I would not in any way want to give the impression that I have read Ron Bell's recent book or really dug into the current discussions about universalism. I would also not want to give the impression that doctrinal clarity and critique is anything but essential.
Yet, as I have seen a bit of this debate and remember previous debates on the same matter during the last thirty years, I come to a pastoral and practical question: Am I a functional universalist? Let me explain.
A friend of many years became part of a previous church where I served as a pastor. He was a man with a consistent evangelistic pattern of life. I knew him for many years and could not remember any time when he was not in some serious continuing Gospel conversation with people outside of Christ, with lost people.
After getting to know me and the church, listening into what we complained about and what we celebrated, he asked one day, Do we believe hell is real?
This was not a doctrinal question. It was a functional doctrine question. He was not doubting our orthodoxy on paper. He was questioning our orthodoxy in practice. What we believe, really believe, is seen in what functions in our lives. It is one thing to believe on paper that Jesus is the gracious gift of the Triune God to bring salvation from the wrath to come and everlasting joy in the fellowship of the Godhead. It is quite another to live that belief -- to have it function in our lives.
Many of us function like universalism is true. Really. Yes, there are many reasons why we can manage to live in a parallel universe to the lost all around us. Selfishness, fear, a wrong understanding of holiness -- yes, all these play a part. But when I get to the core of it, my friend's question was correct.I live as though there are no consequences -- I live as though we will all be happy in the end.
And Jesus did not. Why did the Son of God speak so often of the realities of Gehenna? Because he looked at the people he saw as living forever, in a state of joy or misery. As Lewis says it, they would someday either be so glorious that we would be tempted to worship them, or a horror such as we see not even in a nightmare. And they will be so as a consequence of their choices.
Hell, for Jesus, was real, but he never used it as a threat. Rather, he held it up as a sober statement of the significance of our lives and actions. He seemed to think that a doctrine of hell was the ultimate reason to treat people with the deepest respect. We are image bearers.
We are so much to be treated with respect that God will give us the fruit of the choices we make in life. Jesus inserts the doctrine of hell into situations that deal with consequences. Better to enter the kingdom with no hands than enter hell with both. He is saying, "Your life and choices matter. There will be everlasting results and consequences. Do not go traipsing through life like it is a party." And we know that our actions have vast significance. We know that those who do the things we do are worthy of death (Romans 1:32) -- yet we still do them.
Universalism is an insult to the image of God. When someone pities me and says, "There, there stupid one, you make bad choices but do not worry, I will keep you from the consequences," they are condescending and insulting. Granted mercy may alleviate consequences at times -- but to be a perpetual object of pity and to be treated as irresponsible and protected from all the consequences of my actions is a lowly position, a demeaned status.
Universalism turns the love of God into weak-kneed sentimentalism. It turns God into a parent figure who simply cannot bear to let his children suffer the consequences of their choices. I recall a conversation on this matter where the person could not imagine a God who would judge people into an eternal misery. Then we turned to look at their idea -- a God who lets people off the hook and protects them from their own choices forever. They agreed that was not a God they would want to call God. I was able to note that God did not give everyone a pass. He could not. He brought consequences upon God the Son for us.
My point in all this, before I diverted, is that Jesus was not a functional universalist. The reality of eternal blessedness or punishment is woven into his words and his actions. His message was not, "This is really serious. I came to die for sin. But, in the longrun, it doesn't matter. It will all be like the last episode on LOST. We all end up in a place of light."
I am all for the historic orthodox understanding of eternal punishment. Richard Bauckham's essay shows that this position is eroding but needs to be upheld. It is the position of the historic orthodox church.
We must defend the Scriptures from distortion. I cannot reduce orthodoxy to my practice. It is true and objective and outside of whatever functional beliefs I have.
But if it does not function it my life, it is not enough to defend it and walk away commending myself for defendings its truth. You believe in eternal punishment -- the demons do too.
I return to the question, are we functionally universalists? Is our personal lack of evangelistic engagement anything but functional universalism? Are we more concerned with orthodoxy than with orthopraxy? Are we grieved with a lack of engagement with people outside of Christ with the Good News of Christ?
Isn't it remarkable that followers of the One who came to seek and to save those who are lost, could think they are following him, and simultaneously live with no serious and thoughtful evangelistic purpose?
He came to make fishers of men, not keepers of the acquairium.
He became flesh, entered a world of us -- remained holy but was a friend of sinners. He wept over Jerusalem for her stubbornness of heart.
He obeyed unto death, even though the death he would know was dreaded unto sweating blood. It was a death for us and for our sins, to rescue us from judgment.
Are you and I functional universalists? Jesus certainly was not. I can rest in his perfect obedience for me, that his life is my life and my death becake his death. But I can also begin today to look around me at people whose choices will matter before God forever and seek ways to call them to the only One who protects them from the wrath to come.
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