Universal Reconciliation: A brief selection of Pertinent Quotations

by Michael R. Phillips

religious “evi...

In such, the nature of fire (refinement and purification), and the disciplinary progression so evident throughout the entire Word of God (destruction and correction leading to restoration), paves the way for a triumphant and complete picture of God’s ultimate victory.

a prophetic view of evil being, not merely punished, but destroyed by the fire of purification. Malachi calls it “the day of the Lord’s coming.”

The hell which New Testament writers attempted to explain was none other than the furnace of fire prophesied by Malachi—a furnace of cleansing and purification for all people, not retribution toward sinners or enemies.

Note that the nature of the fire is to purify, chasten, and cleanse, so that death and evil can be destroyed, out of which progression ultimately might emerge a perfect and complete worship of God by all his creation, forever.

pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”

doctrines based on a single verse of Scripture are inherently suspect.

Now while it is not true that the doctrine of eternal punitive hell is built exclusively upon Matthew 25:46, one must wonder how much support that view would have gained over the centuries had the mistranslation of that single key verse not become its central foundation stone, and had the Church instead more vigorously sought to grasp the implications of John 12:32.

the traditional orthodoxy of hell does not have a particularly strong or wide scriptural foundation, and rests upon but a handful of verses.

II Thess. 1:8-9 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power . . .

Psalm 139:8 . . . if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

Lamentations 3:31 For men are not cast off by the Lord forever.

Ezekiel 18:23 Have I any desire, says the Lord, for the death of a wicked man?

Joel 2:28 I will pour out my ...

John 1:7 He came . . . that through him all men might believe.

John 12:32 But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.

1 Cor. 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

Ephesians 1:9-10 He has made known to us his hidden purpose . . . that the universe, all in heaven and earth, might be brought into a unity in Christ.

2 Peter 3:9 . . . it is not his will for any to be lost, but for all to come to repentance.

just as a vessel, when on being fashioned it has some flaw, is remoulded or re-made, that it may become new and entire; so also it happens to man by death.

Therefore He indeed saves all universally; but some are converted by punishments, others by voluntary submission, thus obtaining the honour and dignity, that “to Him every knee shall bow, of things in heaven,

and things in earth, and things under the earth,” that is angels, and men, and souls who departed this life before His coming into the world. 11 . . . He punishes for their good those who are punished, whether collectively or individually.

so that the faithful and perfect may keep their perceptions of it as one of God’s secrets in silence among themselves, and not divulge it everywhere to the imperfect and those less capable of receiving it.

Gregory of Nazianzus (330-389)—(In Oracles 39:19): These, if they will, may go our way, which indeed is Christ’s; but if not, let them go their own way. In another place perhaps they shall be baptized with fire, that last baptism, which is not only very painful, but enduring also; which eats up, as if it were hay, all defiled matter, and consumes all vanity and vice. 16

that having tasted the evil which he desired, and learning by experience for what wretchedness he had bartered away the blessings he had, he might of his own will hasten back with desire to the first blessedness . . . either being purged in this life through prayer and discipline, or after his departure hence through the furnace of cleansing fire. 18

There is unavoidable pain attending the removal of intruding sin. If this sin is not cured here, it is postponed to a future life. God’s future judgment is the cure for the disease.

this in pity and with a design to heal .

All God’s enemies shall perish, not that they cease to exist, but cease to be enemies . . .

Theodoret of Antioch (393-458)—He shows here the reason for punishment; for the Lord, the lover of men, torments us only to cure us, that He may put a stop to the course of our iniquity. 25

God forbid that I should limit the time of acquiring faith to the present life. In the depth of the Divine mercy there may be opportunity to win it in the futureJohann

All punishments are means of purification, ordained by divine love to purge rational beings from moral evil, and to restore them back to that communion with God which corresponds to their nature.

Ethelbert Stauffer (New Testament Theology)—(Writing on the early church): The primitive church never gave up the hope that in His will to save, the All-Merciful and All-Powerful God would overcome even the final “no” of the self-sufficient world.

Origen believed the souls of all that God created would some day return to rest in the bosom of the Father. Those who rejected the gospel now would go to hell to experience a purifying fire which would cleanse even the wicked. 29

the doctrine of Universal Restitution was held by many who in their public teaching distinctly asserted endless punishment.

After Augustine’s time, partly though his great authority, but even more in consequence of the general ignorance both of Greek and Hebrew, which for centuries prevailed in the Western Church, and which kept men from reading the Scriptures in the original languages, the doctrine of Universal Restoration was well-nigh silenced in the West until the revival of learning in the 16th century.

John Scotus Erigena

Puritans, Jeremiah White and Peter Sterry,—

Richard Clarke, William Law,

William Barclay

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He was not one who put on airs or sought to impress. Humility was his natural garb. He wrote simply and straightforwardly, always attempting to make the Scriptures alive and practical.

For Barclay, universalism was not a career issue. In a long public life that saw the publication of more than fifty books, including commentaries on every book of the New Testament, nowhere else that I am aware of did he make it a point to raise this belief. He seemed aware of the divisive nature of the controversy and was unwilling to fan its flames.

William Barclay, A Spiritual Autobiography.

I am a convinced universalist.

Origen believed that after death there were many who would need prolonged instruction, the sternest discipline, even the severest punishment before they were fit for the presence of God.

go to heaven via hell.

And so the choice is whether we accept God’s offer and invitation willingly, or take the long and terrible way round through ages of purification.

First, he believed in it because of the character of God. ‘Being good, God entertains pity for fallen man; being wise, he is not ignorant of the means for his recovery.’

he believed in it because of the nature of evil.

‘so that the absolutely non-existent should ceas...