Quotes about Universalism

But in one thing I would go beyond strict orthodoxy - I am a convinced universalist. I believe that in the end all men will be gathered into the love of God.

Arminians pretend, very speciously, that Christ died for all men, yet, in effect, they make him die for no one man at all.

The great dream of Judaism is not to raise priests, but a people of priests; to consecrate all men, not only some men.

If those of us who believe in God do not believe God's grace is big enough to save the whole world... well, we should at least pray that it is.

the Arminian, in making it apply to all men, reduces its effectiveness to such an extent that it becomes practically no atonement at all.

And so, beginning with the early church, there is a long tradition of Christians who believe that God will ultimately restore everything and everybody, because Jesus says in Matthew 19 that there will be a "renewal of all things," Peter says in Acts 3 that Jesus will "restore everything," and Paul says in Colossians 1 that through Christ "God was pleased to . . . reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

All will be redeemed in God's fullness of time, all, not just the small portion of the population who have been given the grace to know and accept Christ. All the strayed and stolen sheep. All the little lost ones.

I'm not a universalist, and the way I talk about final loss is this: People worship idols - money, whatever. Their humanness gets reshaped around the idol - you become like what you worship. That's one of the basic spiritual laws.

one cannot forever whistle "There's a wideness in God's mercy" in the darkness of Hiroshima, of Auschwitz, of the murder of children and the careless greed that enslaves millions with debts not their own. Humankind cannot, alas, bear very much reality, and the massive denial of reality by the cheap and cheerful universalism of Western liberalism has a lot to answer for. But

God wants everyone to be saved. He takes no delight in the destruction of any soul, however wicked (Ezek. 18:32; 33:11). From

Paul's insistence here is that what God is doing in Christ is for everybody, every nation, every ethnic group, every tribe. Paul uses the expansive word "Gentiles"—a first-century way of saying "everybody else.

Some teach "universalism"—that eventually everybody will be saved and the God of love will never send anyone to hell. They believe the words "eternal" or "everlasting" do not actually mean forever. However, the same word which speaks of eternal banishment from God is also used for the eternity of heaven.