The God of the Bible is a loving God, isn’t He? Could this loving God ever really condemn people to eternal punishment? Many think not. They believe we will all be saved from punishment, no matter what. After all, the Bible says He is not willing that any should perish (2 Pet. 3:9; 1 Tim. 2:3). How could a God of love create people destined to eternal damnation? This belief is called “Universalism.”
Some versions of Universalism differs, of course. Some believe everyone will show up to a home in heaven immediately upon death. Some believe all sinners will be allowed a second chance to repent once they stand before God. Still others believe there will be a sort of purgatory where they will experience a “waiting period” prior to being allowed into heaven.
No matter what their beliefs entail, to say that all will be unconditionally saved is to create a number of conflicts with historical Christian belief:
First, of course, you would need to trivialize Scripture, or at least the passages with which the Universalist disagrees. Jesus Himself said those who would reject Him would suffer eternal punishment (Matt. 25:46; John 3:36). So, that’s an issue.
Then there’s the issue with Jesus’ sacrifice. It really wasn’t required if everyone is destined to spend eternity in heaven anyway. No offering is needed to pay for our sin in the view of the typical Universalist. To be fair, though, there are universalists who come at this from the other end, that Christ’s sacrifice covers all sin and that there is no need on the part of the individual to take advantage of the gift they are offered (Eph. 2:8-9). It is theirs without qualification.
Universalism dwells completely on God’s attributes of mercy and love but ignores His attributes of justice and holiness. It also assumes God’s love is defined by how he treats mankind. “If God loves us, He has to save us.” That would mean that it is up to man to define what true love is.
God is love (1 John 4:8). So, love is defined by God, not us. He is the standard by which love it so be judged. How God expresses His love is also how we need to understand how love is to be expressed. Believing love means to forgive everyone doesn’t make it so.
The Bible says, “God is Love.” It does not say “God is justice” or “God is mercy”. In fact, there are very few nouns applied to God’s attributes: adjectives, yes, but not many nouns. The Bible doesn’t even say that God is loving. It says God is just and God is merciful. So, justice and mercy are then facets of God’s love. What that means is that God is pure love. His justice, mercy, even his wrath are all aspects of His love. God’s love is not a part of God’s nature. It is His nature.
The God of the Bible is a just and holy God. In order for us sinful humans to stand in the presence of this pure and holy God, He would either need to change His nature to allow for unclean, unholy beings to stand before Him; or He would have to pay a price for our sins so that we might qualify as holy, in this case through the cleansing blood of Christ. His sacrifice was more than sufficient to qualify us (Rom. 8:1-4).
Universalism wants God’s love to be unjustly “universal.” For God to be loving He must be just. Those who have sinned against God must answer for their transgressions. It is foolish to say, “For God to love, He must allow all into paradise, the just and the unjust.”
Universalism is a result of the church drifting away from the whole Gospel. We like telling people that God loves them and has a wonderful plan for their lives. When we do so, we should not turn from telling them the resulting punishment should they reject God’s generous gift of salvation.
Believers Armed and Dangerous 