What
is the doctrine of Universalism or salvation universalism? It is basically this: That everyone will be
saved eventually, meaning everyone gets to Heaven, eventually; no one gets sent
to Hell to suffer the terrible sufferings.
And so, it is saying that unbelievers, too, get to go to Heaven;
independent of faith or religious faith.
Behind the doctrine is the simplistic and shallow argument of “if God is
really a good and loving God, He cannot be sending people to Hell!”
There
are therefore, people out there who claim that Scripture sometimes or at some
places, pointed to universalism of salvation, and at others, NOT. One Biblical text which is quoted to support
this universalism of salvation is the Parable of the Lost Sheep; which I am saying
as a one-liner, now – No, it does NOT (point to or supports universalism of
salvation).
Before
I go on to expand on my one-liner that I have just stated, let me get 2 things
straight:
1.
Not
in support of universalism is NOT about denying any class, race or color of
skin, of people, the salvation grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, salvation through Christ Jesus, is open
to all peoples; but it also is “there is no other name through which anyone can
be saved”. It is open to all peoples,
but the way is only one – accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and
Saviour, and thereafter be living a life after the Holy Spirit, instead of
after the flesh. And so,
2.
Universalism
is unbiblical belief. It is NOT that we,
believers, made ourselves to be intolerant and exclusive, but it is the dictate
of God and His Word. In fact, believers
are expected to develop to be patient, longsuffering and persevering, and be
loving, compassionate and merciful, but the matter of going to Heaven is NOT the
prerogative of the believers to decide how, but it is as prescribed by God, the
owner of Heaven.
Let
me put down the Parable of the Lost Sheep as given in Scripture:
Luke
15:3-7 - 3 Then Jesus told them this parable: 4
“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave
the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds
it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes
home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with
me; I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 I tell you that in the same way there will
be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine
righteous persons who do not need to repent.
Matt
18:12-14 - 12 “What do you think? If a man owns a
hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine
on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? 13 And if he finds
it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine
that did not wander off. 14 In the same way your Father in heaven is not
willing that any of these little ones should perish.
The
proponents of universalism (of salvation) argue that
1.
God
will go out of His way to save people, even a single person, and in this
parable, the lost sheep has to do nothing at all. It is saved, in the parable.
2. It is NOT punished for getting lost, for going off on its own.
3. NOT only is it NOT punished, but God celebrates.
4. It is NOT the will of God that one of these little ones should perish.
5. Although we see repentance in the Luke account, it is NOT in the Matthew’s account.
The
proponents conclude that God will go out of His way to save because of His love,
and it is regardless of the person being wayward or otherwise; the person is
NOT punished, while God celebrates; and it is the will of God to save, and so,
everyone will be saved, purportedly God will, God must. Repentance is NOT a must – seen in the Luke account
but NOT in the Matthew’s account.
On
the surface, the above points seemed legitimate, but the problem is the lack of
understanding of how parables were used and handled. Wrong identification and handling of the key object
and metaphor of a parable will lead to wrong interpretation of a parable.
The
thing about interpreting a parable is to get to the “that is what it is like
in case of the Kingdom of God”! A parable
is used to tell of a thing/an aspect, the “that is what it is like” of
God or the Kingdom with the help of an approximation in our human living. In
the case of the parable of the lost sheep, it is NOT about the sheep owned or
lost sheep as such. The “that is what
it is like” was the rejoicing.
The key object of the parable (the thing that the parable was trying to
point to) was the joy or rejoicing of God and rejoicing in the Kingdom of
Heaven. The equivalent key metaphor of
the parable (the thing in the parable that pointed to the key object of the
parable) was the joy of the man (who had the sheep), and the rejoicing of his
friends and neighbours.
Jesus
was trying to explain the why of “He did what He did” just before He gave
this parable. Jesus had repeatedly said what He did was to do what the Father
God had wanted Him done. Why did He,
Jesus, do so, to do what the Father God had wanted? The answer is simple, He wanted to please the
Father God; He wanted the Father to rejoice, to be joyous.
Isn’t
that so, for us, too? Yes, we, too; the
overall counsel of the Word pointed to us to exist to please
God. We are to bring joy and rejoicing
to God (Read this article: if you want deeper understanding of this: Do we exist to please God, glorify and honor Him?)
What
was it that was said against Jesus, before He gave this parable to explain
Himself? The Pharisees and Sadducees
(these were snobbish Jews) frowned at His (Jesus’) welcoming and eating with
the sinners. The tax collectors and
sinners were gathering around Jesus to hear Him, then. To the snobbish Jews, they had the notion
that if Jesus were indeed the Son of God or the Messiah, He could NOT be
associating with the sinners (they, the Pharisees and Sadducees, didn’t; they didn’t
eat with the Gentiles. Even the Apostle Peter was rebuked by the Apostle Paul
for doing so, once [Gal 2:11-14]).
Jesus, using the parable, explained why.
So, the parable was to bring out this: the Father God would be joyous
and Heaven would rejoice when people (even the Gentiles) be turned/turned back
to be His. To give an idea of the joy
and rejoicing, Jesus used to the joy and rejoicing of the man with a 100 sheep who
lost one and found it again.
There
is always a limitation of any presentation in a parable to portray the actual
thing of the Kingdom, and so, the key to parable interpretation is to identify the
“that is what it is like” of the parable; reading too much into the rest,
is uncalled for, and will lead to wrong conclusion. The “that is what it is like” here is
the joy and rejoicing of having recovered one that is precious and once owned,
or having gained one more, as precious.
Those
of us who truly appreciate that the parable’s intent was to highlight the joy
of God and rejoicing in Heaven, would use this parable this way and say, on the
occasion of a person coming into salvation or coming back from a backslidden
state, something to this effect, “We are
very happy for you; God and Heaven rejoice over you.” Or I may even tell the person this, “Remember today, it is a very special day; it
is your birthday – the day of your born-again [for those entering into
salvation]! Rejoice, for Heaven rejoices
with you.”
If
you are still NOT convinced that the highlight is indeed about the joy and rejoicing,
you can check Scripture, and see that, immediately following the above Parable
of the Lost Sheep is the Parable of the Lost Coin.
Luke
15:8-10 - 8
“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins[a] and loses one. Doesn’t she light a
lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she
finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with
me; I have found my lost coin.’ 10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing
in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
In
fact, the text started with “Or suppose
a woman ……”; in other words, Jesus was saying we could either consider the
parable of the lost sheep or this other parable, parable of the lost coin; they
are saying the same thing. What same
thing? The same thing is that “God is
joyous and Heaven rejoices over one who …..”
The
story line is the same for the parable of the lost coins as that of the lost
sheep, just that instead of 100 sheep, it was 10 silver coins. So, we can see, it got nothing to do with
what kind of sheep the man was having, nor was it about how the finding took
place or the method employed or whether or NOT the sheep did anything or NOT,
or any punishment should be meted out or NOT.
I believe, just in case people over-focus on the sheep (unto
misinterpretation) in the first parable, Jesus gave another, and in this case,
an inanimate object, coins! [I am NOT here saying the owner shepherd-sheep representation
used by Jesus was a bad one; it was NOT, and it did have its root in the OT;
Isaiah 53:6 – “We all, like sheep, have gone
astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on him [Jesus] the iniquity of us all.”]
Sure,
it is God’s will that all men be saved and NOT perish; we know that, even from
other Scripture verses, but it is clear that, that does NOT mean that every man
will be saved and NOT perished. Jesus
did talk about this, when He was asked: “Lord, are
only a few people going to be saved?” (Luke 13:23). Jesus talked about the narrow road and gate
and the wide road and gate, and in that, we know that NOT all would be
saved. The main reason is there is still
the volition of man.
Men
have to exercise their volitions to believe the Gospel, to repent, to turn back
to God, ask Him for forgiveness, and walk thereafter after the Holy Spirit, and
no longer after the flesh.
Is
repentance important? Yes. The Apostle Luke, being a medical doctor, was
more meticulous in his observations and writings, and so, much of his gospel writings
were with more details than the other gospel writers'. That the Apostle Matthew failed to record it,
repentance, does NOT mean repentance is NOT important. The overall counsel of the Word attests to
the importance of repentance, if NOT the absolute necessity of repentance, for
salvation.
Now,
on the argument that God MUST go after the wayward, and so, saving everyone, if
you believe, like I believe, Jesus perhaps, was also pre-empting this (just as
I believe, he pre-empted people focussing on the sheep instead of the joy and
rejoicing, and gave the lost coin parable), He gave one more parable – the parable
of the lost son or as I preferred it, the parable of the return of the
prodigal son [I am NOT saying this is only reason He gave this 3rd
lost-parable].
In
the previous two lost-parables, Jesus said that the owner set off to seek out the
lost (the lost sheep and the lost coin) and bring them back. For this third one, just to make sure that
people do NOT get the wrong idea and said that He (Jesus) said it is God MUST
(or we say, “you push all bucks back to God”), Jesus detailed the parable of
the lost son where the younger son insisted to leave and go live his wayward
life.
You
will notice here, that the father was NOT said to go after the wayward son, and
get him back (unlike the owner of the sheep who went out to find the sheep and
carried it back, or the coin owner who probably combed every each of space and
found the coin and put it back to where it belonged, with the other coins, in
safe-keeping).
The
parable of the Lost Son can be read from Luke 15:11-32. Luke 15:20 recorded this: “So he [the prodigal son] got up and went to his father. But
while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with
compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed
him.”
We
can see from the above that God was eagerly waiting, “from a distance”. Many believers are too cavalier about “God
with us all the time; He is with us everywhere”. Yes, God is omnipresent, meaning He can be
present anywhere and everywhere. The “with”,
is NOT just about presence (as in “physically” present), it is about God identifying
with you and in agreement with you.
If
you are believer, God is always present with you by His Spirit, but He may NOT
be with you! I tell people there is one
place God cannot be found! Where? In evil.
God can be looking on, but He is NOT with you in
evil. If you are bent on doing evil, He
does NOT identify with you and cannot agree with you, and so, He is NOT with
you. But He can be like the father in
this parable of the return of the prodigal son, eagerly waiting for his turning
back or repentance. [Never preach this parable arguing there is NOT even the
need of repentance, as some overly grace preachers do, it is WRONG].
It
is clear, it is NOT God MUST, but God desires for all men to be saved. God
could go and find the sinner, work on him, and bring him back into the fold or
He could be eagerly waiting for the sinner to turn back or repent. We must NOT forget God is God, meaning He is
sovereign, and being sovereign, it is His prerogative when it comes to grace,
mercy and compassion. Scripture, in Romans
9:15 said this: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on
whom I have compassion.” But we
also know this: God is light; in him there is no
darkness at all. (1 john 1:5).
God is good; there is no evil in Him.
He may come for you, but why don’t you go into the light, turn away
from your evil ways or darkness; and He will let Himself be found by you.
It
is NOT God MUST. Non-believers can wait
all they want, and backslidden believers can wait all they want, if they miss
the boat, they cannot blame God, for God NEVER committed He MUST. People need to know, faithfulness and MUST
are NOT the same; God is faithful, but it is NOT He MUST. God is holy, and His love is love unto
righteousness (‘ahab love [For better understanding of ‘ahab love, read this: ‘Ahab love – love unto righteousness]),
and so, punishment, even to suffer in Hell, is NOT inconsistent with the nature
and character of God; He is still the good and loving God.
The
Parable of the Lost Sheep does NOT point to God will save everyone,
regardless. It shows God’s desires to have
those lost be back to Him, and He would be joyous and Heaven would rejoice each
time it happens. That is the main thrust of the parable. God wants to save you as His child, even when
He already has [many children], but it is NOT regardless.
Anthony Chia,
high.expressions
