost, in a place of weeping, darkness and gnashing of teeth. Some people will in fact spend eternity in hell. 

Knowing this, all of us as Christians limit the atonement in some sense because we agree that not everyone will be saved by the work of Christ. Amongst particularists then there are two main views; the first being what is called “universal redemption” (the view that Christ died to try to save everybody in human history, past, present and future, though His work by itself did not actually accomplish this unless man does something to cooperate). 

JESUS THE PERFECT AND POWERFUL SAVIOR

The second and I believe biblical view is called “particular redemption” (Christ actually propitiated the Father’s wrath for a specific group of people – securing redemption for them and providing even the faith that will call upon Him to save them – Jesus being the author and perfector of our faith. The Good Shepherd laid down His life for the sheep, Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Eph 5:25).  Continue at John Samsom

New Age Defined

Having spent nearly 40 years in “Christianized” New Age practices within the walls of the church, I find it interesting that if you ask most Christians, to this day, what New Age consists of; to define it, they are pretty much at a total loss. One reason that they are at a loss is that the church has been conditioned over the years to dismiss the term New Age, instead opting for more acceptable words, most likely for fear that the people would go running for their tin hats. Using flowery rhetoric for the term New Age allows people to let down their guard against New Age teachings. In my estimation, I think we should all come clean – use the term, for that’s what we have.

Personally, I don’t find it alarming or surprising that we now have ‘The First Church of  The New Age’ on every corner and in every corner of the world. I look back to my beginnings in the church and although the practice of  New Age was a kind of fringe movement at the time, being the late ’60′s, early ’70′s, would soon explode into mainline denominations.

I found an article that I wanted to share, written in 2005 by Sandy Simpson entitled New Age/Mysticism in the Church that takes us through New Age teachings. Keep in mind that this was written in ’05. How far the apostate church has come since then! I thought this list and explanation would be helpful to those that have a hard time defining  just what New Age teachings are and at the same time puts the correct name, New Age, to these teachings. To the point article, I like that.

As Dick Sutphen says in “Infiltrating the New Age into Society”

“One of the biggest advantages we have as New Agers is, once the occult, metaphysical and New Age terminology is removed, we have concepts and techniques that are very acceptable to the general public. So we can change the names… demonstrate the power… open the door to millions who normally would not be receptive.” (Summer 1986 issue of “What Is.” Magazine. p.14) Source 

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Fifty Million Rob Bell Fans Can’t Be Wrong

In 1959 RCA releasedFifty Million Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong—Elvis’ Gold Records Vol. 2.¹ Elvis Presley was an exceptionally popular entertainer who was also one of the most controversial public figures of the late 1950s. The title of his second greatest hits album indicates a popular sentiment: It must be right, because millions of people believe it. But this sentiment does not translate to theology. Though many church fathers and theologians throughout the ages may have believed in a particular doctrine, it’s correctness is not established by that fact alone.

Rob Bell is the founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan and is the author of such books as Velvet Elvis, Sex God, Jesus Wants to Save Christians, and Drops Like Stars. Many evangelical Christians are familiar with his Nooma series of videos.² Bell is influential in Emerging Church circles and is a popular speaker. Though his previous books have sold well, Love Wins is especially popular.

The twin premises of Love Wins are that God is a God of love and that the evangelical Christian view of God is too narrow. “Has God created billions of people over thousands of years only to select a few to go to heaven and everyone else to suffer forever in hell?”³ Bell asks. Love Wins challenges the traditional views concerning heaven, hell, and salvation. For the sake of brevity this review concentrates on Bell’s view of salvation. Keep Reading...

Rob Bell on the Cover of TIME

TIME magazine’s cover story this week is about Rob Bell’s book Love Wins. Here is John Meacham’s one line explanation of what the fuss is about:

“[Bell] suggests that the redemptive work of Jesus may be universal — meaning that, as his book’s subtitle puts it, ‘every person who ever lived’ could have a place in heaven, whatever that turns out to be.”

Every year during Easter season, the news weekly’s like to feature stories that tweak traditional Christian belief (for example, The Gospel of Judas, the tomb of Jesus, etc.). For these publications, Holy Week has become heresy week. I think it says something that Bell’s book has now taken a place next to these kinds of stories. Keep Reading...

See Also: “A Massive Shift Coming in What it Means to Be a Christian?”

Rob Bell and Hell

Image: theolatte

Mark Driscoll

Kevin DeYoung

Denny Burk

Bill Z. Bull

Bill Muehlenberg

Carl Trueman

Christianity Today

USA Today

Douglas Wilson 

Richard Mouw, Fuller Theological Seminary 

“Through” Means “Through Faith”

Inclusivists believe that everyone who is saved is saved through the person and work of Christ. They do not, however, insist that conscious faith (on the part of sentient adults) is necessary to appropriate this saving work. Some Buddhists or Hindus or good people in our neighborhoods drawn to the true and the beautiful might be saved through Christ without knowing it. But what about John 14:6? Inclusivists understand “no one can come to the Father except through me” to mean through my saving work. Faith may not be necessary.

No doubt, it’s true that no one can be saved apart from the work of Christ. But the “through” in John 14:6 means “through faith in me.” Keep Reading>>>

Book Review: Love Wins by Rob Bell

Bell begins the book with surprising forthrightness: Jesus’ story has been hijacked by a number of different stories that Jesus has no interest in telling. “The plot has been lost, and it’s time to reclaim it.” (Preface, vi)

A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better…. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus’ message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear. (ibid)

You may want to read that again.

It really says that. And it really means what you think it means. Though it takes time for that to become clear. Read it all HERE

Doing Away with Hell? Part One

This process of change is often invisible to those experiencing it, and denied by those promoting it. As David F. Wells comments, “The stream of historic orthodoxy that once watered the evangelical soul is now dammed by a worldliness that many fail to recognize as worldliness because of the cultural innocence with which it presents itself.” He continued: “To be sure, this orthodoxy never was infallible, nor was it without its blemishes and foibles, but I am far from persuaded that the emancipation from its theological core that much of evangelicalism is effecting has resulted in greater biblical fidelity. In fact, the result is just the opposite. We now have less biblical fidelity, less interest in truth, less seriousness, less depth, and less capacity to speak the Word of God to our own generation in a way that offers an alternative to what it already thinks.”

The pressing question of our concern is this: Whatever happened to hell? What has happened so that we now find even some who claim to be evangelicals promoting and teaching concepts such as universalism, inclusivism, postmortem evangelism, conditional immortality, and annihilationism–when those known as evangelicals in former times were known for opposing those very proposals? Many evangelicals seek to find any way out of the biblical doctrine–marked by so much awkwardness and embarrassment. Read it all HERE

Universalism: Not a New Temptation

The temptation is not new: silencing certain biblical texts in order to say that eventually everyone will be saved. In fact, we could just call it recycled liberalism.

Desiring God focused on this subject 21 years ago at the Conference for Pastors — "Universalism and the Reality of Eternal Punishment."

In his sermon that assesses the biblical and theological arguments for universalism, Sinclair Ferguson reminds us:

There is a mighty sermon in Gresham Machen’s book, God Transcendent, on the text in Matthew 10:28, “Do not fear those who can kill the body; fear Him who is able to cast soul and body into hell.” And the sermon begins by the repetition of the text and with these words: “These words were not spoken by Augustine, or by George Whitefield, or by Jonathan Edwards, but by Jesus of Nazareth."

It behooves us to listen to Jesus' testimony; both because this is the testimony of the Savior, and because this is the testimony of the One who names himself as the living and true witness—who is the One who has come back from the dead to tell men that it is so.

Ferguson's other messages from the conference include:

1. Universalism and the Reality of Eternal Punishment: Contemporary Preaching

2. Universalism and the Reality of Eternal Punishment: The Justice and Mercy of God

4. Universalism and the Reality of Eternal Punishment, Panel Discussion

Revising God by Hating Hell

Clark Pinnock commenting on why he rejects the classical position of hell as eternal punishment:

“I am rejecting the traditional view of hell in part out of a sense of moral and theological revulsion to it.  The idea that a conscious creature should have to undergo physical and mental torture through unending time is profoundly disturbing, and the thought that this is inflicted upon them by divine decree offends my conviction about God’s love” (emphasis mine).

- Clark Pinnock, “The Conditional View” in Four Views on Hell, edd. Stanley Gundry and William Crockett (Zondervan: Grand Rapids, 1996), 164. Keep Reading>>>

“Closet Universalists”

One of the things that the Rob Bell saga is doing is shining the light on the encroachment of universalism in the sphere of biblical orthodoxy.  I have no idea whether Rob Bell is a universalist or not, but my guess is if he is, then universalism will de facto become a cool and acceptable tenet by virtue of Bell’s dominant influence among those in his wide domain.  I even saw where Matthew Paul Turner (Jesus Needs New PR) on Twitter making the claim that “Jesus universalism has deep roots in Christian history” and has “been around since the beginning.”  Additionally, Scot McKnight argued, “My own estimation is that somewhere near 75% of my students, many if not most of them nurtured in the church, are more or less universalist.” Keep Reading>>>

Interview on Christian Universalism

Thank you to Linda Harvey of Mission America for recently having me on her radio program.  We discussed a recent article that ran on Sola Sisters which exposed a new heretical teaching - "Christian Universalism" - that is literally sweeping through today's church under names such as "the Wider Mercy Doctrine" and "Universal Reconciliation."  We also discussed how this teaching has even become prevalent in Missions. "Christian Universalism" is being taught by very popular and prominent writers, teachers and pastors today, among them:

Leonard Sweet (Jesus Manifesto) 

Rob Bell (Velvet Elvis, NOOMA videos) 

Dallas Willard (The Spirit of the Disciplines)

William P. Young (The Shack)

Continue reading HERE

What Is A "Christian Universalist?"

Let's start with Dallas Willard who is a prolific writer and is well-regarded in evangelical circles. Dallas Willard, though he is identified as an evangelical, is anything but orthodox in his views.  In fact, Willard's own words prove that he is far outside of orthodoxy in his views.  In a recent interview, Willard made some shocking statements which I have highlighted below, along with the correct Biblical teaching:

Willard: “Now, I believe that everyone who deserves to be saved will be saved no matter where they are or what they do.”

Truth: None of us 'deserve' to be saved.  There is no-one who seeks after God, no-one who is righteous. (Romans 3:10-11)

Willard: "(God) is open and in touch with everyone in the world, and for all who seek them with all of their heart—and that is defined in terms of coming to love Him, and not just have the right beliefs about Him—but coming to love Him, and loving their neighbor as themselves." 

Truth:  Everyone who is saved may not have every i dotted or every t crossed on a fancy doctrinal statement, but they WILL have right beliefs about God, including comprehension of and humble acknowledgement to the belief that Jesus is the ONLY way to God, and that no-one comes to the Father but by him. (John 14:6)

Willard: "I am not going to stand in the way of anyone whom God wants to save. I am not going to say ‘he can’t save them.’ I am happy for God to save anyone he wants in any way he can. It is possible for someone who does not know Jesus to be saved.  But anyone who is going to be saved is going to be saved by Jesus: ‘There is no other name given under heaven by which men can be saved.’"

Truth:  What an odd statement this is.  It sounds both Christian and Universalist at the same time.  Here is the Christian part:

"(A)nyone who is going to be saved is going to be saved by Jesus: ‘There is no other name given under heaven by which men can be saved.’"

and now for the Universalist part:

"It is possible for someone who does not know Jesus to be saved."

Here are some of Sweet's teachings from Quantum Spirituality, along with my commentary:

"The first of these five untheorized observations is that New Light embodiment means to be "in connection" and 'in-formation' with other Christians. Deeper feeling and higher relating go together. The church is fundamentally one being, one person, a comm-union whose cells are connected to one another within the information network called the Christ consciousness." p 122

"The power of small groups is in their ability to develop the discipline to get people "in-phase" with the Christ consciousness and connected with one another." p 147

"New Lights offer up themselves as the cosmions of a mind-of-Christ consciousness. As a cosmion incarnating the cells of a new body, New Lights will function as transitional vessels through which transforming energy can renew the divine image in the world, moving postmoderns from one state of embodiment to another." p 48

"Christ consciousness" was - and still is - a very prominent New Age Spirituality term used to describe a Christianized form of panentheism, which is the belief that God is "in" all things.

"A surprisingly central feature of all the world's religions is the language of light in communicating the divine and symbolizing the union of the human with the divine: Muhammed's light-filled cave, Moses' burning bush, Paul's blinding light, Fox's "inner light," Krishna's Lord of Light, Bohme's light-filled cobbler shop, Plotinus' fire experiences, Bodhisattvas with the flow of Kundalini's fire erupting from their fontanelles, and so on." p 235

Sweet is attempting to show here that the "light" of God has manifested itself in many different ways through many different cultures.  This is contrary to the teaching of the Bible, which is that God chose to reveal truth ("light") through the Jews in the Old Testament times, with Christ being the culmination of this revealed truth in the New Testament.  Born-again believers also have the privilege of bearing this light in a dark and fallen world.  But, was there real "light" (i.e., truth) coming from "Muhammed's light-filled cave?" Or from the Universalist Quaker George Fox's mystical "light" experiences? Or from the "flow of Kundalini's fire" which was said to be the awakening of "serpent power" in the Hindu tradition? If so, then the Cross was a mockery, for what God would let his own Son die such a wretched, torturous death if all other paths to God were acceptable?

Read the whole article HERE

The Universalistic Passages