I guess I will again be accused of being orthodox here, but I see that Christ paid the price for all to be saved and forgiven. The sin question is out of the way as far as God is conderned. That does not mean that everyone is in Christ or has been born again. Until we receive what He did for us by faith, what He did becomes of no effect for us.
We all continue to reap what we sow, but when He lights our candle, we are able to sow better seed and eventually reap better fruit. So, yes, all are forgiven. But, no, not all are saved or born again.
I do not believe like I have heard Carlton preach that all are already saved and most just do not know it yet. When I made Jesus my Lord, I was changed on the inside and did not just realize that I already was saved, but did not know it yet. We are all forgiven, but we have not all been changed by the power of regeneration. We all reap what we sow, but those who have been regenerated should be sowing better seed so reaping better lives.
John
BIGGEST AMEN AND HUGSI'm personally starting to shy away from the word "Universalism" again because of this issue. Forgiveness is completely out of the way, but Father's after Sonship. I wandered into Carlton's brand of UR with the death and glory message, as some restorationists dubbed it a couple of centuries ago, and though at first glance it's the most healing message, it does lack something of His higher purposes. I used to celebrate the pre organized Church that I guess some would hastily brand as the gnostic period of Christianity because there was diversity of opinion, but I'm starting to come back to Paul's comments in Corinthians and James' comments in his epistle about
in such diversity, there's nothing but hopeless confusion and every evil work.
Telling people that they're forgiven apart from any context in a repentance message only comforts people in their sins rather than turning them on their sins. And I'm not here to get the whole repentance debate started, but it obviously simply means a forsaking and a return to God's original - or Covenantal - intents.
All souls are His according to Ezekiel 18:4. I'm not in the error on the other side, that some may hastily detect in my comments and want to pounce on, that allows for an equality of powers between the Kingdom of God's Dear Son and the Kingdom or Authority of Darkness.
A lot of this argument is because we're admitting a foundational validity to the whole Billy Graham, 4 Spiritual Law Campus Crusade for Christ shtick. Matthew 28 says to make disciples of all nations. He doesn't tell them to say whether they're forgiven or not, but to make disciples of all nations. Reproduce the pattern of Christ in the government, in schools, on television, etc., etc., and just absolutely take over the world with Christian principles and make it EXTREMELY UNCOMFORTABLE for people to live in filth and rebellion to the commandments of Christ - apart from a condemning context.
Has anybody, by any chance, read Kenneth Gentry's book "He Shall Have Dominion"? Someone was telling me, in a context similar to this one where I said about the same, that with my recent conversion to Postmillenialism that I'd probably find it to be a very fabulous book, but I'm not interested in anything either overly Calvinist or overly Preterist. I knew he'd made a comment a while back about writing it, but I didn't know if it was out yet when somebody surprised me the other day by telling me to get my hands on it. Any chance anyone would know if it's a good book? Anyway, not trying to hijack a thread with that inquiry. Just click on my name on the side of this post, which I'm thinking takes you to my profile and send a private message if you know anything about it for certain one way or the other.
