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“For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.” – Romans 11:32

Paul tells us that God locks all of us up in unbelief, meaning we fail to believe the Gospel because God made sure we would all start out as unbelievers. But why did He do this? Simply so that He can show mercy to the same “all” that He first locked up in unbelief.

But doesn’t that mercy require us to do something ourselves to earn it, even if that something is as simple as having to choose to “repent” and “accept Christ as our saviour”? Christians sure seem to think so. But what does Paul say is the reason he was shown mercy? Well, he tells us:

“And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry; Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.” – 1 Timothy 1:12-13

So why was Paul shown mercy? Because he decided it was time to finally do the right thing or believe the right thing? No, he said it was because he committed all of those sins in ignorance and unbelief, the same unbelief that God first locked him (and all of us) up in to begin with. It wasn’t because he chose to “repent” and believe that God would then show him mercy if he did so, but rather because he “did it ignorantly in unbelief.” So the only thing required to be shown mercy is to first be locked up in unbelief.

But could that only apply to Paul? Maybe we have to receive our mercy another way. Does Paul tell us the way we’ll receive that mercy ourselves? Why, yes, he does:

“And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.” – 1 Timothy 1:14-16

Paul was shown mercy when the glorified Christ knocked him off his horse on the road to Damascus, and the way he was shown mercy is the pattern all of us who come to believe on Christ for “life everlasting” will also be shown mercy in. (It’s important to keep in mind that ”life everlasting” is a figurative term that simply refers to experiencing salvation early, before everyone else does.) We don’t earn that mercy through first deciding to shape up and fly right. Those of us whom God has elected for membership in the body of Christ and for “life everlasting” are simply knocked off of our high horses (meaning we are shown just how incapable we are of earning that mercy), and the truth of God’s mercy is then revealed to us.

Of course, it’s true that the passage in 1 Timothy is talking about members of the body of Christ in particular, but the passage in Romans 11 that I opened with still remains true: God is still going to show this same mercy to the same “all” He first locked up in unbelief, even if everyone else won’t experience it until the end of the ages (as Paul promised elsewhere that they would).

The Toronto street preachers I’ve written about somewhat frequently in recent times have given me a number of excellent examples of how so many Christians completely misunderstand what Scripture says about so many topics, and death is yet another topic that most of them miss the mark on.

If you listen to a “gospel” sermon or presentation by a Christian, odds are you’re going to hear something along the lines of, “When your heart stops beating, you won’t actually die — instead, you’ll pass on to the next stage of your life, the place where you’ll spend the rest of eternity, and the location you’ll end up in forever depends on whether or not you choose to accept Christ before you pass on to that final destination,” and the street preachers here in Toronto are no different when it comes to this message of supposed good news.

Of course, such statements completely ignore the fact that the final judgement takes place in this physical universe after one has been resurrected into a physical body on earth, not in an ethereal afterlife dimension where people will be judged as ghosts, and that the location everyone ends up in is also here in this physical universe (which means that one’s death can’t bring them to their final destination; even a member of the body of Christ who has died will be resurrected into this universe in a living, physical — albeit glorified and immortal — body rather than end up spending eternity in some ghost world or higher dimension or wherever it is most Christians believe dead believers go), but we’ll forget about that minor point for the time being because the rest of this post should make it clear just how wrong that idea is anyway, and just how satanic their statement actually is. You see, in making such a statement, they’ve essentially repeated and promoted the first lie recorded in Scripture: the lie of the serpent, which was, “Ye shall not surely die.”

Of course, a Christian who reads this will immediately start thinking of loopholes to make their assertion that “you won’t actually die” not mean the same thing as the serpent’s statement that “ye shall not surely die,” such as reinterpreting the phrase to mean they’d die spiritually (whatever that means), but no matter how they try to make this statement not mean what the serpent said, it still comes down to the same thing in the end.

What God was actually warning Adam about there, though, was that he would become mortal and eventually physically die if he ate the fruit, and the serpent was just denying that claim. But because of their desire to hold on to certain other doctrines (such as the concept of the immortality of the soul, for example, as well as the Augustinian idea of “Original Sin”), most Christians ignore the fact that the KJV translates this as an idiom which simply meant that Adam would gain mortality leading to physical death.

Remember, Adam didn’t actually drop dead the day he ate the fruit, so we know that God didn’t mean He’d definitely physically die that day, as the KJV seems to imply he should have if we were to read it literally, which means we have to figure out what God did mean by His warning. Now, I’ve already told you what it is I believe He meant (that Adam would become mortal and eventually physically die), but let’s break down some of the other interpretations that Christians like to use when they try to make sense of the fact that Adam continued living for many more centuries after he first sinned, in order to see if any of them make any sense at all.

As I already mentioned, the first thing they try to do is redefine the word “death” into meaning something other than physical death in the first few chapters of Genesis, by claiming that Adam “died spiritually” when he ate the fruit. Of course, there’s no such phrase as “died spiritually” anywhere in Scripture at all, nor does the concept of a spiritual death exist anywhere in Scripture either, so we have to ask them what they mean by that phrase.

In fact, I did just that with one of the street preachers a couple weeks back, and he first tried to argue that it means to be separated from God (he did this after I pointed out that it can’t literally mean our spirits actually die, since our bodies would immediately die too if our spirits could die  — our spirits being what give our bodies life to begin with — so spirits can’t actually die without killing the body they’re in as well). Of course, I then had to explain that it’s impossible to be separated from God, because “in Him we live, and move, and have our being,” as Paul put it, quoting the Athenian poets, so to be separated from God would mean to cease to exist if it were even possible at all (which it’s not). It would also mean that we could be outside of God, which would mean that there’s a universe “bigger” than God that something or someone else could exist alongside God within, and something “bigger” than God would make that thing itself God (or at least its creator would be the true Almighty God), so it can’t mean that. (I use quotation marks there to make it clear that I’m not talking simple Euclidean geometry when I refer to something being potentially “bigger” than God.)

Those points made him realize it couldn’t mean that, so he then decided that it must actually be a reference to the second death in the lake of fire, but he quickly realized it couldn’t mean that either when I pointed out that Adam didn’t end up in the lake of fire that day, and can’t even be in it today because nobody has been cast into it yet, since nobody will end up there until at least after Jesus returns. I also pointed out that anyone in the lake of fire would have to physically die a second time because nobody who will be cast into that location will have been made immortal yet, so there can’t be any connection to the lake of fire in this concept either.

He finally landed on it simply being a metaphor for no longer being spiritually in tune with God or becoming an enemy of God or something else along those lines, but that just brought up other problems. Because, let’s say the warning actually was just a metaphor or some other figure of speech for not being at peace with God or being enemies with Him or something like that: if that’s all it meant, that brings up the question of why Adam began dying that day, and why we ourselves die physically as well. If God’s warning wasn’t about physical death, but was simply a metaphor for “falling out of sync with Him” or something similar to that, to also make Adam (and us) mortal would have been an additional consequence on top of the one He did warn Adam about (the figurative “death” that most Christians claim He was actually talking about).

When I brought these points to the attention of the street preacher, he quickly claimed that we die because we sin, and that Adam died because he sinned, but aside from the fact that this isn’t what God warned Adam about if the warning was simply a metaphor, as I just explained, it also ignores what the rest of Scripture teaches about death and sin (it also raises the question of why Satan and his angels aren’t mortal). He tried to bring up the idea of the wages of sin being death, but I explained that the idea of our mortality being because we sin doesn’t make sense anyway, because otherwise newborn babies who haven’t sinned yet could never die, and it would be literally impossible to perform an abortion (especially if a fetus is a person, as he certainly believed). I also pointed out that Paul wrote, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that reason all have sinned” (the word “reason” is in italics because the word isn’t in the original text, but the interpretation that we sin because we’re mortal/dying rather than we die because we sin is the only one that makes sense when we take everything else I wrote above into consideration).

After I explained all that, he had to back down from that idea too, and at that point he had to admit that he didn’t have any answers to refute my points (which is extremely rare for a street preacher to do, so I commend him for that admission). At that point, I simply gave him a card with a link to my website, and hopefully he’ll read it and learn the truth about death. As for the rest of you in the meantime, the fact of the matter is, because Adam sinned, he became mortal, and he passed that mortality on to his descendants (you and me), and for that reason, we all sin (because, even though we can avoid sin some of the time, due to our mortality we’re not strong enough to avoid sinning all of the time). But, even though as in Adam all die (all are mortal), even so in Christ shall all be made alive (made immortal), and when that happens, we’ll all also become sinless since we’ll no longer be in a state of slowly dying.

I was listening to the Toronto street preachers again yesterday afternoon, and as usual their messages would often get dangerously close to the truth right before they’d once again swerve and miss the mark entirely when it comes to what Scripture actually teaches about heaven, hell, sin, and salvation, but there’s one assertion in particular that I wanted to focus on in this post. This isn’t an exact quote, but one of them liked to say something along the lines of, “Jesus died to pay the price for our sins, but if we don’t accept His payment, we’ll have to pay the price ourselves, because the price will be paid either way.” (Paying the price by suffering forever in the lake of fire is, of course, what he was talking about.)

This is a common idea among Christians, but if we’re going to use payment analogies, it’s pretty obvious where he went wrong there (although, for the sake of those like the preacher himself who can’t see it, I’ll continue). A far better comparison to how salvation works, one which lines up closer with what Scripture actually says about the topic (at least as far as salvation under Paul’s Gospel goes), is that you were in debt and about to end up homeless because you couldn’t complete your mortgage when the bank president’s son came along and paid the outstanding balance for you. This is like salvation from an absolute perspective in Scripture (remember, the word “salvation” means different things in different parts of Scripture, and isn’t always referring to the same type or stage of salvation each time the word is used), and is something that occurred entirely out of your control. Now, you can believe it’s been paid or you can refuse to believe it, but either way, the bank isn’t going to send the sheriff to kick you out of your house if you don’t either also pay them on top of what the bank president’s son already paid or at least choose to believe that the mortgage has been paid. The bank won’t double-charge, and neither will God (Christ already “paid the mortgage,” so to speak, and God doesn’t need two payments, or even the faith that the payment has been made, to be satisfied, since it was Christ’s death for our sins that satisfied Him just like it was the president’s son’s payment of the mortgage that satisfied the bank), and if you happen to believe the Good News that your mortgage has been paid, this is like salvation from a relative perspective in Scripture. Now you can, of course, desperately continue trying to earn enough money in the hopes that you can pay the bank off before the sheriff drags you out into the street (as the religious do when it comes to our salvation), but there’s no reason to do so since your lack of belief in the truth doesn’t change the facts that the mortgage has already been paid and that the sheriff will never be called. Those who do believe the Good News about their mortgage get the added benefit of living with the peace of mind that they aren’t going to be evicted, but even if you don’t believe the truth of this Good News, in the end, you’re still going to remain living in the house, and likewise, everyone will eventually experience immortality and sinlessness, because Christ dealt with all of our mortality, death, and sin (which is what salvation is actually from) through His death for our sins, and His subsequent burial and resurrection.

I hope that the above made it abundantly clear where Christians go wrong when it comes to the idea of having to pay for our own sins if we don’t accept that Jesus already “paid for them,” so to speak. To double-charge for something just because the person receiving it doesn’t believe it’s already been paid for would be extremely dishonest, and the idea that God would be so unethical that He would not only charge twice (since Christ already “paid the price” through the cross, any additional payment by us would be a second payment), but that He would then also add on an even higher price on top of the actual price that’s already been paid for those who don’t believe our sin has already been paid for (referring to the torment in the lake of fire that most Christians believe we have to suffer in forever as payment for our sins if we don’t believe that Christ’s cross was the actual payment already made, which is something that Jesus didn’t even have to suffer a few seconds in, much less forever in, because the “payment” for our sins was actually simply His death), makes God out to be not only a liar but also something far worse.

Of course, it is understandable that most Christian do believe this, because while what I just wrote is all true, it’s also true that Scripture seems to say not everyone will be saved. The key to understanding this is found in the fact that, again, “salvation” doesn’t always mean the same thing every time the word is used in Scripture, and there are indeed types of salvation that not everyone will get to enjoy. But those who miss out on the “special” salvation Paul wrote about, or even the salvation Jesus spoke about when He walked the earth, will still get to experience the ultimate salvation that Christ won through His cross. And so, by the end of the ages, we’ll all get to live in our heavenly house not made by hands, because the mortgage for that home has already been paid, once, and for all.

“So you’re saying I can be saved without having to do anything myself?” the bystander asked the street preacher. “There isn’t anything we have to contribute to our salvation? We don’t even have to choose to be baptized in water and we can still be saved?”

“That’s right,” the street preacher replied. “As He died on the cross, Jesus cried out, ‘It is finished.’ He died for all of our sins, those past, present, and future. He didn’t say, ‘I did my part, the 99%, which was the only part I could do, but now you must go do your part, the last 1%, which is necessary to complete salvation for yourself.’ No, He didn’t say that, because that would be salvation by works rather than by grace. There’s absolutely nothing you can do to help save yourself, because Christ already took care of it Himself. Now, all you have to do is choose to believe the Good News about what He accomplished and you’ll be saved.”

“That’s just too easy,” the religious man said. “If you don’t do your part as well, you can’t be saved. You can’t just expect God to save you without having to do something yourself.” He shook his head and walked away, proud of the fact that he knew what it actually was one needed to do in order to complete their salvation, since it was at least required that one choose to be baptized, because He knew that what Christ did just wasn’t enough on its own.

The street preacher watched him walk away, saddened that the man was so religious that he was forced to reject the Gospel of grace, and that he would apparently miss out on heaven because he just couldn’t accept that there wasn’t anything he could do to help save himself, and that he thought he had to add the act of choosing to be baptized to what Christ accomplished in order to be saved.

He turned around to go home himself, but I’d been standing there listening to their conversation and, before he could leave, I said to him, “you were right to tell him he couldn’t contribute to his own salvation, but you then contradicted yourself. You said there was nothing he could do to help save himself, but then you told him that he had to do something to help save himself. You said he had to choose to have faith in what Christ accomplished in order to be saved. Which means that you’re basing his salvation on his good choice to believe in what Christ did rather than simply basing his salvation on what Christ did. If it’s based on what Christ did, you don’t have to add anything to it, not even a choice to believe this Good News.”

“So you’re saying I can be saved without having to do anything myself?” the street preacher asked me. “There isn’t anything we have to contribute to our salvation? We don’t even have to choose to believe the Gospel and we can still be saved?”

“That’s right,” I replied. “As He died on the cross, Jesus cried out, ‘It is finished.’ He died for all of our sins, those past, present, and future. He didn’t say, ‘I did my part, the 99%, which was the only part I could do, but now you must go do your part, the last 1%, which is necessary to complete salvation for yourself.’ No, He didn’t say that, because that would be salvation by works rather than by grace. There’s absolutely nothing you can do to help save yourself, because Christ already took care of it Himself. Now, whether you choose to believe the Good News about what He accomplished or not, you’ll be saved.”

“That’s just too easy,” the religious preacher said. “If you don’t do your part as well, you can’t be saved. You can’t just expect God to save you without having to do something yourself.” He shook his head and walked away, proud of the fact that he knew what it actually was one needed to do in order to complete their salvation, since it was at least required that one choose to believe the right thing, because He knew that what Christ did just wasn’t enough on its own.

I watched him walk away, saddened that the street preacher was so religious that he was forced to reject the Gospel of grace, and that he would apparently miss out on heaven because he just couldn’t accept that there wasn’t anything he could do to help save himself, and that he thought he had to add the act of choosing to believe to what Christ accomplished in order to be saved.

Postscript: I should point out that believing the Gospel, or having faith, is not a work itself, but having to choose to have faith is probably the most difficult work one could possibly do (and I’m pretty sure it’s not even possible to do on one’s own). Thankfully, missing out on heaven doesn’t mean one isn’t saved, since salvation has nothing to do with going to heaven (that’s just a side benefit for those who happen to believe the Good News of the already existing salvation that God promised to give all humanity thanks to what Christ accomplished), but is instead about our eventual immortality and sinlessness. And if you’re wondering where I believe faith comes into play as far as our salvation goes, please read this for a full explanation of what salvation is actually all about.

There are many good reasons to reject the commonly accepted Christian teaching known as Infernalism (the soteriological position that those who die without first becoming Christians will suffer without end in a place called the lake of fire), and over the years I’ve written about a number of them on this site, but one very good reason to reject it (at least for those who read Scripture literally) is what the Bible teaches about immortality.

Most people assume that salvation is about avoiding never-ending torment in the lake of fire after we die, and going to a place called “heaven” after we die instead. That’s not what salvation is about at all, however, or even close to what Scripture teaches (while missing out on the lake of fire is a benefit some people gain from a certain type of salvation, it’s not what salvation from an absolute perspective actually refers to in Scripture).

As I’ve discussed previously, Scripture teaches that salvation comes in different types and stages throughout our existence (simply put, the word “salvation” doesn’t always mean the same thing in every passage of Scripture, and while not everyone experiences every type or stage of salvation, all humans do experience both the first and the final stages of it), and the final stage of salvation — eschatological salvation — is the physical experience of the salvation that already exists because of what Christ accomplished, also known as our quickening.

“Quickening” (or “to be quickened”) simply means “to be made immortal” (or “to be brought beyond the reach of death”), which happens for those of us in the body of Christ at the time we ascend into heaven, after we’ve been physically resurrected into still very physical human bodies in this same physical universe we currently reside in (presuming we’ve died before the Rapture occurs, of course; those people in the body of Christ who haven’t died when this occurs will simply be quickened and caught up to heaven without dying).

Contrary to popular opinion, those of us in the body of Christ don’t go to heaven after we die (at least not prior to being resurrected and quickened), because heaven is not a place the dead can go (not in a conscious state, anyway; technically, yes, dead bodies can go there, but they don’t remain there very long, and they don’t know they’re there). Instead, Scripture makes it clear that heaven exists here in the same physical universe and three dimensions that the earth exists in.

Now, yes, it is true that those of us who get the special salvation on top of the ontological salvation that Christ won for all of us through His death for our sins and His subsequent burial and resurrection will indeed go live in heaven, but that won’t happen until after the dead in Christ have been resurrected into physical, living, human bodies that are now immortal, and after the rest of the members of the body of Christ who are still living at that time have been quickened as well. It isn’t said that we shall “ever be with the Lord” until the Rapture occurs (if we actually went to heaven right after we died, it would be said that we shall “ever be with the Lord” from the point of our death instead).

In fact, part of the reason Paul wrote the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians was to explain that resurrection isn’t simply a figurative reference to some “spiritual,” ethereal existence for ghosts, but rather that Christ was — and those of us who die will be — physically resurrected as human beings in living human bodies here in this same physical universe you’re currently reading this post in, and he goes on to explain that “this mortal must put on immortality” at some point, meaning our physical human bodies will also eventually be quickened (although each in their own order). This is referring to our physical human bodies (some of which have never died, and some belonging to those who have been resurrected from the dead) being transformed into glorified bodies so that they can never die again, at which point one can say they’ve finally experienced salvation physically (or eschatologically), and not just ontologically and/or noologically.

Simply put, when it comes to humans, immortality is connected entirely with salvation, and is always considered to be a blessing and never a curse (and is ultimately connected to Christ’s destruction of death). When a human has been made immortal, they have reached the final stage of their salvation. And this fact is a very definitive proof that nobody can suffer forever in the lake of fire.

But how can I say that? Doesn’t Scripture teach that dead non-Christians will be cast into the lake of fire to suffer forever and ever? Well, no, it actually doesn’t say anything of the sort. First of all, no humans are cast into the lake of fire until after they’ve been physically resurrected for the Great White Throne Judgement (“the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished,” as John wrote, at which point they’ll be resurrected so they can be judged). This isn’t a judgement of ghosts in some ethereal afterlife realm; it takes place in our physical universe, and it’s biological, mortal, human beings who have been resurrected to be judged. Why do I say they’re mortal? Well, we know they aren’t resurrected to immortality because immortality is a result of experiencing the final stage of salvation, and if they’ve reached that point, they definitely aren’t going to be hurt by the lake of fire, which means that anyone who is cast into the lake of fire after this judgement has not been made immortal yet. And what happens to biological, mortal, human beings who are set on fire? They simply burn up and die (this is why the lake of fire is referred to as the second death, by the way, because it’s where certain mortal humans will die a second time). And there’s nothing in the text to indicate that God will keep resurrecting them over and over again each time they die (which would mean the lake of fire isn’t just the second death, but also the third and four and fifth deaths, and so-on-and-so-forth), so there’s no basis for the idea that anyone will suffer forever in the lake of fire. At most, if one wants to argue that the lake of fire is the final word on the matter for non-Christians, all they can argue is for Annihilationism, but what you’ve just read should make it obvious that Infernalism is an untenable doctrine. (Although those of us in the body of Christ are aware of the fact that Paul saw farther into the future than John did, and foresaw a time when even those in the lake of fire would be resurrected again — this time to immortality — but that’s a whole other discussion.)

Of course, there’s also nothing in the text to indicate that any human will be conscious in the lake of fire anyway. Only the beast, the false prophet, and the devil are said to be conscious in the lake of fire, and they can be conscious because they’re spiritual beings who are not mortal like we humans are prior to our quickening (the beast and false prophet in this verse would have to refer to beings who possess mortal humans who will die at the time Jesus returns to the earth, those mortal humans being two men who are also given those figurative titles during the Tribulation). Yes, there are a number of passages in other parts of Scripture which seem to indicate that people might suffer some sort of conscious punishment in the future, but these passages must be interpreted in light of the above facts you’ve just read, which means that they have to be referring to forms of judgement other than what most Christians have commonly assumed they’re talking about (I explain in this article what they’re referring to, if you are curious).

I know all that was probably new for many people reading this, so let’s break it down in a point-by-point recap:

• Human immortality is connected with salvation (only those humans who are finally experiencing salvation physically are made immortal).
• Those who are resurrected for the Great White Throne Judgement haven’t been saved (relatively speaking), so they are raised as biological, mortal humans.
• Biological, mortal humans who are set on fire burn up and die.
• Hence, no human can suffer in the lake of fire any longer than it takes to burn up and die.

Most evangelical Christians claim that the salvation equation is:

Jesus + nothing = everything
Jesus + sinner’s contribution = nothing

However, if you pay close attention to what they’re actually teaching, it becomes clear that what they actually believe is:

Jesus + nothing = nothing
Jesus + sinner’s contribution = everything

Now, the sinner’s contribution can be anything from praying “the Sinner’s Prayer” to getting baptized in water to confessing with their mouth that “Jesus is Lord,” or it can be something as simple as choosing to believe the Gospel or choosing to have faith in Christ or choosing to “accept the gift of salvation” (whatever that means to them). It really doesn’t matter what you believe their required contribution is, though, because having to do something in order to be saved turns salvation into a transaction between themselves and God, which ultimately makes it salvation by works — even if it’s seemingly as small a work as having to make the right choice — as well as salvation by self (or at least partly salvation by self). If one can’t be saved without having to do something, even if that something is just having to choose to believe the right thing, it’s still something (a contribution to their own salvation on top of what Jesus accomplished) that is required to be done by the sinner in order to be saved. And if there’s something the sinner has to do in order to be saved, it certainly isn’t “Jesus + nothing = everything” since one can hardly call having to choose to believe the right thing “nothing” (if it actually were nothing, we wouldn’t have to do anything).

The truth is, Christians don’t preach the solution to sin, because they don’t realize that sin has already been solved. They think sin is still a problem that each individual has to make sure they get solved before their own death occurs, not realizing that the solution was already implemented and completed some 2,000 years ago, and that sin and death are now both guaranteed to be taken care of for everyone because Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day. The fact of the matter is, for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive (made immortal), but each in their own order: First the body of Christ, at the Rapture. Then the members of the Israel of God who are resurrected at the Resurrection of the Just, 75 days after Jesus returns to the earth. And finally everyone else, at the end of the ages, when He destroys death entirely (and for death to be destroyed, there can’t be anyone remaining dead, not even those who died a second time in the lake of fire).

As Martin Zender put it in the description for his MZTV 738 video, entitled Sinner’s Prayer Nightmare:

To keep sinners needing them, the Christian religion keeps its penitents bogged down in the problem of sin and death. Being the self-appointed dispensers of “what it takes” to get on God’s side and stay there, evil Christian leaders — few of whom actually believe they are evil — withhold the GOD-APPOINTED solution to sin and death, which is the death, entombment, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Few of these so-called “good-newsers” withhold the solution on purpose, as few even realize the solution themselves.

Standard Christian “evangelists” camp on the condemnation side of Romans (chapters 1:8-3:20), never venturing forth into Romans 3:21 through the end of chapter 8. Why? Because these consequential chapters negate human effort while extolling the virtues of Christ. The negation of human effort is the death knell to those PRESCRIBING human effort. Those making their living holding narrow hoops through which “heaven hopefuls” must jump, cannot even imagine a scenario in which Christ does EVERYTHING.

Of course, any evangelical Christian reading this is already thinking of all sorts of Bible verses that talk about salvation at least requiring faith, and the various passages that also tell us that not everyone will be saved. And they’re absolutely right to do so, because there are passages that teach all those things. That doesn’t mean that what I wrote above, and what Martin taught in his video, isn’t also true, however. It just means that salvation can mean different things, depending on the passage one reads about it in, and that there are certain types of salvation which people without faith will not enjoy (the “specially” salvation that Paul refers to, for example, which is a special salvation on top of the salvation God gives everyone). But the salvation which God gives us because of what Christ won through His cross? That’s a promise, and it applies to everyone equally. So when we preach the Gospel, we need to remember that it’s a proclamation of Good News, not a proposition that it can be good news if only we happen to choose to do the right thing (by choosing to believe the right thing).

“For as in poverty all the members of the family hunger, even so in inheritance shall all the members of the family be filled.”

Even before I get to the scriptural reason I wrote the above statement, I trust you can see that these aren’t two options the family in question has to choose between. These are simply two equally true statements, both of which apply to the same group of people at different points in time. Simply put, this is what’s known as a parallelism, and the people in the first clause of the parallelism (all the members of the family) are the exact same set of people in the second clause, just experiencing two different reactions (hunger and lack of hunger) due to two different factors (poverty and inherited wealth) that were both equally imposed upon them, with no say in the matter on their part, at two different periods of time in their lives (one being the present and one being the future).

A parallelism like this can also be expressed somewhat mathematically: “For as in a, x hunger, even so in z, shall x be filled.” The set known as “x” is the exact same group of people in both clauses (with “a” and “z” being two different reasons for their two different states at two different times), not two separate groups of people who have to choose between poverty and inheritance. The family (“x”) begins hungry “through poverty” or “because of poverty” (“in a”) rather than because of any financial choice of their own, and they will also eventually be filled with food “through inheritance” or “because of inheritance” (“in z”) rather than because of any financial choice of their own. The words “for as“ and “even so” tell us this is a parallelism, and because this is a parallelism it means that the variables on either side of the phrase “even so” have to be equal to one another, and so the x on either side of ”even so” has to consist of the exact same number of people.

It’s equally important to notice that the above statement doesn’t say, “For as all the members of the family in poverty hunger, even so shall all the members of the family in inheritance be filled” (or, to put it mathematically, it doesn’t say, “For as x in a hunger, even so shall y in z be filled” — with x being the family members “in poverty” and y being another set of family members who are “in inheritance” in this version of the example). Neither does it say, “For as all the members of the family in poverty hunger, even so shall all the members of the family who choose to have an inheritance be filled,” I should note. No choice is implied here at all; rather, two sets of chronological experiences by the same group of people are spoken of.

And so I trust it’s now clear to everyone reading this that the parallelism is simply telling us: even as, because they have little money right now, the members of this family are all hungry, it’s equally true that, because of a promised inheritance, the same members of this family will all eventually never go hungry again for the rest of their lives. It should be equally clear that it isn’t saying that only the family members in poverty are going hungry while only the family members who will inherit money no longer will be, but rather that every member of this family both began with and will end with the exact same experience as every other member of said family.

But what does this have to do with Scripture, or with being “in Christ”? Well, there’s a similar parallelism (actually, there are a number of them, but I’m going to cover just one here) in Scripture that says: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” – 1 Corinthians 15:22

Of course, those of us in the body of Christ are already quite familiar with this passage, since it’s one of the verses that helped lead us to understand what Paul’s Gospel actually means, and so we know it’s telling us: just as it’s true that, because of what Adam did, all humans are mortal, it’s equally true that, because of what Christ did, all humans will eventually be made immortal. (To be “made alive” simply means to be made immortal, or to be brought beyond the reach of death, and should never be confused with simple resurrection; note that not everyone will actually die, although it’s also true that most people will have to first be resurrected before they can be made immortal since relatively few people will still be alive right before their quickening — “to be quickened” simply means ”to be made immortal,” by the way — and this fact has caused Christians throughout history to often confuse the meaning of this verse, but simply being resurrected is no guarantee that one will be quickened at that point, as the general resurrection prior to the Great White Throne Judgement should make obvious.)

While those of us in the body of Christ are well aware of the above truths, most Christians who read this verse are instead forced to interpret it as saying there are two separate groups of people being referred to here, those who are “in Adam” and those who are “in Christ,” and that only those who are “in Christ” will be saved (and that those who are “in Adam” won’t be), and because of this they have to read the verse as instead saying, “For as in Adam all die, even so shall all in Christ be made alive.”

You see, Paul’s parallelism here can also be expressed mathematically, the exact same way the example I gave above can be: “For as in a, x die, even so in z, shall x be made alive.” (For reference, see again my first mathematical example: “For as in a, x hunger, even so in z, shall x be filled.”) Just like in my example parallelism, the set known as “x” is the exact same group of people in both clauses (with “a” and “z” again being two different reasons for their two respective states at two different periods of time), not two separate groups of people who have to choose between Adam and Christ. In fact, since this is a parallelism, and because we know that nobody chose to be mortal “in Adam” but rather that we were all simply born that way, this also tells us that “even so” nobody can choose to be “in Christ” in this particular verse either. “All” (“x”) became mortal “through Adam” or “because of what Adam did” (“in a”) rather than because of any choice of their own (our mortality precedes any sin of our own, and is in fact the reason we sin), and they will eventually become immortal “through Christ” or “because of what Christ did” (“in z”) rather than because of any choice of their own.

So why do Christians get confused by this verse? It’s due to a combination of the fact that they’ve misunderstood the various passages in Scripture about judgement and hell — and are interpreting this and other Pauline passages about salvation in light of their misunderstandings of those judgement passages rather than interpreting those particular passages in light of this and other Pauline passages about salvation — along with the fact that this verse says “in Adam” and “in Christ” rather than “through” or “because of” them. These factors lead them to assume one can only be “in” one of the two people, which causes them to miss the fact that the word “all” in both clauses is the exact same group of people (“all of humanity”). To be fair, “in” can mean “inside” something, positionally-speaking (either literally or figuratively, depending on the context), but it can also mean “through (the action of)” or “because of” something or someone, and that’s what Paul was getting at in this parallelism, as I’m hoping my example about poverty and hunger, as well as the mathematical way of expressing the respective parallelisms, helped make clear.

However, let’s forget all of the above, for the moment, and assume that “in” in this passage actually is referring to being “in Christ” from a positional perspective rather than referring to our impending immortality being because of what Christ accomplished. Does that change anything at all about the end result I concluded it would culminate in (all humans eventually experiencing salvation)? Not even slightly. To put it simply, just as every human begins “in Adam” (and hence is mortal), even so (meaning ”equally so”) every human will end “in Christ” (and hence will be made immortal).

But how can I say that? Isn’t it true that only believers are “in Christ,” positionally-speaking? Well, the answer to that question is both “yes” and “no.” This all comes down to understanding one of the most important principles of scriptural interpretation there is, one I’ve discussed various times in the past on this site: the difference between the absolute perspective and the relative perspective. (If you aren’t familiar with this particular hermeneutical principle, read this article and then this article before continuing with the one you’re reading now, because without understanding this concept, it’s basically impossible to properly interpret much of Scripture at all without coming to all sorts of confused conclusions.) From a relative perspective, yes, it can be said that only believers are currently “in Christ,” based on what Paul wrote to the Romans. But from an absolute perspective, we know that all things in heaven and on earth will eventually be headed up “in Christ,” as Paul wrote to the Ephesians.

So, simply put, even if “in Christ” in 1 Corinthians 15:22 was meant to be positional in nature, everyone will eventually be “in Christ” from an absolute perspective anyway, and the fact that this is a parallelism makes it clear that it has to be talking about the absolute rather than the relative perspective.

There are quite a number of passages in Paul’s epistles making it clear that everyone will eventually experience salvation, but there’s one verse in particular that really stands out to me as definitive proof that everyone has been saved (from an absolute/ontological perspective): “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise” – Ephesians 1:13

At first glance this won’t seem like proof of the salvation of all to the average person, but if you take some time to really read the verse carefully, it suddenly becomes clear.

If you still don’t see it, that’s okay; I’ll explain it shortly. I should say, it does help to read it in the context of the whole chapter (or at least the section of the chapter it’s a part of), and to also be familiar with the difference between the various types of salvation mentioned in Scripture (if you aren’t already familiar with the different types of scriptural salvation, it’s important you read that linked article before proceeding with the rest of this post in order to understand what I’m going to be getting at). This section of the chapter (verses 3 through 14) is primarily about the blessings that God has purposed beforehand to lavish upon those (“hath abounded toward us”) whom He chose to become members of the body of Christ. Simply put, this section of the chapter is all about how God has predestined certain people to experience certain blessings in Christ, blessings that not everyone will experience. This isn’t Calvinism, however, since experiencing the blessings mentioned in this chapter aren’t about the ontological and eschatological salvations that everyone gets. Those who have been saved from a relative perspective (the people that Paul is writing to, specifically the body of Christ) are those who are “especially saved” (this refers to a special, relative salvation, which means getting to experience extra blessings on top of the salvation that everyone eventually gets to experience), but God is still the Saviour of all mankind.

So what it is that most people miss when they read this verse in Ephesians? Well, what is it Paul is saying happened in this verse? He simply said that his readers had heard the word of the truth, and, in what is essentially a parenthetical, said what the word of the truth is: the Good News (“Gospel”) of their salvation. Now, by definition, a gospel is a proclamation of good news, not a proposition of how something could be good news if they do the right thing (to be clear, it can include a proposition — if the speaker or writer intends there to be one — but without an included proposition in the text, it remains simply a proclamation of what is rather than what could be).

To put it simply, Paul wrote here that the good news they had heard was the good news of their salvation, not the good news of how they could have salvation if only they did something specific (even if that something specific was as simple as choosing to believe the right thing or to have faith in the right Person). The point here is that, because there is no included proposition in the text, the good news they heard was that they already had salvation (which, as we know from his other writings, is the outcome of the Good News/Gospel he preached, which is that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day) prior to hearing about it. Simply put, Paul couldn’t tell them about their already existing salvation if it wasn’t already existing.

Now, most people read this verse and assume that the last part of the verse (“in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise”) actually is a proposition about their salvation, and that they didn’t receive their salvation until they actually believed the good news about said salvation. But this is a misunderstanding due to not being aware of the different types of salvation mentioned in Scripture, and assuming there’s only one type of salvation referred to in the entire Bible. All this part of the verse is telling us is that, after they believed in their already existing (absolute/ontological) salvation, they were then sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise (which is a part of their relative/noological salvation, “an earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession”).

All that is to say, Paul’s little parenthetical in Ephesians 1:13 is simply that “the Good News of your salvation” was already a fact before they heard it, and if you’re someone who has come to believe in our (all of humanity’s) salvation because of what Christ accomplished (and truly understand what that means), you’re also one of those people who have been predestined beforehand for all the additional blessings Paul mentioned in this chapter as well, and are a member of the body of Christ.

[Postscript: I should note that Calvinists can technically also try to use this verse from a similar perspective, by saying that “the Good News of your salvation” is indeed preexistent, but only for the elect under their soteriological system. However, this verse can’t actually work with their doctrine of limited atonement (which is the idea that the elect, under their system, are the only ones that Christ’s death for our sins, and subsequent burial and resurrection, are efficacious for) because if Paul taught them about their already existing salvation, he couldn’t possibly have known which members of his audience were actually among the elect at the time he told them about this existing salvation, so this interpretation really only works from a “Universalist” perspective.]

I’ve begun to conclude that the whole concept of “free will,” particularly in discussions about soteriology, is simply an unnecessary distraction from the truth, and that it might be time to leave the phrase out of such discussions altogether in order to focus on what really matters.

While believers within the body of Christ know that “free will” doesn’t actually exist, most Christians don’t even know what the phrase “free will” means, often confusing the idea of “free will” with the ability to choose or decide things. Nobody in the body of Christ, however, even while denying the existence of “free will,” would ever claim that we can’t or don’t make choices (at least from a relative perspective; from an absolute perspective, of course, we know that God is ultimately responsible for everything), but the ability to make choices is entirely beside the point.

Now, when Christians talk about “free will,” what they’re almost always really saying is that the fault for a bad decision or choice (almost always referring to the choice to not believe the same things they do when it comes to matters of salvation) lies entirely with the one making the choice, and that the choice couldn’t possibly have been predetermined in any way whatsoever. There are other reasons too (such as self-righteousness and pride), but one of the big reason Christians want to insist that “free will” exists is to make sure that God doesn’t get any of the blame for a person’s bad decision or for their refusal to choose to “accept Christ” (or whatever it is one believes brings salvation), and to make sure that it’s clear the sinner in question is entirely to blame for whatever negative consequences this will result in.

The problem is, Christians rarely like to dig into a matter, and generally prefer to simply believe what appears to make the most sense “at first glance” rather than digging beneath the surface to find the foundation of the matter, so to speak. In this case it means that, because we make choices, most Christians believe we must be to blame for those choices because they think we could have theoretically made a better choice instead. The questions that really matter when discussing the topic of who deserves the credit or blame for a particular choice are, “What is the cause of the choices that people make?”, and, “Taking all the variables that were present at the time a choice was made into account, could a person have actually made a choice other than the one they did, and if so, how?”

In a recent online discussion with a Christian on this topic, when I asked those very questions, he simply responded by saying, “Nothing causes the choice except for the chooser.” Of course, this tautology tells us absolutely nothing about what really matters, which is why a particular choice is made, and it also ignores the second question altogether. (On purpose, I’m fairly certain, even if just on a subconscious level on his part, likely in order to avoid thinking about the topic from this perspective so that he couldn’t possibly end up discovering that he might be wrong about it.)

Even if we ignore all the passages in Scripture that seem to tell us God is ultimately responsible for everything, and put the credit and blame for choices entirely on “the chooser” instead, we’d then have to ask, “What is the chooser?” Well, a chooser is simply a person who makes choices using their brain, and one’s brain is made up of (among other things) neural connections which are wired differently in each person by a combination of their life experiences and their genetics (our nurture and nature, in other words). The different layouts of the neural networks in each of our brains result in different choices by each of us, and none of us gets to choose the way our brains are wired, because we didn’t get to choose the life experiences and genetics that caused our brains to be wired the way they are. This means that, at the end of the day (presuming God or other spiritual beings don’t interfere), it’s ultimately our life experiences and our genetics that determine what choices we make.

Although there’s no scriptural or logical reason to do so, at this point some will try to evade these facts by claiming that our mind isn’t actually generated by our brain, but instead somehow exists on a “spiritual” level (some will also get into pseudo-scientific talk about quantum realities as well, although I can guarantee you that few to none of them have any idea how quantum mechanics actually works). The problem is, none of this actually helps back up their ideas so much as it simply pushes the problem back a level. A supposedly “spiritual mind,” whatever that actually is, still has to be “made” out of something (out of whatever it is that spirit, or whatever it is they’re claiming a mind comes from, consists of) and still has to make decisions or choices based on what its “structure” is, so the questions of why a particular choice was made over another, and whether that other choice could have actually been made instead, are still the relevant questions that need to be answered, even if this were the case.

Basically, to simply stop at the level of “the chooser” without reducing things further to find out what the chooser consists of and why the chooser makes the particular choices they do is essentially to say that a specific chooser is simply either naturally good or naturally bad (or perhaps naturally intelligent and/or wise, or naturally unintelligent and/or foolish).

In fact, along those lines, someone else who was observing the aforementioned discussion added to the conversation by saying, “I believe Scripture is clear that is not about ability… but about the inner motives of the heart. Some people choose to not believe because they are lovers of themselves and not of God. They don’t wanna let go of their way of living life. They don’t want to believe. Evil suits them better. Or ignorance. This is not an ability. It’s a choice. And it’s reflecting the inner motives of the person.” (I corrected the punctuation of the quote, which I’m noting here in case she happens to see this post.) She is actually very close to the truth with her response, but like the person I was having the discussion with, she stopped just short of the important questions.

Yes, some people prefer to love themselves over God, and don’t want to let go of their current way of life. These facts don’t help the common Christian arguments either, though, since it’s still getting down to a matter of the nature of the chooser and ignoring the question of why the nature is what it is, with the ultimate blame (again, presuming God doesn’t interfere) being on that particular selfish and/or evil nature. And if it comes down to just that nature, it means they still couldn’t have ever made any other choices than the ones they did since that would go against their nature, which means the choice was ultimately predetermined by that preexisting selfish and/or evil nature which they had no say in being given to them because said nature was generated by their life experiences and genetics.

At the end of the day, there are two options and only two options, which is that our choices are predetermined (by one’s nurture and/or nature — and, perhaps, by outside influences such as God) or that our choices are random. Another way of putting this is that our choices are either caused or uncaused; if they’re caused, they’re predetermined by said cause, and if they’re uncaused, they’re random. Nobody has ever been able to give a third option that works within the realm of reality, and until they do, those remain the only two options available for us to work with.

But since this whole topic is almost always about salvation, let’s take this a step further and look at it from that specific perspective. I’ve written about this before, but instead of arguing about “free will” as it relates to this topic, the actually important question is, “What is it that exists within you that made you able to choose to accept Christ or believe the Gospel (in whatever way it is you believe one must in order to get saved) that is missing from everyone who doesn’t choose to get saved? Was it your superior intelligence that they don’t possess, superior wisdom they don’t possess, superior righteousness they don’t have, or superior humility they don’t have, or was it just plain dumb luck that you were able to do so when they weren’t? Bottom line, if you’re able to choose to get saved (however it is you believe one gets saved) and they weren’t able to, what gave you that ability that they lacked?”

Well, let’s break down the options:

• If it’s because you were smart enough to do so, it’s the intelligence you have — which the unsaved don’t have — that saved you, which means that we’re ultimately saved by intelligence (what Christ did was only step 1, while we have to complete our salvation through step 2: making the right choice to believe the right thing, making us our own, at least partial, saviours).
• If it’s because you were wise enough to do so, it’s the wisdom you have — which the unsaved don’t have — that saved you, which means we’re saved by our wisdom.
• If it’s because you were righteous enough to do so, it’s the righteousness you have — which the unsaved don’t have — that saved them, which means that we’re saved by our own self-righteousness.
• If it’s because you were humble enough to do so, it’s the humility you have — which the unsaved don’t have — that saved you, which means that we’re saved by naturally having the right amount of humility.
• And if it’s because you were simply lucky enough to happen to do so, it’s the good luck you have — which the unsaved don’t have — that saved you, which means that we’re saved by good luck, or simply by random chance.

Whichever of those it is, though, it means that your superior nurture and/or nature is responsible for you making the right choice, and those who don’t choose to get saved must have an inferior nurture and/or nature because something inside them keeps them from making that right choice, which ultimately means salvation is based upon the superiority of specific humans who are able to make the right decision to believe the right thing(s), a decision which inferior humans just aren’t able to make. (At least based on the traditional Christian desire to place the responsibility on us rather than on God.)

The word “repentance” literally means “a change of one’s mind.” Under the Gospel of the Circumcision it can technically include a change of actions as well, but under Paul’s Gospel it simply means that you’ve changed your mind about being able to do anything at all to contribute to your own salvation, and have realized that only what Christ accomplished can (and did) save you (and everyone, at least from an absolute perspective).

Basically, when you truly believe the Good News of the Uncircumcision, it means you’ve repented of your previous mindset that you could help save yourself through your own works, meaning through any action(s) that you might think you have to do in order to be saved — even the work/action of having to choose to believe something specific, or having to choose to have faith that the Gospel is true, which is probably the hardest work one could possibly do, if it were even possible at all — because God has now given you the faith to believe that Christ already took care of salvation for everyone through His death for our sins, His burial, and His resurrection on the third day.

Basically, if God gives someone the faith to believe that everyone will eventually experience salvation because of what the truth of Paul’s Gospel means (because of what Christ accomplished because of His own faith, in other words), it means they’ve also repented, because their mind has now been changed about the Gospel (which, of course, also means they’ve been saved from a relative perspective and will get to enjoy the ultimate experience of that salvation before the rest of humanity does).

Meanwhile, those who haven’t come to believe the Good News of everyone’s salvation because of what Christ accomplished haven’t actually been given “saving faith” by God, which means they also haven’t repented and have not been saved (from a relative perspective, under Paul’s Gospel anyway) and will likely miss out on what is referred to as ”eternal life” in the Bible, which is a figurative term that means getting to enjoy life in the Kingdom of God during the next two ages. Of course, in the end, they’ll still get to experience the salvation that Christ already won for them from an absolute perspective, but they’ll miss out on a lot in the meantime. (If you aren’t familiar with the different perspectives when it comes to salvation, please read this for more details.)