Universalism

Usually I don't like addressing theological topics with my Sunday evening messages.  Instead I like to share a reflection on a passage of Scripture and a practical application.  However, this week I deviated from my typical approach because I felt like it was important to address a mindset rapidly gaining in popularity: universalism.  Of course this perspective has been around for a long time, but it is gaining more widespread acceptance among Christians today, especially those educated in the multicultural and postmodern milieu of the American university.  Amongst intelligent young people, it is less and less fashionable to say that only certain types of people will go to heaven and the rest will go to hell.  To say this is to be closed-minded, bigoted, and hateful.  For this reason, more and more people are subscribing to the viewpoint, "When we die we'll all go to heaven where we'll be with our family and friends for all eternity."

Although this mindset sounds nice-- I'm mean, who wouldn't want to believe that we all go to heaven?-- it ignores or rationalizes away a good bit of Scripture.  It is also rather naive and short-sighted.  Let me try to explain the inadequacy of this viewpoint.  See, to begin with we need to realize that heaven is God's house.  This is how Jesus describes heaven in John 14:1-3.  He compares it to a mansion with many rooms.  So "going to heaven" really means going to live in God's house.  Heaven is not a mystical gathering place where we see all our deceased loved ones.  Heaven is not the great golf course in the sky.  These typical mindsets about heaven are incredibly self-centered and completely ignore the fact that heaven is God's house.  Heaven is not the place where we can do whatever we want, when we want, and as often as we want.  With this in mind, I ask just one question, "If we've spent a lifetime alienating ourselves from God and rebelling against God, how can we just move back into the house on the day we die?"  When we think about it this way, the idea of universalism is nonsensical.  For many people it would be a terrible thing to spend eternity living in God's house.  Why, you might ask?  Living in God's house means obeying God, loving as God loves, and having the same character as God.  When we say that all people go to heaven, we are assuming that people will magically change their ideas, attitudes, and behaviors when they die.  We are also assuming that people will want to go to heaven and live with God.  On the contrary, I think there will be those who will prefer hell to the eternal torment of living in the purifying love of God.

We also need to take seriously the clear warning of Scripture: not everyone is going to enter into the Kingdom of God (or God's house).  In Matthew 7:21-23, we see Jesus telling people that they cannot enter in.  These people are genuinely surprised.  They think they have done all the right religious deeds-- prophesy, exorcism, miracles-- to gain entrance into heaven.  However, entrance into God's house is not based on our performance of religious deeds.  As Jesus says, the ones who are allowed to enter in are the obedient children, the ones who have done the will of the Father.  Paul gives a different warning in I Corinthians 6:9-11.  He says that there are certain people who cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.  These are people who live in gross rebellion against the will of God.  As we know from the story of the Prodigal Son, God will allow people to come home, but only if they have an attitude of repentance and reconciliation.  However, for the rebellious person with no desire for repentance and reconciliation there can only be one possibility.  By willfully rejecting the grace of God, this person chooses the eternal torment of hell.  They bring judgment upon themselves.  Why would God send people like this to hell though?  The answer is obvious.  God cannot have the rebellious children ruining the experience of heaven for the obedient children.  This is the same reason Satan and his minions were cast out of heaven.  For the sake of the obedient angels, God had to expel Satan.  He could not let Satan's disobedience contaminate the rest.

So we can see from these Scriptures that only obedient children who have been reconciled to the Father can enter into heaven.  Knowing this, I have to ask myself, what is my relationship like with God?  Am I maintaining a good relationship so that I can move back into God's house one day?  Or am I a wishful thinker, hoping to move back in although I know that I am living as a rebellious and unreconciled child?