Universalists Have a Point
Most heresies have a strong point. That's how they convince people that they're not heresies. Marcionism came about because there is, to be fair, a significant difference in redemptive history between the Old and New Testaments. Arianism existed, and still does, because the Father begets, or generates, the Son. Adoptionism popped up because Jesus is said to learn things, to inherit things, and to be perfected through suffering, among other things. These ideas are still heretical, but you can see where they come from.
It’s the same with universalism (the idea that all, eventually, will be saved). If I was a universalist, which I’m not, then my main line of argument - my good point, if you like - would concern the exegetical inconsistency of the way most evangelicals approach the word “all”. The general rule amongst Reformed interpreters is: if the Bible uses the word “all” about something bad, then it means “every person”, but if it uses the word “all” about something good, then it means “only some people”. Here are a few examples.
“All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God ...” (Rom 3:23). This is bad, so “all” means “everybody”.
“... and are justified by his grace as a gift” (Rom 3:24). This is good, so the “all” from earlier in the sentence now means “only some people”.
“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned ...” (Rom 5:12). This is bad, so “all” means “everybody”.
“One act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men” (Rom 5:18). This is good, so “all” means “only some people”.
“God has consigned all over to disobedience, so he can have mercy on all” (Rom 11:32). The first “all” is bad, so means “everybody”; the second one is good, so means “only some people”.
“As in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be made alive” (1 Cor 15:22). Again, the first “all” is bad, so means “everybody”; the second one is good, so means “only some people”.
You get the idea. So: universalists have a point.
But it would probably be unhelpful for me to stop there, because before you know it, blog posts could be appearing entitled, “Andrew Wilson: universalist?”, and people could be tweeting, “Farewell, Andrew Wilson.” And it’s a slightly irritating blogger who does nothing but ask questions about orthodoxy, and then gives no idea of how they might be answered. So here’s an (all too brief) explanation of how I understand passages like this.
A phrase that is often used by commentators, when trying to explain what Paul means when he says “all” in various places, is “all without distinction, not all without exception.” I like that. Individualistic westerners are prone to read a word like “all” as meaning “every individual”, because that’s the way we tend to use it. But there are strong clues in the New Testament that Paul, and other biblical writers, would not necessarily have used the word like that. When Luke says that “all Asia heard the word of the Lord” (Acts 19:10), he doesn’t mean that every individual in Turkey heard the gospel in two years; he means, rather, “the whole of Asia”, considered corporately, in the sense of “the word of the Lord was heard all over Asia.” Most commentators have argued that “all Israel will be saved” does not refer to every individual in Romans 11:26 (although for a different view, see Andy Johnston’s argument here). The same is true in the Old Testament, actually - nobody thinks that “all Israel came to Shechem to make Rehoboam king” (1 Kings 12:1) is talking about every individual Israelite. It means, “people from all over Israel”, or “all types of Israelite”. In other words, “all without distinction” rather than “all without exception”.
The thing is, if this insight is correct of a passage like Romans 3 or 5 - and exegetically, I think it is, since Paul so clearly believes that some, tragically, will not be saved - then it may need to be applied to all the “all"s. In context, the oft-quoted “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace as a gift” (Romans 3:23-24) actually means “both Jews and Gentiles have sinned, and both Jews and Gentiles are justified freely by his grace as a gift” (compare 3:9, 20-22, 29-30), rather than being a prooftext for total depravity. Now, just to be clear: I think Romans 1-3 clearly teaches that every individual has sinned (arguably, that’s the whole point). But I don’t think that’s the particular meaning of 3:23, even though it’s frequently quoted that way. The same is true of Romans 11:32, which comes at the end of three chapters on the salvation-historical relationship between Jews and Gentiles. It’s probably true of the famous statement that God wants all to be saved in 1 Timothy 2:1-7, which aims to correct an exclusivist Jewish soteriology; Paul is talking about all without distinction (although again, the idea that he wants all without exception to be saved is clear from other texts, such as 2 Peter 3:9). And so on.
My point is, you can’t have your cake and eat it on the meaning of “all” in the New Testament. It’s no good using it as a prooftext for universal sinfulness one minute, and then howling when universalists apply the same exegetical method a few verses later. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
And with that beautiful fusion of metaphors in mind, have a go at expounding 1 Corinthians 15:22: “As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.” Anyone?
Comments
By danhayter88@gmail.com on 04/01/2012 at 13:01
Good post!
Could it be that 1 Cor 15.22 is speaking of inclusion, or incorporation. All die “in Adam” could be said to apply to absolutely everyone since everyone is in a sense “in Adam”. Not everyone is in Christ however. Maybe (although you can’t really translate the verse that way) this verse is saying something along the lines of “all who are in Adam die” and “all who are in Christ” will live? In other words, 1 Cor 15.22 is speaking about corporate realities: As many people as are in Adam shall die, however as many people as are in Christ shall live. So all could mean all without exception here rather than without distinction (contra Rom 3).
That made a bit more sense in my head than it does on the screen.
By James McAdams on 04/01/2012 at 15:52
Gordon Fee puts it like this in the NICNT commentary:
“It must be noted at the outset that the general resurrection of the dead is not Paul’s concern, neither here nor elsewhere in the argument. Both the context and Paul’s theology as a whole make it clear that in saying “in Christ all will be made alive,” he means “in Christ all who are in Christ will be made alive.” The lack of such a qualifier in the sentence itself is the result of both the balanced style and the fact that he expected it to be read in the context of his argument with them, not as a piece of abstract theology.”
I think that’s exactly right.
By Daniel Pritchard on 04/01/2012 at 16:52
Yes, good post Andrew… Happy New Year of blogging!
By Adrian Birks on 04/01/2012 at 18:12
Hi Andrew & happy new year!
The question of the ‘coterminous alls’ is a good one to raise although I think we Reformed folk can eat our cake and enjoy different sauces on our geese! (I did so on Christmas day in fact! :))
While I agree that the theme of Romans is Jew/Gentile relations I’m not sure that would explain the ‘manys’ & ‘alls’ in Rom5 (or 1Cor15). I think Paul’s primary point in both cases is that of Adam’s & Jesus’ federal headship, where the actions of one man affect many others; in the case of Adam, death comes to all who sin and in the case of Jesus, life comes to all who believe.
I’m with Dan who makes the point clearly above (both in his mind & on the screen!) – it is ‘all those in the category’; we might say all ‘whom the caps fits’. Any ‘rule’ of understanding the meaning of ‘all’ based on the referent being good or bad is purely coincidental; it just happens that all sin but not all believe.
So, the Universalists don’t have a point because they ignore the plot-line of the Bible and take this text independently from its immediate & broader context. (See my post on 19/5/11 ‘I wouldn’t start form here’) If this was your only text then universalism might have some credibility but it isn’t – it is clear from Paul’s writings that there is a final judgement where those who are not in Christ are tragically condemned.
As I Howard Marshal writes: “The difficulty with [universalism] is that there is no evidence whatever for [it]. [It] is pure speculation. The NT does not teach or imply universal salvation. It teaches the reality of a final judgement on the impenitent and sadly it states that some will be lost. That is why there is such an urgency to proclaim the gospel to all the world.”
By Andi Northrop on 04/01/2012 at 19:36
“it’s a slightly irritating blogger who does nothing but ask questions about orthodoxy, and then gives no idea of how they might be answered.”
Heh heh, very tactful! And another thought provoking post.
By Andrew Wilson on 04/01/2012 at 20:23
@Dan: I agree that’s how they should be understood, yes.
@Adrian: in my opinion, that approach is systematic-theologically right, but in several cases exegetically wrong (it struggles to explain Rom 3 in particular, and is less than certain on Rom 5). That’s why I say universalists have a point - though it’s certainly outweighed by the many good points you’ve made!
By Jez Bayes on 05/01/2012 at 02:07
Hold on, just to make this all clear, when you say: ‘if this insight is correct of a passage like Romans 3 or 5 ...... then it may need to be applied to all the “all"s’ - if we take it that your second ‘all’ applies to all Paul’s alls which include a combination of all good alls and all bad alls and therefore doesn’t actually mean all alls due to the inclusion of all the good alls that don’t really mean all alls as well as all the bad alls that do mean all, then assuming that your first all is not a combination of all alls good and bad how can we all tell if your first all is a good all or a bad all at all?
Have I made sense at all?
By Rory on 05/01/2012 at 04:16
Rather than considering the hermeneutical distances between all these different kinds of “alls” (I’m assuming the greek is the same); though you may not be a universalist, do you see more room for manoeuvre than the (possibly slightly fatalistic?) approaches of Grudem or Piper?
By Andrew Wilson on 05/01/2012 at 07:54
@Jez: lol. I don’t think all Paul’s “all"s have to have the same meaning, but if they’re expressed in the same passage or even verse, then they surely do. In Rom 3:23-4, there’s only one “all”, yet some would say its referent changes half way through the sentence.
@Rory: you’ll have to be more specific, I’m afraid! Which text, which book(s)?
By Rory on 05/01/2012 at 12:13
Piper would be Future of Justification, Grudem would be Systematic Theology, but focus on Grudem (he seems the more tightfisted of the two of them).
I guess out of these passages, 1 Corinthians 15:22 would be the most prominent example in my head. So, when a student in the student society asks me if their Jewish friend will be going to heaven, I know Grudem would say a fairly definitive “no,” Rob Bell a fairly definitive “maybe” and a clearer cut universalist “yes, eventually.” In that I ask whether they are messianic Jews, it shows I’m closer to Grudem than to Bell and Universalism, yet I do still find the same issue of being overly precise a similar problem to the one I find in Calvinism being slightly too clear cut for comfort. When I read Kierkegaard’s saying that a Christian can only come to faith through “subversion of all the principles of (one’s) understanding” in ‘Irrational Man,’ I disagree again, but do wonder whether there is more room in justification than perhaps my friends and myself make out. Maybe the narrow door, though still narrow, is not quite as narrow as we think it is?...Do you think there is room in scripture for that?
By Andrew Wilson on 05/01/2012 at 15:44
@Rory: John 14:6 seems fairly emphatic to me! And I think calling Grudem tightfisted is very unfair ... Very nice man, who works hard at explaining Scripture, and always buys his round! :0)
By Rory on 05/01/2012 at 21:04
Arrrgh! I apologise.
“Tightfisted” really is the wrong word to use!
I certainly meant nothing about his use of money - I heard off someone (I think it was either Mick Taylor or Arian Birks) that they received free study bibles from him as gifts to grow the church! I was thinking far more of his “my way or the highway” style of writing. “Closed handed” may have been a better term to use…
Sorry…
By Rory on 05/01/2012 at 21:16
John 14:6 is a good reference (and I do agree with you), but if you reference vs.23, for example, you could have the alternate question of does Jesus reject anyone who has followed God’s law, repented of sin before God and been unified with God?
I guess in vs.15 we see biblically that is impossible, as vs.23 is to do with sanctification, not justification.
By Tim Chambers on 11/01/2012 at 18:03
Option #1: One consequence of Adam’s sin was eternal separation from God for all his descendants. This is death. Christ’s rescued all Adam’s descendants from that consequence. Therefore, any who are eternally separated from God will be suffering only for their own sin. Under this explanation infants are not born guilty in Adam, though they are damaged by him in a way that makes sin and guilt inevitable.
Option #2: As in Adam all who are in Adam die, even so in Christ shall all who are in Christ be made alive.
I prefer option #1, but I’m afraid option #2 is more likely.
By Andrew Colchankyrankywoodlechoobe on 25/01/2012 at 22:31
What about Inclusivists? They have a point as well (Matthew 25: 31-46). Is it heretical?
By Peter Ould on 27/01/2012 at 12:54
1 Corinthians 15:22 is easy.
All who are in Adam die
All who are in Christ are made alive
Just read the Greek….
By Grace Baxter on 30/01/2012 at 14:20
Well 1 Cor 15:22 is pretty much the focus of my dissertation, so I’ll have a crack at it and get back to you in March once it’s handed in!
By Grace Baxter on 30/01/2012 at 14:20
Also, good post!
By Apologetics Guy on 31/01/2012 at 08:24
Interesting how even Paul even says, “To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life” (Romans 2:7). But context is indeed king. We have to interpret this in light of the message of the chapter, the letter itself and the Bible.
If I’m at a fast food place and I tell my wife, “Just get me anything,” I don’t mean I’d be cool with a eating a rubber tire for lunch. I mean “any food that’s on the menu.” Context, context, context.