The Restoration of All Things

cwood85 similar thoughts have been circulating my head since reading this thread as well. I come back to "why bother" but I understand that is not the whole picture or plan. We live "right" by His ways and develop His character in us. We impact out lives and those around us when we do love properly.

Then we are faced with His return and the implications we face not accepting him and living for Him

I don't see any questions being asked in these last few posts, so if I missed one, please restate - otherwise, I'll just add a couple comments.

Fear will always motivate some people. It may motivate people enough to start crying out to God and then, hopefully, as God reveals Himself, the person will revert from fear to love. My contention is that if that person remains in fear, that they actually do not know God and are no better off then before they cried out.

I remember sitting and squirming through a sermon in a good old southern baptist church where the pastor told us what motivated him to preach. He believed that if he stopped preaching, God would kill him or one of his children. He gave an example of a deacon who had stopped preaching and a few weeks later that deacon's son died. The whole premise of his sermon was that you better do the right thing or God would punish you. While at the same time as preaching salvation through grace alone, this man utterly misunderstood God. I was horrified as I looked around at all the young children listening to this garbage and being sentenced to growing up in households and churches that taught of such a God. It was not that I didn't believe that God will give us trials. At that time He had already taken my wife from me through her untimely death. No, it was the fear that he was teaching. He even used this as the motivator - if we don't fear the very next possible act of God something was wrong with us.

It wasn't long before we left that church for a variety of reasons. We have never been back to organized church since. My children would not grow up learning of such a beastly god.

Does anyone remember the Andrea Yates tragedy? She drowned her five young kids in a bathtub. Does anyone remember why? Their names were John, Paul, and Luke, Mary, and Noah.  That should give you a hint. Certainly, there was a devastating psychosis taking place, and I am not trying to insinuate otherwise, but I also think we should hear one explanation that Andrea offers:

"It was the seventh deadly sin. My children weren't righteous. They stumbled because I was evil. The way I was raising them, they could never be saved. They were doomed to perish in the fires of hell."

At least at some level, Andrea claims to have believed that if she killed her children before the age of accountability - they would get to go to heaven instead of hell.

Ironically - at some sick level - this is what many preachers are saying today. They don't say it in those words, but from the pulpit they teach that there is an age of accountability, while at the same time preaching that once you reach a certain age you might not be saved.....And many will then teach that even if you are saved, you might loose that salvation. I just want to scream!

I hate to even write this stuff. But we need to understand just how disgusting the conclusions of ET and conditionalism and annihilation are. They are not innocuous beliefs that don't matter. And they are effecting the lives of many children who then become adults and then have children, etc....Is the teen suicide rate any wonder?  Do we really not understand why there is so much depression?  And the rates among Christians are no better then among non-christians.  This world needs a God who overcomes through love, not torture or death.  There is justice and all will be made right.  And it will be made right!


In the end, my point is - fear needs to be exchanged for love. We love Him, because He first loved us. We obey, we do good, we love others, not because of fear of hell or punishment, but because as we come into agreement with God, it is just our natural reaction. And while we are still coming into agreement, we thank God that His love is so much bigger than ours!

Very well said!

Hey fitz ,

In this thread, there are other supporting reasons other than that He wants to save us all. I also show how me must save us all. I show from several different directions how any other solution would be unscriptural. I show a wealth of supporting scriptures while also demonstrating how scriptures that we think talk about ET don't even do so.

I appreciate your question. I believe you mean it respectfully, and I hope you will take this response in the same light.

The church has decided a lot of things over the years and frankly, most of them have been gravely horrible. The church also burned people at the stake and otherwise tortured people. The church invented indulgences. The church gave us the unbearable doctrine of Endless torment. The church taught salvation through works. The church taught the ascension and co-redemptive nature of Mary.

So, frankly, the church deciding Universal reconciliation is heresy is a strong reason to support it!  That was a joke, but you get the point.

I did read Love Wins years ago and found it somewhat disgusting.  It is nothing near what I am teaching in this thread. I have not read Origen's ideas lately.

I guess my question back to you would be, instead of asking me to document the difference between one person's ideas and mine, perhaps you may want to read them both and determine what you think the differences are? Then submit what you learned to the Father and ask Him for eyes to see His truth.  I'm not trying to be difficult, but there are around 200 pages here describing why I believe what I believe.  If you have read them all and also have read about Origen's ideas, then you can see the differences yourself.  This prevents me from having to go to some third party website and read what neither you, nor I, wrote.  I'd rather just deal with your ideas and my ideas and the scriptures.

I know that sounds a little rude, but I truly don't mean it that way.  I am just not feeling called to read third party positions.  If you have a particular concern I'm fine discussing it, but I'd much rather address your concerns, then the concerns of a someone else's website.

I really hope that sounds the way I mean it in my heart.    

That's awesome! This forum is my bible study lol. No bible study with real in person adults until the kiddos are older for me.

I just gave a coworker a copy of The Restoration PDF yesterday and cannot wait to hear what he says. He is rather reserved and hard to read so I am going to be on pins and needles until he says something or I just get impatient and ask. I use the super fast double sided printer at work to print that book off (shhhhhh about the work printer lol)

praying for your friend cw! and for the boys in Mike Taft's Bible Study. Say listen, my mom is going to lead a women's Precepts study on Romans. She's gonna need lots of prayer as she also has been following this thread, and the kingdom of God thread, so it could be interesting to see what the Holy Spirit does for her and our group...

One thing that I want to know SK, is what is the best way, or rather, is there a wrong way to share this information about restoring? You mentioned some 4000 churches you sent a letter to, with no reply. I suppose this manuscript has about the best compilation of evidence. and, really when it comes down to it, is it not the Holy Spirit that leads one to this path? So I could jump off the cliff and go big and see where things land...or be led to those few who would have ears to hear...

What I sent to the 4000 church was not about restoration specifically, but about a call to come out of her and into God's rest.

As to the best or wrong way to share restoration.  It so depends on the audience.  I go back to the idea of our existing belief system as a wall - when you share restoration, you can only cover one small piece at a time and it can be easily shot down by one verse.  For instance, even on this forum, we see people saying - "God can't save everyone - It isn't scriptural, Just look at Lazarus and the Rich Man."

Well, those who have been through this thread realize that that parable doesn't prove anything and isn't even about heaven and hell.  It certainly isn't about salvation or faith.  And if it is, we better all hope that we are poor and miserable and have sores all over our body and are laying outside the gate.  And then we should stop signing songs about going to heaven and start singing about Abraham's bosom.

But I digress - 

Somehow, we need to keep our audience intrigued / interested enough for them to stick around long enough to hear multiple layers of evidence.  That way, even if one way doesn't seem to work for them, another might.  That way, multiple stones come down from their walls and they can begin to actually see beyond.

Having said that, there are certain things I like to get out right away - one is the biblical use of those two words: aion and family, and appolymi and family.

If they do not see that aionios does not mean forever, they will constantly have the "forever verses" in their mind.  Even after they understand it means "of an age", they still don't really believe it.  Their mind will keep fighting it.  They will question how YOU know.  Why not all the pastors and translators.  You will need to show them that anyone can know if they just look at the verses where eternal things stop.  Or where there are multiple eternals.  Or where there are past eternals or future eternals.  Then they can see that common sense tells us this word can't mean eternal.

Then, there are all the passages that talk about the positive aspects of restoration - the all / every verses.

There is the whole character of God aspect - who do we really think He is?

A great, but slightly cynical question is:  If God doesn't save everyone - is it because He doesn't want to?  Or is it because He can't?

The key will be patience.  You will see something as obvious and the other person will simply say, "Well, I don't see it that way.  I don't agree."  There is nothing you can do.  It has not been given to them, yet.  Your patience can come from the confidence that it will come to them.  It might be on the other side of the River - but it will come to them.  You can try another angle, you can show them again what they might have missed.  You can let it sit for awhile.

For me, I need extra patience, because I will encounter people who have barely thought about these things, but have a basic Christian upbringing simply conclude my point about this or that doesn't make sense.  I've looked at this stuff for 16 years and with a great amount of depth - but they just flip it aside with barely even studying it.  But then I must remind myself that time in study does not guarantee correctness.  And 20 years ago, I would have done the same thing as they just did.

I will say, my teaching is much more effective in person because they can see my emotion.  It is not just words on a page - it is real to me.

I do feel that the order I laid things out in this thread was a new order for me.  It felt led of the Spirit.  I know it jumped around a bit, but I'm not sure that was a bad thing.  Perhaps, just use the document as a study guide.  Perhaps we should create a study guide?

One thing that is still missing from this thread are sections dealing with all the passages that people will bring up to contradict restoration.  We only covered 5 or 6 of them.  But there are a lot of other passages and you will want answers.

I did include the formula for determining that they do not support ET, but I did not personally cover them all.

Be careful of other sources.  There are many internet teachers that teach things that sound similar to this specific take on Restoration.  Some are great.  But some will take you in direction that are not sound.  Either they diverge from Christ, or they based their teachings on Christ, but their logic and understanding is not supportable by scripture.  Once people hear what you are teaching, they will immediately try to box you into a group - Oh you believe that, then do you agree with xyz person?  Are you studying ABC denomination?  How is what you say different than what AXH says?

To some degree we need to be flexible and help them see some differences - on the other hand they should be encouraged to listen to the unique message that you are presenting and then they can explore these differences for themselves.

There is one more point I can make.  We know that Restoration is based on Christ.  But sometimes, even when we sort of believe God may save all, we get a little lost in the mechanics.  Then we end up thinking - well, if His plan was to save everyone, and if people only have limited free will, then why be good, why serve Christ, why evangelize - for that matter, if we are all going to be saved anyway then why die on the cross?  Does that just make His blood worthless?

See how we can find ourselves going around in circles.  It is BECAUSE of His blood on the cross that He can save everyone.  This was not an incidental part of His plan - this was the central element of it.  Without His death, we are all dead.  Now, because of His death, and act He did out of love for me, I want to love Him.  I want to serve Him.  Because of what He has done, I want to tell others so that they can know, so that they can see Him and understand there is HOPE.  I want to tell others so that they tell others so that the Kingdom expands.  And with each person that believes they can begin to walk with God instead of in darkness. They can rest in Him and hear His voice and do His will and excel to a better resurrection.

It is inevitable that these questions will arise.  Be prepared to explain those answers.

I do tend to hold off on barley and wheat.  And truly, Restoration can be believed without people ever knowing or agreeing on the division between believers.  Where you run into problems if you don't cover this division is that eventually people are going to ask about the sheep and goats, the gnashing of teeth, the outer darkness, the "Away from me, you who work iniquity", the "Depart from me. I do not know you"  passages.  Many of them are not dividing Christians from non-Christians.  They are dividing barley from wheat.

But it is a sensitive area because it feels like works instead of grace.  And because our pride interferes with our understanding once we think there could be divisions.

Did that help?  Or did I just babble?


In the end, what MikeTaft said.  (I should just start that way and then end .....)