In Christ, All Are Made Alive

The Bible is not a Particularist document.  It’s very clearly a Universalist document. This is really simple and straightforward, and if people stop and think about it, it’s been staring us in the face for at least 2000 years.  

Acts 24 clearly states that there is a resurrection of the Just and the Unjust.  

Acts 24:14–15 (ESV): …I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the Law and written in the Prophets, 15 having a hope in God, which these men themselves accept, that there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust. 

We call this the General Resurrection.  

Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 are clear that we are in Adam as our federal representative in the Fall and in Christ as our federal representative in redemption.  

Romans 5:15 (ESV): But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for man

1 Corinthians 15:22–23 (ESV): For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Chris

Romans 1:20 informs us that the created order informs us about God’s invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature.   Genesis and Romans together also inform us that we are created in the image of God.   

All living beings are image bearers of God. Bearing God’s image (the Imago Dei) means that image means that people & animals (both individually & in aggregate) constitute living, personal beings with whom God has delegated & entrusted dominion (rulership & governance).  

God has also endowed (gifted) us with particular moral attributes.  These attributes are analogous to God’s attributes, insofar they are derived from God, & relative to God’s moral will, God desires us to be conformed and one day confirmed into His own moral attributes.  The whole of God’s personal & cosmic redemption project is designed by God to move us, as a species, back to a moral state in which we can no longer do evil and in which we also live forever.

I Corinthians 15 is clear that the General Resurrection is underwritten by Christ’s own redemptive work, esp. His resurrection.  

1 Corinthians 15:20–22 (ESV): But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

There is therefore no resurrection for anyone without the resurrection of Christ, and all resurrection requires union with Christ in order to obtain.  

Where does the Bible teach there is any sort of union with Adam that results in the resurrection of the Unjust?  Nowhere!

Where does the Bible teach there is a union with Christ that is not salvific?  Nowhere!  Union with Christ results in eternal life, not death.  

1 Cor. 15 employs the language of signs and seals.

1 Corinthians 15:42–49 (ESV): So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. 

Ephemeral bodies are dishonorable, corruptible/perishable, natural, earthly/terrestrial. Resurrection ontology is glorious, incorruptible, imperishable, spiritual, and heavenly, blessedly corporeal, not under the curse of sin and death, & neither incorporeal nor ghostly.  Moreover, these seals describe the physical and moral ontology of the body and the soul.   

Is this sort of Universalism the sort that obtains apart from union with Christ?  No!  Does it obtain via a theology of merit?  No! The Bible teaches that we all must lay down our works righteousness, & it also the Doctrines of Grace.   Because of what Christ has accomplished (Hebrews), God, having grounded (anchored) personal & cosmic redemption in real historical events (I Corinthians 15:3 - 11) deploys Redemption Accomplished as Redemption Applied. 

We are all ensouled in the image of Adam, who is called a life giving spirit.  At the time of his creation, he became & was declared by God to be a living person capable of exercising dominion & participation in the generation & preservation of life.

God intends to resurrect us all.  Our resurrection is a product of union with Christ.  The Bible nowhere teaches that union with Christ is not salvific.  The signs & seals God applies all indicate incorruptible life, raised to walk in newness of life.  Therefore, contrary to Ecclesiastical Tradition, God will most certainly redeem us all into the image of Christ. 

Romans 8:29–30 (ESV): For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. 

In order to derive Particularlism from the Bible, critics of Universalism wind up using incorrect methodology by deducing the eternal moral estate of people based on the cosmology of the Realm without harmonisation with these statements about moral, pneumatic, and corporeal ontology.  

The Valley of Dry Bones was given life, and the Valley of Hinnom was redeemed. The only path to a resurrection body runs through union with Christ, & every particularist ever has denied the Unjust are ultimately united to Christ.  Instead they are said to be united to Adam in whom all die to the exclusion of Christ. 

Arminianism & Semi-Pelagian soteriology is where people seem to most frequently look for Universalism when it comes to the battle between Particularism & Universalism.  When Calvinists veer into Universalism, they, in my experience, do so on the basis of statements about the efficacy of the Atonement, statements about the restoration of the Created Order, & statements about the universal love of God & the efficacious nature of God’s grace. 

First, when I think the implications of the Arminian & Semi-Pelagian views on Election, it seems to me that those positions are more apt to veer into Particularism, insofar as Election, on the Arminian & Semi-Pelagian schemes depends on an individual exercising saving faith & repentance.  He/she is said to be elect before the foundation of the world, but only because God foresaw their saving repentance & faith.  On that view there’s a sense that they are only in Christ via election from the moment that they are justified & regenerate.  

Some people believe & others to not.  Therefore, if you are not counted among the elect, you are reprobate when you die, ergo, an Arminian or Semi-Pelagian who embraces Universalism must do so by positing post-mortem encounters for which most theologians say there is little, if any evidence.   (Do I think the Bible points in that direction? Yes, I do, but I also think there is very little evidence to that effect, & a stronger argument runs through the proper understanding of 1 Corinthians 15 relative to the ontology of the resurrection body. 

By way of contrast, Calvinism strikes me as more comfortable with Universalism, which is ironic since many Universalists, in my experience, have a tendency to point at Calvinism as a more vehemently particularist soteriology.   That’s probably because they believe Calvinists & Calvinism are guilty of downplaying God’s mercy in favor of God’s wrath.   

Consistent Calvinism denies the utility of Liturgical Philosophy & Ecclesiastical Tradition in favor of Sola Scriptura (emphasis on Scripture trumping confessions & philosophy), whereas Arminianism & Semi-Pelagianism require a degree of liturgical philosophy that Calvinism does not.   The denial of liturgical philosophy in favor of Scripture correctly exegeted, exposited, & understood ought to make the Calvinist argument a stronger argument. 

Rather than run to passages about the efficacious of God’s grace & breadth of His mercy or reformulating the Atonement, there’s a much stronger argument for Universalism that has been staring us in the face for years - namely that there is no hope for resurrection apart from union with Christ, & there is no such thing as a non-salvific union with Christ. 

 

This is actually extraordinarily straightforward.  Every exegesis and exposition of the pertinent texts *must* take the following into account.  Every particularist ever either avoids discussing these texts harmoniously, or they start conflating cosmology with ontology, using texts that describe destruction, telling us what happens at certain addresses in the cosmos as texts that are soteriological (salvation oriented) and/or that somehow override what the Bible teaches about the General Resurrection. 

1 - Regeneration precedes faith (John 6, Romans 8, 1 John 5).

2 - The proper object of saving faith is not a set of doctrinal statements about Jesus Christ.  Joel 2 and Romans 10 are clear that the LORD, not Christ’s human nature, is the proper object of saving faith.

3 - At the barest minimum, what must a person do to be justified by God?  According to Romans, they must lay down the root of all other sins, their works righteousness at its root. 

(Romans 9:30 ESV): What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. 32 Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works.

You don’t have to be Calvinist or an Arminian to be justified.  You don’t have to believe in justification by faith in order to be justified by faith.   You do have to lay down your root works righteousness.   

Works righteousness and self-justification are like ivy crawling up the side of a house.   You might need a tool to pull it off the side of the house, but if you pull the root out of the ground, what is on the house will surely die and become much easier to remove a few weeks or months later.

If a Non-Christian person lays down their rooted works righteousness yet they die not believing the facts about who Jesus Christ is, do they move Upstairs or Downstairs when they die on Earth?  The only correct answer is Upstairs, because the Bible teaches that regeneration precedes faith, and the *only* reason anyone lays down their rooted works righteousness is because they are regenerate, and all regenerate people are reflexively justified by God. 

Romans 10 quotes Joel 2.  Those who call on the name of the Lord are saved - both justified and sanctified.  At the time of writing Christ had yet to appear.  The LORD, not Christ’s human nature, is the proper object of saving faith.  The LORD, not rudimentary Christology, is the proper object of saving faith.   

4. Acts 24 says there is a Resurrection of the Just and the Unjust.

5.  We are all in Adam or in Christ according to Romans 5 and I Corinthians 15.

6.  Union with Christ is necessary to be saved according to Romans.  It is also necessary in order to be resurrected according to 1 Corinthians.

7.  1 Corinthians 15 explicitly states that Christ’s resurrection underwrites the General Resurrection, not just our own, the Resurrection of the Just. 

8.  The Bible does not teach that justification is the requirement for resurrection.  It does teach union with Christ is required.  

9. There is no such thing as a nonsalvific union with Christ.  

10.  The only sort of resurrection body anyone receives has sign and seals on it that indicate that body is incorruptible, honorable, living (spiritual) and not ephemeral, and so on (I Corinthians 15). 

11. Everyone does not cross over as a justified person, but they do cross over as a person united to Christ as well as Adam.  The Unjust at the time they cross over are united to Christ via election; those who cross over who are regenerate and justified, etc., are united to Christ first via election and second via personal salvation from sin and death.  

Since the Unjust are resurrected, and since their resurrection depends on union with Christ, and since there is no such thing as a nonsalvific union with Christ, we must conclude that they will most certainly be saved from sin and death after they have crossed over.  In fact, they might not all be justified, et.al. when that happens to them. 

12. Therefore, those who cross over in an unjustified state will be justified afterwards.  It can be no other way.

13. The way of works righteousness leads to a life of constant striving and competition with God, yourself, and everyone around you.  If God’s standard of holiness is the plumb line, and works salvation is required, then that results in people developing religions and philosophies that involve elitism.  Only those who meet the works righteousness standard of perfection or near perfection are saved.   Election, in Calvinism, doesn’t depend on your faith in God, Christ, the Bible, etc.  The grounds of & for election have nothing to do with any intrinsic or extrinsic characteristics that belong to any individual. 

14. What of the reprobate if Particularism obtains?  They might be annihilated if they fail to measure up, or they are trapped for all eternity or at least until they achieve Kolinhar, or they are reincarnated over and over in a cycle in which their pursuit of fleshly desires moves then to hunger for God, after which they work to find perfect bliss - but that ultimately removes their motivation to seek bliss and enter God’s presence, insofar as reincarnation requires the soul to engage in self-denial via the mortification of desire, which logically includes the desire for personal bliss. That isn’t what the Bible teaches. 

15. Particularists who aren’t Annhilationists really ought to consider the consequences of their brand of Particularism.  

 

First, if they &/or Annhilationism are right, then why do the signs & seals on/for the resurrection body look the way they do?  Not even one of them points to death & destruction. 

Second, the Bible, in Romans 6, teaches that the wages of sin is death, & Romans 5 is also clear that this includes physical death.  If people are consigned to Gehenna for all eternity without hope of redemption, then one of two things must be true.  

Either (1) the wages of sin are no longer inclusive of corporeal & pneumatic death, or (2) these people are forever trapped in a cycle of corporeal & pneumatic life & death, in which case the wages of sin are still inclusive of corporeal & incorporeal death.  However, that isn’t what the Bible teaches as much as it is something you’d expect in a myth like The End of Time, David Tennant’s swan song that led to Matt Smith’s era as the Doctor in Doctor Who. 

That’s all for now.  This has been a busy & productive week or so here. I think I will take a break for a few days before posting again.  As always, may God bless us all, every one, & “Go & sin no more.”