Why Does This Matter?

ACQUIRING AN INFORMED VIEW

First let me say that truth always matters. In the two thousand years of the church age, we have seen biblical truth branded as heresy and we have seen grave error advanced as the truth and the swing of that pendulum, in either direction, has had its dire consequences.

The recognition of biblical truth and error are so important that hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people have been persecuted, exiled, tortured, or killed because they held on to biblical truth that had been labeled false doctrine or they rejected error in favor of the truth of God’s Word.

What we have set out to examined in these pages and the conclusions we are drawing are at odds with what has been a part of the creeds and the doctrinal statements of many church organizations for a long time. Our laws of religious freedom keep persecution from happening again, but if experience teaches us anything, it is that consequences often follow departures from orthodoxy. If the significance of this topic does not compel us and if a sincere desire to discover what is the truth of God’s Word on the subject is lacking, then the historical and sociological importance of the subject is significant enough to justify the time spent acquiring an informed view.

IMPACT ON THE CHRISTIAN

What we believe influences our worldview. Our worldview influences how we see others and that manifests itself in how we act toward them. If we believe that God will not forgive people but will punish them eternally, then we will be more apt to give up on them because, after all, God gives up on them too.

If we see God as a God that will ultimately condemn the overwhelming majority of the human race to either eternal torment or outright annihilation, we are not portraying Him as the merciful, gracious, and loving Father He is. God is love and He is described in scripture as being merciful and full of grace for the lost world of sinners toward whom His love is directed.

He sent His Son to be a ransom for the entire world (1 Timothy 2:6) because He is not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9). If most of humanity is cast into outer darkness or the lake of fire without hope, then Christ will have been cheated, paying a ransom for the whole world and redeeming but a few. God will have been shown to be weak in that, being unwilling that any of those He loves should perish, finds Himself powerless to save them.

IMPACT ON THE WORLD

The number one reason people give for not believing in God is the apparent contradiction between the Bible’s portrayal of a loving God sending the bulk of humanity to an eternal sentence of misery and torment. They say, “I cannot believe a loving God would send people to hell.”

The doctrine of hell paints a picture of a God who is forced by his justice to create a place to which the condemned of all the ages will be remanded to suffer eternal flames of fire. This notion of a God who is unable to save billions whom He loves from an eternity of anguish just doesn’t line up with the Biblical picture of a sovereign who is omnipotent and unrelenting in His quest to be utterly victorious over death and the grave.

Those who believe in Biblical Universalism are convinced that God wants to save all of humanity, has a plan to accomplish it and has the power to make Him unstoppable in bringing it to pass.

And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.

Revelation 5:13