“on the morrow John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, `Lo, the Lamb of God, who is taking away the sin of the world;” (Jn.1:29)
“and I, if I may be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself.”(Jn.12:32)
“for the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luk.19:10)
“-and to him who is not working, and is believing upon Him who is declaring righteous the impious, his faith is reckoned -- to righteousness” (Rom.4:5)
“So, then, as through one offence to all men [it is] to condemnation, so also through one declaration of `Righteous' [it is] to all men to justification of life” (Rom.5:18)
“how that God was in Christ -- a world reconciling to Himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses; and having put in us the word of the reconciliation,” (2Cor.5:19)
“for by grace ye are having been saved, through faith, and this not of you -- of God the gift, not of works, that no one may boast;” (Eph.2:8-9)
“because in him it did please all the fulness to tabernacle, and through him to reconcile the all things to himself -- having made peace through the blood of his cross -- through him, whether the things upon the earth, whether the things in the heavens. And you -- once being alienated, and enemies in the mind, in the evil works, yet now did he reconcile,” (Col.1:19-21)
“And you -- being dead in the trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh -- He made alive together with him, having forgiven you all the trespasses, having blotted out the handwriting in the ordinances that is against us, that was contrary to us, and he hath taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross;” (Col.2:13-14)
for this [is] right and acceptable before God our Saviour, who doth will all men to be saved, and to come to the full knowledge of the truth; for one [is] God, one also [is] mediator of God and of men, the man Christ Jesus, who did give himself a ransom for all -- the testimony in its own times – (1 Tim. 2:3-6)
“for for this we both labour and are reproached, because we hope on the living God, who is Saviour of all men -- especially of those believing.” (1 Tim.4:10)
As this article is a rebuttal of a particular sermon, I encourage you to go to youtube.com and watch the entirety of the sermon (referenced in the title) by Charles Stanley. He opened this sermon stating that he was going to address some “dangerous” teaching seeping into conservative churches. First of all, based on the entirety of Dr. Stanley’s remarks and conclusions, he is lumping several things together, not bothering to (or perhaps in ignorance) make distinctions. He seems to be in one clumsy brush-stroke to be lumping universalism, the hyper-grace movement and biblical universal reconciliation together.
Where he has failed to do so, I will (before tackling his sermon) make the distinctions between these three different beliefs. First, “universalism” is a false doctrine. The belief of universalism and universalism Unitarianism is the the belief that every religion or belief system is equally valid, that everyone will “go to Heaven” because God is in essence “a nice guy”, and that the Holy Scriptures are not necessarily God’s Truth. They place less than ZERO emphasis on Jesus’ work on the cross. They relegate God’s judgments to being either fiction or allegory. This is why I reject “universalism”.
Then there is the hyper-grace movement. The hyper-grace movement in general takes at face value, the progressive revelation received by the Apostle Paul to arrive at the truth stating “ you cannot out-sin grace” which is absolutely true (see Romans 5:20). However, most (not all) hyper-grace believers do not actually believe that because most (not all) believe that unbelief was the one sin not covered by The Lord on the cross. So, close…but no cigar.
Finally, there is the belief in biblical universal reconciliation and that is where I land. It allows me to believe the entirety of scripture, including those passages I quoted above which Dr. Charles Stanley does not believe. I believe in all the judgments of God and I also believe the passages which emphatically declare that the work of Jesus on the cross (not a wise decision on the part of man) will ultimately and eventually reconcile “all” (not, “some”, not “a few”) to God.
Stanley emphatically stated the following (and believe it or not, I believe all of these statements to be 100% true):
➢ “God is a just God.” (yep)
➢ “He is true to Himself.” (ditto)
➢ “God’s judgment is what people don’t like.” (amen)
➢ “Sin has its penalty.” (10-4)
Let me take this point-by-point: “God is a just God.” He is perfectly just . This is why King David opted to be judged by God rather than by men (2 Sam.24:14). Men (to be generous) have a screwed up idea of justice. God alone can meet out perfect justice.
“He is true to Himself”. Absolutely. When He says that He wills all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth…I actually believe it will happen!! Look at 1 Timothy 2:3-6 I cited above. Some try to explain this passage away by saying, “Well, God desires that all men be saved. He isn’t willing it to happen.” I disagree but fine, trade “wills” for “desires” and read this: Declaring from the beginning the latter end, And from of old that which hath not been done, Saying, `My counsel doth stand, And all My delight I do.' (Is.46:10). No matter how you choose to slice it (“wills”, “desires”, “delights”, etc.) God will get His way. The creature’s “free” will cannot thwart His free will.
“God’s judgment is what people don’t like.” And nowhere is this truer than in orthodox Christianity. Charles Stanley cannot conceive that Adolf Hitler, Genghis Khan, Jeffrey Dahmer and Joel Osteen will not be tormented forever. I strongly urge you to purchase a concordance and do a thorough study of the words: “hell”, “ever”, “for ever”, and “everlasting” if you have never done so. Also, make sure to read passages concerning things like the “sheep and goats judgment” in Matthew 25 in its full context. Here is what you will find (if you do so): This judgment is not an individual judgment in which believers are separated from unbelievers. Instead, this is a national judgment (thus,“…before Him shall be gathered all nations…”) Reading this passage in its entirety, you should quickly arrive at the conclusion that if this is an individual judgment, we are all in a lot of trouble.
“Sin has its penalty.” Amen!! We learn in Genesis 2:17 and Romans 6:23 that the penalty for sin is death. Dr. Charles Stanley doesn’t believe this either. He believes that the penalty for sin is to be tormented forever and ever and ever and ever and ever (again, please do a word study on the suggested words above). Turns out that at some point (no scriptural indication of where and when this happened) God decided that what He really meant by death was “life being tormented somewhere else”. At this point, Adam and Eve may be feeling a bit bamboozled. We have plenty of scripture passages which state that death is a state of oblivion (not bliss nor torment). Below are a few:
“The soul that sinneth, it shall die...”(Ez.18:20)
“For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. (Ecc.9:5)
“All that thy hand findeth to do, with thy power do, for there is no work, and device, and knowledge, and wisdom in Sheol whither thou art going.” (Ecc.9:10)
“Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day.” (Acts 2:29)
“His spirit goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, In that day have his thoughts perished.”(Psalm 146:10)
“Sin has a penalty.” (continued) I can only surmise from his words that Dr. Stanley does not believe Jesus paid this penalty. My bible quoted The Lord on the cross saying, “It is finished.” Stanley however, believinghis false doctrine of “free” will over Scripture) believes that rather than salvation being finished at the cross, the process of salvation was startedat the cross. According to Dr. Stanley, the cross-work of Jesus Christ does not save you (read that again); a wise decision on your part AND Christ’s work on the cross is what saves you. I don’t care how many coats of whitewash you care to coat that with, that my friends is a works based salvation (and therefore; no salvation). John the Baptist (he would have been denied membership in a “Baptist” church mind you) speaking of Christ, stated that He was “the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.” Did He not do it? Was John the Baptist (who Christ called the greatest of all the prophets) a false prophet? Jesus either took away the “sin of the world” or He didn’t. Sorry, it’s either/or.
Stanley went on to say, “There is no justification apart from the blood of Jesus.” I agree wholeheartedly. This is again a place where I believe he mistakes biblical universal reconciliation for universalism.
In his sermon, he next turned his attention to Adam and Eve and the “fall”. He said that there are 3 types of death: “physical” death, “spiritual” death and “eternal” death. As previously discussed, Stanley doesn’t really believe in “eternal” death. Instead, he believes that no one actually dies. He believes the first lie ever recorded, “Ye, shall not surely die.” Death is merely a portal to life. Death is life. Death is a graduation, blah, blah, blah. True “eternal” death (oblivion/annihilation) was the penalty for sin which Jesus paid. Would you like proof that it has been paid for everyone and that no one will be dead forever? Here you go:
“for even as in Adam all die, so also in the Christ all shall be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22)
“for it behoveth him to reign till he may have put all the enemies under his feet -- the last enemy is done away -- death;” (1 Cor. 15:25-26)
I urge you to read 1 Corinthians 15:21-28 in its entirety. This passage takes place after the events detailed in Revelation 22 (the last book and chapter of the bible). The only death in existence at this point in the future is the second death (a.k.a. the lake of fire). All others have been resurrected. The tree of life is once again in operation (Rev.22:14)for the mortals on the New Earth. Leaves of the tree of life are used for the healing of the nations (see Rev. 22:2). Some will object that the “process of dying” is what is being abolished. It is…and death itself is abolished too or else it would still exist. Right?
Nowhere in scripture will you find the phrase or concept of “spiritual” death nor of “death of the body” or “resurrection of the body”. It IS NOT THERE…it is NOWHERE to be found in all of Scripture. Whenever you read in scripture that someone died, it is that person in his entirety that died. For example, see Acts 2:29 speaking of King David below:
“Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day”. (Acts 2:29)
On the matter of death, when Jesus told the disciples that Lazarus was dead, He said to them, “Lazarus is dead.” He didn’t say, “Lazarus’ body is dead but that’s o.k., because he is actually in a better place.” In like manner with resurrection, Jesus told Lazarus’ sister Martha: “Thy brother shall rise again.” He did not say, “Thy brother’s body shall rise again.”
Where people get messed up (I think) is that Adam and Eve did not die immediately upon eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The KJV of Genesis 2:17 reads this way:
“… for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”
Here is how the Hebrew Scriptures (translated literally into English) were worded in that same verse: “…that in day of to eat of you… to-die you-shall-die”. That conveys something completely different but in keeping with what else we are told in Genesis. Adam and Eve were not immortal. How do we know this? Because in Genesis 3:24, cherubim were placed at the east of Eden to guard the tree of life. The tree of life, had Adam and Eve access to it, would have kept them alive. God blocking their access to the tree of life caused them to begin the dying process.
In addition, Adam and Eve were not (nor are we) spiritual beings. How can a soulish being, die a spiritual death?
Can the soulish enter Heaven? Not according to the Apostle Paul. This is another example where the truth is covered up by bad translating. Look at how the Greek word (psuchikos) meaning “soulish” is changed to “natural” in 1 Corinthians 15:44-50:
“It is sown a natural (soulish) body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural (soulish) body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural (soulish); and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.”
This is very important: We know that Christ, when He appeared to the Apostles was absent what? Blood. Soul is in the blood. The vivifying spirit we will receive upon our transformation/vivification will replace the blood/soul. Only then will we be spiritual.
One of the last things Charles Stanley said in his sermon was this:
“One word: “substitute”. God substituted His Son in your place to die at Calvary to pay your sin debt in full. It’s all about Jesus.” Jesus’ death on the cross being “substitutionary” is completely false and diminishes both Jesus and His death on the cross. In order for what He did to be “substitutionary”, it would have had to be possible for God to accept my death in payment for my sins. This is impossible because unlike Jesus, I am not the sinless Son of God. He paid a debt that I, you or Charles Stanley could not possibly pay. I believe Jesus did pay our sin debt in full and Dr. Stanley does not. Dr. Stanley’s theology leaves a balance due. It is all about Jesus. It is about glory to The Father. Salvation is not a service for a stated price. It is God’s approach present (gift) to man, lest any man should boast (Eph. 2:8-9).
If you are saved and someone else is not ultimately and eventuallysaved, it has to be because of something you did.
…And if that is the case, if that is true, then you could boast.
One last thought to leave you with on this topic. Read the following passage:
“that in the name of Jesus every knee may bow -- of heavenlies, and earthlies, and what are under the earth -- and every tongue may confess that Jesus Christ [is] Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil.2:10-11)
The above passage states that every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. This passage is commonly taught and described as a time when this acclamation will be forced and made under duress. However, we read below what is required to make this confession.
“…no one is able to say Jesus [is] Lord, except in the Holy Spirit.” (1Cor.12:3)
Based on the entirety of Scripture, I believe that this will be an admission made gladly and joyfully. Those who were not given belief in life, will be given belief when they are resurrected from death to stand judgment before our Savior. I can’t help but believe that the Damascus road conversion of the Apostle Paul is the preview for how all unbelievers will finally be converted.
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