A Larger Hope?, Volume 2: Universal Salvation from the Reformation to the Nineteenth Century

by Ilaria Ramelli

God to be “all in all” requires that no evil be found in any creature:

Making us all one thing, so that we are no longer many, but all of us are one, made one with his divinity, . . . made perfect, not in a confusion of substances, reduced to one, but in the perfection of virtue brought to its apex” (Eusebius, Eccl. theol. 3.18). Note that the final unity is explicitly stated in non-pantheistic manner (“not in a confusion of substances”). It will also be marked as a resurrection of both body and soul, which is theosis.4

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We can summarize his theological points in the table below. Doctrine Calvinists Arminians Universal Baptists God loves all ☺ ☺ The objects of God’s love will come to salvation ☺ ☺ God desires to save all ☺ ☺ All God’s purposes will be accomplished ☺ ☺ Christ died for all ☺ ☺ All for whom Christ died will be saved (his blood was not shed in vain) ☺ ☺ We Universalist Baptists, he said, simply affirm beliefs that mainstream Protestants hold, so why are we considered heretical? As Winchester saw it, the problems generated within both the Calvinist and Arminian systems stem from the conviction of those on both sides of that divide that eternal hell is a nonnegotiable first principle, requiring them to sacrifice other doctrines to accommodate it. Universalism, he believed, has the strengths of both sides but the weaknesses of neither.

And in this way, setting aside the thoughts of others and simply reading the Bible, he found what he considered the solution to his problem—the union of Christ and his church. The notion of the union Christ and his church was not new. Indeed, it was a staple of New Testament and Reformed theology. Relly, however, took it to a new level and made it the key to his entire theological system. Jesus had been joined with his church in such a way that what was true of him was true of them, and what was true of them was true of him. He was the head and they were his body (Rom 12:5; 1 Cor 12:27; Eph 1:22–23); he was the vine and they were the branches (John 15).224 Because Christ and his church are, in the eyes of God, united as “one flesh” (Eph 5:29–32), he can be “made sin” for them (2 Cor 5:21), even though in himself he is personally sinless. By standing as the head of the human race he can rightly be punished on their behalf because, through his union with sinners, he is not an innocent bystander, but genuinely shares in their guilt. Thus, “[t]he Union and harmony of the Body, renders it equitable to punish, and chastise the whole Body, in one Member, for its offence in another: . . . As the Union of the body makes it equitable to punish the head for the offence of the other members; with like equity doth the members participate with the head in all its honours and glory.”225 Relly thus felt he had solved his core problem. When Christ dies for our sins, we die in him. And the ...

The second death, Chauncy argues, is as much an enemy to humanity as the first—both result from sin and both thwart the human hope of eternal life with God. Indeed, the second death is a better candidate for “the last enemy” that needs defeating (15:26), for the first death is over and done with by judgment day, while the second death only begins at that point. The Pauline logic that makes death an enemy requiring defeat, arguably makes the second death even more of an enemy that must be vanquished. Furthermore, in a similar theological extension of Paul’s logic, Chauncy argues that the kind of resurrection life Paul speaks of in the chapter is not a bare return to life, but an immortal, imperishable, glorious, spiritual life that comes through union with Christ. It is this life that constitutes the swallowing up of death in victory and until all share in it, death has not been fully vanquished. This, thinks Chauncy, is where Paul’s ideas inexorably lead. Even if Paul did not think through the implications of his teachings here, and Chauncy’s comments “go beyond” what Paul says, perhaps we may still think his insights valid.

145). Ballou also makes some positive arguments against eternal hell. For instance, Ballou’s view is that misery is parasitic upon sin. If sin ceased to exist, then misery would cease to exist. So, for God to perpetuate sorrow and pain for eternity in hell would require him not to defeat sin, but to perpetuate it for eternity by having people sin endlessly. Such a view, he says, is absurd.