TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART 7
EXPRESS ANTI-RECONCILIATORY
EXPECTATIONS, DIVINE ATTITUDES
AND TERMINAL RESOLVES
§
Anti-Reconciliatory Expectations of Terminal Enmity
- Demons express expectancy only of future
torment according to the time of judgment (Mt. 8:29) and of
being destroyed (Lk. 4:34). (No
creature knowledgeable of his current or future judgment in hell or
the Lake of Fire exhibits knowledge of terminality to his sentence and
none is stated at any trial evidenced, thus contradicting any
post-death expectation of universal reconciliation among the damned.
How is it that no damned creature beyond the grave exhibits any
knowledge of such a possibility or of an act of God seeking to
reconcile him to God? If universal reconciliation were true, and God
was using hell and the Lake of Fire to try to “preach the gospel” to
the damned to “win” their salvation out of the Fire, there should be
some hell-wide conscious evidence of it by some hell bound creature,
just as surely as the earth is being evangelized now. There is none.)
- No further comfort or satisfaction or
laughter past this life exists for the rich (Lk. 6:24-25;
16:25), but they are destroyed like a fading flower and burned (Jas.
1:10-11; 5:1-3). Nor is a rich man’s faith expressed from hell able to
save him. (Lk. 16:27-31).
- Soul forfeiture is terminal because nothing
may be given in exchange for it (Mt. 16:26). (Thus
no payment through punishment in hell may retrieve the lost soul
consigned thereto. This further disproves the Universalist assertion
that the parable of the unmerciful debtor shows that one will have to
pay off his unforgiven sin under the torment of hell. Please review PART
3 § Salvation
Adjudicated Only Upon Terrestrial Life Action, Point 81.)
- Salt once lost of its character essence is
unredeemable, fit only for trampling under foot (Mt. 5:13; Mk.
9:49-50; Lk. 14:34-35). (As
trampling under foot is an act of anti-reconciliatory enmity, and
being the only purpose left to those identified as savorless
salt, Jesus is denying the doctrine of eventual universal
reconciliation.)
- God maintains an attitude of terminal
enmity between the holy and profane, destroying the profane (Ezk.
28:16) and decrying all priests who would seek to reconcile them by
conflation (Ezk. 22:26). (Universalists
eliminate all distinction between God’s dealings with His holy
covenantal people and the rest of the unholy world, treating the world
population as one indiscriminate mass, subject to one unholy
(non-separating) “love” by which the world is to be non-exceptionally
brought into a non-selective, non-exclusive effectual salvation,
contrary to the vast forest of biblical exposition on the separational
nature of salvation.)
- The Lord hates the violent (Ps.
11:5), the wicked (Ps. 139:19-24) and the immorally profane (Heb.
12:16 →
(Mal. 1:3; Rom. 9:13)).(Hatred
is an anti-reconciliatory attitude opposed to love.
Because God possesses hatred for anyone, His love is not
unexceptionally universal.)
§
Divine Terminal Regret
- God expresses retroactive terminal regret
for actually having made man (Gen. 6:6-7), for having delivered
the larger rebellious nation of Israel (Dt. 9:14) and for the
birth of Judas (Mt. 26:24). (The
presence of terminal regret in the divine heart precludes the
possibility of God’s hope, expectation or overriding intent of
effecting universal reconciliation with all men to be His driving
divine purpose. For if God knew from before Creation that He was going
to bring every man to reconciliation with Him even if by means of the
Lake of Fire as necessary, there is no way He could ever have
regretted creating even one man. The conclusion of a Universalist
savior could only ever be that, no matter how evil a man might become,
it is better that he was created than that he had never lived.
There is neither room nor explanation in the Universalist
construct for divine terminal regret except to deny that God “really
meant what He said.”)
§
Anti-Reconciliatory Heart Hardening
- God directly hardens the heart of Pharaoh
and the Egyptians (Ex. 4:21; 10:1; 11:10; 14:4,8,17; Rom.
9:18), expresses His direct purpose of 1) receiving
glory by the sign and wonder of their terminal (Ex. 14:13; Dt.
11:4) destruction (Ex. 10:1; 11:9, 14:4,17-18; Dt.
34:11-12; Jer. 32:21; Rom. 9:17), and of 2)
impressing the Egyptians with the knowledge of His forcible Lordship (Ex.
14:4,18 [later Ezk. 29:6-9; 30:8,19,25-26; 32:15]) as a God of
war (Ex. 15:3); wherein God further memorializes this terminal
destruction for all future generations of the redeemed, including the
immortals beyond the grave in consort with the Lamb’s victory (Ex.
15:1; Dt. 7:18; Rev. 15:2-4). (Therefore
anti-reconciliation is established as a permanent divine attitude and
basis of glory even in the heavenly realm, precluding the possibility
of universal reconciliation. Were Universalist salvation the eternal
plan of God, all heaven would know it and no anti-reconciliatory
attitude could be harbored there by way of post-terrestrial
memorialization of divine enmity with any man or population.)
- Christ was established for the ripened
sealed fall, blinding and hardening of many (Mt. 13:13-15; Lk.
2:34; Jn. 9:39; 12:40; Ac. 4:11; Rom. 9:33),
being the savor of death unto the perishing (II Cor. 2:15-16 →
Jn. 8:19,21,23-24, 26, 37-47,55) and the rock of stumbling to
appointed doom of certain men (I Pt. 2:7-8→Mt. 21:41-42). (That
Christ was raised up to seal anti-reconciliatory purposes toward
certain men precludes the possibility of universal reconciliation as
the driving purpose of the divine heart.)
- God is able to cause people to walk in
His ways by sovereignly choosing to give them a new heart (Ezk.
36:27) yet He specifically conceals saving truth from crowds of
people to prevent them from being converted (Mk. 4:11-12) and
gives them spirits of stupor and incoherence that will prevent them
from ever believing the truth to become saved (Rom. 11:8). (God’s
purposed intent to prevent certain masses of people and
individuals from coming to salvation disproves the proposition that
God is unthwartably determined to effectually “save all men” (as
Universalists superficially interpret Paul’s words (Rom. 5:18; I
Tim. 2:4,6; 4:10; Tit. 2:11) and Peter’s expression (II Pt. 3:9).
Universalism has no room for a concept of divine salvation
prevention. Under no condition could or would a Universalist
God act to prevent salvation.)
- God deludes the perishing in judgment
unto their destruction (II Th. 2:10-12).
§
Anti-Reconciliatory Expressions of Terminated Existence
- To perish is to no longer or ever again
exist in life (Jer. 10:11; Am. 8:14).
- To be extinguished/snuffed out/made
extinct (Heb. da`ak / kabah) is to never rise again
from hell (Is. 43:17 / Ezk. 32:7→18 →→
Job. 18:5-6; 21:17; Ps. 118:12; Pr. 13:9;
20:20; 24:20).
- The end destiny of the enemies of
the cross is destruction (Php. 3:18-19); the end of
the wicked and of evil doers is to perish (Job 4:9),
perpetual ruin (Ps. 9:6); destruction and terror (Ps.
73:17-20), to be ended / cut off / no more (Is. 1:28→
17:14→29:20;66:17), wretched and evil (Mt.
21:41; II Cor. 11:15), to be burned (Heb. 6:8) and
the end of the son of perdition is death (II Th.
2:8), all outside the contemplation of salvation (I Pt.
4:17-18). (There
is no further existence after one’s existence has come to an end,
thus there is no universal reconciliation. See further below §
The Existential Termination of the Wicked.)
§
The Irretrievably Forfeited Salvation of Apostates
- Apostates are a class which having known
and then fallen away from saving truth will never be able to repent
or come to the truth (I Tim. 1:19-20; 4:1-2; 5:24-25; II
Tim. 2:15-18; 3:2-9; 4:3-4; Tit. 1:10-16; Heb.
3:12,16-19; 6:4-6; 10:38-39; 12:16-17,25; II Pt. 2:1-22; I
Jn. 2:18-19). (The
inability to repent again after falling away from first salvation
precludes the possibility of universal reconciliation in any
domain.)
- Apostasy must be guarded against (Heb.
3:12-4:11; II Pt. 3:17; I Jn. 2:28).
- Salvation is opposite to apostasy (Mt.
24:11-13; Heb. 6:6-9; 10:39). (Therefore
apostasy is not an alternative route to any kind of eventual
salvation.)
- Apostates (antichrists) are to be
overcome (I Jn. 4:1→4-5).
(Overcoming
of false prophets indicates a state of terminal enmity by
vanquishment. No possible eventual reconciliation with antichrists
is posited throughout the epistles of John (the “apostle of love”)
or by any other writer. Thus any postulation of future
reconciliation with antichrists is a philosophical act of
spiritual treason within the body of Christ amidst the current
age of spiritual warfare.)
- Every party identified in the New
Testament as a false apostle, prophet, teacher, brother or
antichrist is left in a state of unclosed enmity or under a
declaration of terminal condemnation as a child of the devil (seed
of the serpent) to be shunned and overcome—all oppositely to
salvation. (Mt. 7:15-23; 24:11-13, 23-26(Mk.13:21-23);
Lk. 6:26; Ac. 13:6-11; II Cor. 11:13-15,26;
Gal. 2:4-5→5:10,12;
Php. 3:2→18-19;
II Pt. 2:1-22; I Jn. 2:18-23→4:1-6;
II Jn. 7-11; Jude 4-19; Rev. 2:2,6,9,14-16(→19:21),
20-24; 3:9; 19:20→20:10)
(If
Jesus and the apostles believed and taught universal
reconciliation to their ordinary hearers, they would never have
spoken terminally about the fate of these false believers nor
otherwise would have left the church to believe permanently
irreconcilably ill of them.)
- The last state of a man can be
worse than his original state (Lk. 11:26; II Pt.
2:20). (There
is no state after the last. No length of time can alter the meaning
of “last.” Thus the possibility of a man suffering the worse for
having been born precludes the possibility of universal
reconciliation.)
- The last (thus terminal)
state of apostates, being subject to Second Death (Jude
12), is worse than their first sinful state (II Pt.
2:20-21), being a state of appointed cursed condemnation (I Pt.
2:8; II Pt. 2:6, 14) that pre-dates their existence (I
Pt. 2:8; II Pt 2:3) outside contemplation of
salvation (I Pt. 4:18) on a par with hunted beasts (II
Pt. 2:12) and fallen angels (II Pt. 2:4)—said angels
having no atonement (Heb. 2:16)—reserved only for black
darkness (II Pt. 2:17) and exemplified by the victims of
the Flood and of Sodom (II Pt. 2:5-6) as well as by the
individuals Cain, Balaam, Korah (Jude 11) and Judas (Mt.
26:24).
- False teachers are born to destruction
as animals similarly to Judas (II Pt. 2:3,12, 21-22/Jude
4; Mt. 26:24).
- False teachers who are covered by the
blood of Christ through provisional salvation are nevertheless
marked out for condemnation “long beforehand” (II Pt. 2:1;
Jude 3) and their natures are never changed by the blood (II Pt.
2:22). (If
the blood applied in the lifetime of false teachers is unable to
alter their pre-ordained condemnation and to change their nature,
and if the blood of Christ is the only means to salvation and if
salvation is opposed to condemnation (e.g., Jn. 3:17), then the
condemnation of false teachers through judgment to the Lake of Fire
can only be both permanent and non-remedial.))
§
The Existential Termination of the Wicked
- The existence of the wicked is terminally
ended according to the following descriptors: Job
4:9(ended);11:20; 20:5(perish in
perpetuity); 27:20-21(gone); Ps. 1:4(chaff);
9:3-6→17(memory
blotted out, perished, destroyed in perpetuity in hell); 36:12
(cannot rise); 37:9(cut off),10(be no more),
20(perish/vanish away), 28,34(cut off), 36(be no more / not to be
found), 38(cut off); 52:5(break down in
perpetuity/uprooted); 58:3-10; 59:13(be no more); 68:2(perish
as smoke); 73:17-20 (end is destruction/terror); 92:7,9
(destroyed / perish); 94:23; 104:35 (consumed / be
no more); 106:18 (consumed by flame); 119:119(removed as
dross); 145:20 (destroyed); Pr. 2:22
(cut off / uprooted); 5:22-23; 10:7(memory rots),
25(is no more); 11:3 (destroyed); 12:7 (be no more);
13:9 (lamp extinguished—see Is. 43:17; Ezk. 32:7→18); 14:11 (destroyed); 24:20
(no future / extinguished); Is. 1:28(ended);
17:14(are no more); 29:5(dust/chaff blown away),
20(ended/finished/cut off); 41:12(nothing / non-existent); 48:19(cut
off/destroyed from God),22(no peace); Jer. 9:16(annihilated);
Lam. 5:7(no more); Ezk.
28:18-19(incinerated); Nah. 1:12,14-15(name
cut off completely/pass away in death) Mt. 21:41(wretched
end),44(broken to dust); 22:7(destroyed); Lk.
19:27(slain); Php. 3:19(destruction);
II Th. 2:8(death).
- The wicked perishes in perpetuity like
his refuse (Job 20:7). (Refuse
/ dung is never restored to its original state, therefore neither
is the wicked.)
- The only opportunity of record God
extends to the wicked for repentance is in the terrestrial realm
ahead of their death (Is. 55:7; Ezk. 18:21,27;
33:11,14,19) and no record exists otherwise to show the wicked
receiving a redemptive end.
- Jesus came to fulfil the law and the
prophets, not to abrogate them (Mt. 5:17). (This
means the Lord came to fulfil, not abrogate all Old Covenant
prophecies of terminal destruction of the wicked, and therefore that
the grace of God does not extend otherwise to abrogate their
annihilation. Had the gospel of grace been meant to embrace an idea
of the eventual “posthumous salvation” of all the wicked, it would
have been incumbent on the apostles to directly explain their
contradiction of the Prophets against whose declarations of terminal
annihilation of the wicked their case for universal salvation
rested. Not a single apostle challenges any of the terminally
enmitous language expressed by the Old Testament prophets.)
- Those who sink to death by means of
adultery never return to life again (Pr. 2:18-19; cf. Rev.
21:8; 22:15 “pornos”). (Solomon
confirms not only that those who die in adultery can never return to
reconciled age-enduring life, but that therefore those cast into the
Lake of Fire as sexual perverts of any kind cannot return. The Lake
of Fire is terminal.)
- God destroys those who destroy the earth (Rev.
11:18). (The
acts of the earth’s destroyers are anti-redemptive, thus also then are
God’s acts of destruction upon the destroyers. Therefore to destroy
cannot mean to purge or to restore. The concept of destruction is
inescapably inherently anti-reconciliatory. Please see further PART
8 §
The Dynamics of Fire as Redemptive Refining and Non-Redemptive
Burning, Point 151.)
- God’s wrathful acts of judgment are acts of
anti-reconciliation upon the unreconciled (Rev. 6:16-17→9:18,20-21;
11:18; 16:9,11,21). (Men
are destroyed because they are unreconciled, not in order to reconcile
them. Thus God’s judgments upon the unreconciled are
anti-reconciliatory in disproof of universal reconciliation.)
§
The Book of Life and the Divine Terminal Forgetfulness of the Wicked
- To be blotted out of the book of life (Rev.
3:5) is to be never forgiven forward while expunged from all memory
in unending perpetuity among the living (Dt. 29:20 w/Ex.
32:32-33; Job 18:17; 24:20; Ps. 9:5; 34:16; 69:28;
88:5; 109:13-15; Pr. 10:7; Is. 14:20; 26:14; Jer.
18:23; Am. 8:7). First expressed toward the antediluvians (Gen.
6:7), to be blotted out of all memory is synonymous with terminal
destruction / extinction (Ex. 17:14; Dt. 25:19; Num.
24:20; I Sam. 15:3,18), including of the works of idolatry (Ezk.
6:6) and is oppositely commensurate with the terminal blotting out
of all memory of sin and its mournful effects ([Neh. 4:5]; Ps.
51:1,9; Is. 25:8; 43:25; 44:22; Ac. 3:19; Col.
2:14; Rev. 21:4) and with the remembering of the righteous
to time out of view (Ps. 112:6). (Thus
to be blotted out of the book of life is a co-extensively permanent
anti-reconciliatory action, contrary to the Universalist assertion
that God can add blotted out names back into the book.)
- The elect are written into the book of
Life before earth’s foundation (Rev. 13:8 cf. 17:8), all
others upon birth (Ex. 32:31-33; Ps. 69:27-28),
following which the names of all the others are blotted out at the
confession (Rev. 3:5 w/Lk. 12:9), and thereafter,
being no longer written therein, they are cast into the Lake of Fire
(Rev. 20:15). (As
all life is birthed in the flesh and in the spirit within the flesh
(Jn. 3:5-7), no record or means exists for being added to the book
of life through flesh birth a second time after death (cf. Jn.
3:4).)
- The “forgetting of the former things” in
the age(s) to come does not include or envision the reconciliation
of the damned, but includes also the forgetting of them predicated
on their accursedness (Is. 65:15-17).
- Terminal destruction is memorialized to
“all generations,” even to time out of view (Ps. 106:30-31;
136:10). (Thus
universal reconciliation is not possible unto “all generations.” In
this non-exceptional application of the word “all,” Christian
Universalism falls on its own sword. Because there are no
generations to come in which terminal destruction will not be
memorialized and there is no recorded cessation of the reproducing
of generations to come, there is therefore no such thing as
universal reconciliation.)
§
The Anti-Reconciliatory Position of Divine Love
- Divine love is characterized by militant
jealousy and anger, manifesting itself destructively wherever it must
in the defense of its own integrity based in holiness and
righteousness (S.S. 8:6 →
Ex. 20:5; Jn. 2:15-17), forming the basis of God’s
premier identity as a God of war (Lord of Hosts /Armies – 274x NASB).
(Therefore
universal reconciliation is antithetical to and expresses a false
caricature of divine love and the heart of God. It promotes a false
love (anti-love).)
