"Are you saying that all are saved and going to heaven?"
"Isn't that universalism?"
"So people don't have to do anything - they are saved but just don't know it?"
Now before I answer the questions that may be whirring around in your head let me digress by first asking you a few questions. What would be so bad with that if it were so? Would it thrill your heart if all in the finale got grace and mercy and not flames?
"But, Mark, the Bible doesn't leave us with that option - some are going to burn!"
OK, OK, that's fine, you can have your hell. But don't be so quick to rush there and start throwing people over the rail into the bottomless pit. God is not quick to anger or to judge and neither should we be. When our focus is on punishment and people getting their just desserts, I fear we run past love and treat it as a minor bit of sentimentality and believe somehow that we need to help God with by dabbing the corner of his eye with our tissue.
"Now, now, God, I know you are a loving God but remember you are also a wrathful and judging God and we can't let people forget that! Hurl a few lightning bolts and remind them whose boss - we don't want any spiritual slackers. Besides, fear will really get our conversion numbers up."
Let me remind you - Zeus throws lightning bolts at people he doesn't like - our Father sends His Son out of love for the world (John 3:16).
All that being said, let's get to verse 15 which states:
"And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again."
I hope this answered those questions above - there is a "should" in the discussion. Paul has just laid out his strong held conviction that Jesus' death included everyone... yes everyone.. and now he turns to our response - "Don't live for yourself but for Jesus who has redeemed you in His death and resurrection."
The statement assumes that it is possible to live for yourself instead of Jesus. As a matter of fact, I would go so far as to state that it is impossible to live for anyone but you if you dismiss Him.
The sad truth is that all of us are under the harassing assault of this world's system and it has not left us neutral or passive. It has driven us to unimaginable depths of brokenness trying to find our cure. The greedy, lustful, slothful, gossiping, cheating and killing schemes we have tried are all born out of a diseased heart, mind and soul desperately trying to save itself from death's inevitable clutch.
All our attempts are destined to fail. None will satisfy and rescue us.
"What? What's that you said?
Jesus has overcome my death?
When He died I died? When He was raised I was raised?
How can that be?
He's Lord? What does that mean?
All things, including me, are held together in Him?
What becomes of Jesus becomes of me?"
There are two possible responses:
Our response to the Good News doesn't make it true, the Good News is already true - Immanuel. Our response just allows us to experience the fullness of the truth. The scriptural language for that is "salvation" and it is liberating! What do you get if you don't live for Him but for you? Your get your self - and whatever capabilities you have to save yourself from death."Yeah right! Nice try! You think you can dupe me with that stuff? I see what's ahead of me and I can handle this on my own. I don't need charity - I can do this myself. What you're after is control and I ain't giving that away. I'm the captain of this ship"
Or
"This is amazing grace that I don't deserve! God loves me that much? Where is He? I've got to tell Him thanks. What? He wants me to hang out with Him and learn how to be free indeed? Sign me up; put me down, whatever it takes. I'm His!
So, back to the questions:
Q. Are you saying that all are saved and going to heaven?
A. Yes, all are saved. But no, it doesn't work that way. If heaven was just a geographical issue it would work that way, but heaven is a relational issue. To say you can have heaven without faith is like saying you can have health without taking medicine. Only those who take the Gospel medicine into their heart are healed by it - the beginning of heaven (which is relational). Those that leave the Gospel medicine on the outside of their heart are not changed by it and they are left with themselves - the beginning of hell.
Q. Isn't that universalism?
A. No. Universalism denies that there is a you in the equation. Universalism says that your will doesn't matter, and your wants will be violated. That to me is like spiritual rape.
I hope that when it is all said and done God's love will win over the hearts of everyone like it has mine, but I am doubtful. Scripture keeps showing us that there are those who don't want God's love and grace in Jesus. Sad! They perish in vain.
Q. So people don't have to do anything - they are saved but just don't know it?
A. If you're asking if we must do something to seal the deal, the answer is no - just receive, with a happy heart, the grace of God. It is finished and you were included. And yes, in a way people are already saved; they died and were raised in Jesus 20000 years ago. But ignorance isn't bliss - it's lost-ness. (Go back to the paragraph above on broken schemes.) Salvation is just life, and it begins when those saved by grace respond by faith to the truth and are set free. (Ephesians 2:4-10)
How beautiful are the feet of those who go, like Paul, with the driving force of God's love and the burning message of inclusion and Christ's accomplishment and call all people to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.
Tomorrow - How do you see me?
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