The Fruit of God’s Adventure?

True or False? There are more people alive today than the total of all who have lived in ages past.

False: According to the Scientific American website, despite a quadrupling of the population in the past century, the number of people alive today is still dwarfed by the number of people who have ever lived.¹

The United Nations announced that on November 15, 2022, the world’s population reached 8 billion people.² The number of people who have lived and died in the past is 109 billion according to the World Economic Forum website, but that is calculated over 192,000 years.³ So, 117 billion people, it is estimated, have lived on this planet or somewhat less if calculated over a shorter period.

If the Traditional View of Hell is Correct

He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

1 John 3:8

If the orthodox view of hell is correct, then the devil will have won. He has sinned from the beginning, he introduced humanity to sin, and sin is what will have sent the lost to their eternal punishment. These are the works of the devil; that which the revealing of the Son of God is meant to destroy.

Just the number of people saved versus lost to perdition would be heartbreaking, if the orthodox view of hell is correct. By my simple and uneducated calculations, eight times as many people would be lost as would be saved – 45 billion versus 5.6 billion, for ALL of whom Christ died. Jesus would have been cheated because He paid a ransom for all of us and saved but a few. (1 Timothy 2:6)

We can imagine the sinner suffering the consequence of his transgressions in the traditional version of hell with excruciating physical anguish, intolerable spasms of conscience, and unbearable thoughts of regret. To endure one hour of these torments would be to suffer more sorrow than he would have in his entire life.

But wait! One hour is not the length of his sentence, for he has been consigned to the lake of fire for a duration of endless torment and hopeless despair. His reaction to this devastating realization leaves him out of his mind with grief and pain, such that the Bible can only describe it as uncontrollable “wailing and gnashing of teeth”.

Oh, but that’s still not all! Multiply this experience of one sinner by 45 billion who would be tortured and tormented as eternity rolls on and on. Men and women, young adults and teenagers, and even those children whom we would have deemed to have reached the “age of accountability” (10 or 12 years old?) would be set to suffer anguish amid the eternal flames of perdition. Not only Americans and Europeans, but nearly all of those who have been raised in Asian cultures down through the ages would suffer the same fate as would those from Africa, the Middle East, and everywhere else – if the orthodox view of hell is real.

Another question then would be that of an infant’s innocence. We are born in sin, brought forth in guilt, and formed in iniquity. (Psalm 51:5) We do not have to look any further than to watch a room full of toddlers to get the picture. Children want their own way and will act out if they don’t get it. That is their sinful fallen nature manifesting itself for all to see. So, would it be that the baby at its mother’s breast would suffer eternal perdition, if the orthodox view of hell is accurate?

Can this be the fruit of God’s adventure? Can this be the end He saw before the ages began?

So, those consigned to the perpetual hopelessness of an eternity void of God’s love would have to be held somewhere. If this millennia-old doctrine of hell is true, the lake of fire must be present on some plane of existence to imprison the damned forever. It doesn’t matter where it is or in what state of being it might exist; it must be forever inside the realm of God’s reach because there is nothing outside of it.

We have referred to 1 Corinthians 15:22-28 repeatedly in these posts. It is a lynchpin verse of scripture in which the consummation of all things is revealed, an event that will occur at the end of the ages. Christ, having put down all opposing power and authority, will submit Himself to the Father so that God becomes all in all.

God will be all in all! What that means is unclear, but a few things seem evident. First, it occurs at the end…of everything. Nothing in scripture is recorded to occur beyond this event. It is the consummation of God’s will and purpose from before the ages began. God will be…everything.  Before the beginning of creation, He was All in Himself (Isaiah 44:24). Today God is All in Christ (Colossians 1:19; 2:9). In the consummation God will be All in All (1 Corinthians 15:28).

That includes the lake of fire! Does it seem reasonable to you that God’s masterful plan for all of eternity, the plan for which He paid an enormous price, is to include the screaming voices of the tormented He could not save, coming from some corner of whatever all in all is? It seems to me that the devil would have won. His works would have not been destroyed, the results of which will have marred the universe forever.

God’s will and purpose cannot include eternal torment.

I was overjoyed when I first realized that God had a plan to reconcile all things in total victory to Himself. Christ really does, in fact, destroy the works of the devil and all the consequences that would result. It is so straightforward that a child can grasp it in its simplest of forms:

And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

Colossians 1:20

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.

1 Timothy 2:3-6

That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe.

1 Timothy 4:10 NIV

And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

1 John 2:2

Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:

Ephesians 1:9-10

And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

1 Corinthians 15:28

These and many more passages let us know, very simply and to the point, that Universal Reconciliation is the plan of God to be victorious in reconciling all things, everyone without exception, to Himself. For more than forty years I had been reading these passages, many of which are among my favorites, and missing it. Why is that? How can that be?

Maybe it is because I was reading them with a presupposition to eternal torment. What does that mean?

The first new snow of the season had fallen, so I was looking for my car window scraper. As I looked everywhere for it, my umbrella kept catching my eye, just leaning against the wall next to the door. Finally accepting the fact that my scraper was lost and would need to be replaced, I headed out the door grabbing my umbrella on the way. Opening the trunk to put it away, I saw it – not in the trunk, but IN MY HAND! My scraper was in my hand. I kept looking at it with the preconceived idea that it was my umbrella. The power of the mind is an incredible thing. It made my scraper appear to be my umbrella.

Somewhere early on in my reading, these passages were made to look like something else and I saw it as something else from then on. I probably came across these passages and questioned the apparent contradiction and either read or was taught an answer that explained it away – something like, “While Christ died for everyone, one must believe in order to benefit from His death”. While this is not a false statement, it is not an entirely true one either. The one making the statement presupposes the idea that “belief” must occur prior to death and discounts the fact that everyone, when the time has come, will believe.

I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.

Isaiah 45:23

All the earth shall worship You And sing praises to You; They shall sing praises to Your name.” Selah.

Psalm 66:4 NIV

And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things…

Isaiah 25:6-8

All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the LORD…

Psalm 22:27-29

…For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent.

Zephaniah 3:9

Consider the passage in the Amplified Bible:

Then I will give to the peoples [clear and pure speech from] purified lips [which reflect their purified hearts], That all of them may call on the name of the Lord, To serve Him shoulder to shoulder (united).

Zephaniah 3:9 AMP

We speak from the abundance of our desperately wicked hearts (Matthew 12:34), so God will pour upon all the nations His indignation and anger and the fire of His jealousy (see verse 8) [in the lake of fire] so that they will be returned to a pure heart capable of a language that reflects the change occurring in their innermost being that drives them to call on the Name of the Lord and to be united with all of humanity in serving our God.

If the lake of fire is a corrective action taken by God (a premise of this site), lasting only as long as is necessary to bring about repentance and surrender, then God’s omnipotence, His omniscience, His love and mercy are preserved. His immutability remains intact as the inconsistencies and contradictions perceived in God’s character fade away. His inability to save those whom He loves is shown to be a fallacy, and His unconditional victory over all the works of evil is assured.

This is Universal Reconciliation, and it is genuinely Apostolic.

ENDNOTES

¹The website of Scientific American, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-living-outnumber-dead/ (Accessed on 2/7/23)

²United Nation’s World Population Prospects 2022 report and the #8BillionStrong Campaign

³World Economic Forum website, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/04/quantifying-human-existence/#:~:text=With%20this%20context%20and%20timeframe,humans%20that%20have%20ever%20lived. (Accessed on 2/7/23)

For some of the content in this post, I relied on Knoch, A. E., All in All: The Goal of the Universe, St Louis: Concordant Publishing Concern, ©1978, p. 152-153