Why I Reject Universalism and Finding What You Can’t Lose

I reject universalism because to believe that the “fall of man” universally affected everyone, but the resurrection of Christ didn’t, is to interpret reality through the very fallen state you're trying to understand God with. “The fall” is easier to believe in than the resurrection because of how messy the world appears at times, therefore obvious beliefs can easily dominate a human desire to know and control. Easy answers feel safe and manageable, but thinking we know good and evil on easy terms only makes our ego think it knows like GOD knows. Easy beliefs might allow you to “think” you know, but they also hide freedom from you.  

For those who believe in some sort of redemptive state, it makes sense why you have an understanding of a universal fall in our past that now affects the present, while you await a future hope for your own redemption to be complete. This redemption sounds good, but if “the fall” is still your main reasoning through which you see redemption, especially if redemption is for yourself and not another, like someone you think is evil, your thinking is still dominated by the very fall you ground your belief in. 

You have little trouble believing that one day in the future, a not yet redemptive state for yourself will be secured, while it may not be secure for another. This is still in the seat of ego, of needing to be safe and in control, and thinking you understand God and the world. 

But ask yourself:

How did you arrive at this faith for yourself, but think it is not for others? What made you secure your salvation and not theirs?

We need to find what we can’t lose, which never originated with us, and leads us back to the beginning before there ever was a fall, which then leads us to the ending of it all.

Jesus said it this way:

“Unless one is born from the beginning (born again), they cannot see the reality of God rightly.”

If most of our reasoning about God and life comes from “the fall” and not the much more powerful reality of God before (and after), it makes sense why you can’t see in the proper light. I understand you only have a few sentences in the book of Genesis leading up to the fall, but more can be said in a few sentences before it than all the sentences after it. Otherwise, you are left sentenced to an endless argument of reasoning that will universally fail, therefore showing it is a product of the fall you believe in instead of the answer to it.

One sentence that returns us to the beginning, and before, is found in John 1 verse 1. It contains the universe in one verse, while universally showing an undeniable reality that cannot be broken, and it can even be said in one Word.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”

The next few verses expound upon this Word:

“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made. In him was life, and that life is the light of all humanity. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood it.” 

If we do not understand things from the Light we are left not comprehending things in the fall or darkness of our reasoning. In the beginning we remember that it is in the Word that all exist in and through that Word we find our meaning. Without the Word being the first place we start, we miss the meaning of every verse and sentence after it. God is the Word and that three letter word “GOD” carries far more meaning than typically misunderstood. 

God is the only One that carries us through any darkness into the Light.

Simply stated: God is All In All. 

There is nothing outside of God, therefore any understanding of salvation, life, fall, death, or anything, cannot find itself or its meaning outside of God.

God is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega, therefore universalism in this truest sense, is an undeniable reality only denied in thought by those who do not see it.

So what do we make of salvation?

Salvation cannot originate from us, even though we originated in salvation. God is salvation. Salvation originated in us only as it was placed there by God where we were first placed in God from the beginning. We, that is all of us, were placed in God before the foundation of the world. When we come to our original senses we realize this.

“I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.” - Jesus (Matthew 13:35)

Just because something is hidden does not mean it is not there. Just because our senses are dulled does not mean our original sense is not there. When our original parents Adam and Eve hid themselves by their dulled and darkened reasoning, it did not cause God to vanish, except in their own imagination. “The fall” was hiding reality from us, so to define the fall through that same darkness will never make sense. 

The Light shines in the darkness until the darkness is surrendered to understand. 

“If I think, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light will become night around me,’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.” - Psalm 139:11-12

If we think through the fall of darkened understanding, which is common for humanity, the Word of God makes little to no sense in our reasoning since it is not founded from “the beginning”, so it remains hidden until one realizes what was in God the entire time. To fully proclaim the Word of God is the commission of those awakened in the Light. It is the Good News. It is the Gospel of what has always been true, even when humanity doesn’t know it.

“I became a servant by the commission God gave me to fully proclaim to you the Word of God, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his awakened ones, of which you are to become. The mystery is Christ in you and you in Christ.” - Col 1:25-27

Salvation then, is something you cannot lose. It was not yours to begin with. You can only lose your realization of it. The Good News is helping people realize what is freely given, cannot be earned or denied by works of good or evil, and that salvation is God’s. Until God becomes all in all in your awareness, you will filter life, scriptures, God, yourself, and everyone through a distorted and darkened lens. Said another way since God is Love, until Love becomes all in all in your awareness, you will filter life through that which will not last, which perceives life through a kind of nothingness. There is nothing actually there in distorted reasoning, for only these things will remain: Faith, Hope, and Love, and the greatest of these is Love. 

Love never fails. God is Love.

In the beginning was Love…and you were there too.

In the end is Love…and you, and all, will be there too.

There is no other place to go from God’s presence. There is nothing that can separate us from the Love of God. This is the Gospel (Good News) realized.

“Since humanity has been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things, especially your understanding of the fall, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Christ is your life.” - Colossians 3:1-4

Now someone might say, “I have not died and I feel no sense of being raised up!”

Do you see the contradiction in this earthly reasoning?

Just because one does not yet sense it, does not mean it is not true. Besides, how have you not died if you feel no sense of being raised up! The Good News, which is true before you believe it, becomes real to us when we are convinced of its reality. It is not that it was not real before we knew it, it becomes real to us as we are awakened to Reality!

“Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly or fallen point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this fallen way, we do so no longer.” -  2 Corinthians 5:14-16

Christ’s love and universal reality leads us to the remarkable reversing of the distortion of God’s nature and understanding of salvation. The Word even became flesh! The Word reveals where we always were and where the Word always was, with us, even in our darkness! He was named Immanuel for this reason, which means, “God is with us.” 

What Christ does in life or death, happens to all. Christ is our life.

In Jesus, God comes in the flesh and reveals how humanity sees God through a distorted lens. His distorted body on a cross shockingly becomes the lens through which we see our error and his resurrection reveals we cannot actually kill God, nor the image of who God is. The cross and resurrection reveal God will come into our nothingness and brokenness taking on its form in order to transform us. The dark is not dark to God! 

We have died whether we know it or not and we have been raised whether we know it or not. The Good News leads us to the experience of knowing we, and all, have died and been raised. The Good News convinces us of this reality:

“Despite the death we face constantly in this world, we are more than conquerors through the One who always loves us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, is able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my enlightened conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit.” -Romans 8:37-9:1

Salvation then, is yours, but it did not originate from you. It is not of your own doing. While too often people are universalists in believing the sin of our original parents in the flesh is greater than the universal revelation of the Son in the flesh, it is just not true, nor good news. Love never fails even if we do for a time! The Good News is offensive to all who think they are self-made, self-righteous, and are not being self-centered, yet only God is the center of it all.

Where did God place you from the beginning? In the center of it all!

So then, it's the Way of Love as revealed in Jesus where we realize the Truth that leads us to Life. Jesus reveals the Way out of death into the Truth instead of a fallen imagination, and within the very Life that wakes us up to Reality.

“Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in the unfolding process: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes to be realized in them, the people who realize they belong to him. Then the end of their futility will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority, and power that misunderstood the nature of Love. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” - 1 Cor 15:20-25

The last enemy to be destroyed is death, a result of the fall, when all of its forbidden fruit is burned away, and all asleep to the message of Love have been awakened. The beginning becomes like the end as the freely given life of God is realized for what it is. The darkness becomes light. Our redemption then, now and forever, is truly, “ours”, not just mine.

“For if, while we were God’s enemies, WE WERE reconciled to him through the death of his Son, HOW MUCH MORE, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his LIFE! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom WE HAVE NOW received reconciliation. Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—BUT THE GIFT IS NOT LIKE the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, HOW MUCH MORE did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to ALL! Nor can the GIFT OF GOD BE COMPARED with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, HOW MUCH MORE will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ, EVEN NOW! Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and LIFE FOR ALL PEOPLE. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man ALL will be made righteous.” - Romans 5:10-12,15-19

Do you see it?

Notice when Paul said: The Gift Cannot Be Compared To The Fall.

The fall was the very fruit of comparison to begin with, because there is no actual comparison to the Unconditional, freely given love and nature of God. This was never our own doing and even while we were dead and in darkness, we were made alive. The Good News awakens people to the Reality of God! It saves us from that “fall reasoning” rooted in condemnation as we think God condemns people.

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” - John 3:17

“I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in Me should remain in darkness. If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge and condemn the world, but to save the world from the darkness of its judgments.” - Jesus (John 12:47)

God is the beginning and the end, even in all of the mess of human life of which He became flesh to reveal the Truth. The Author and Finisher of our reality will complete the work! All things will be reconciled in heaven and earth. Jesus and Paul showed us we cannot understand the fall through the eyes of its fruit, its inherent condemnation of who God is and who we really are. This is what God saves all from, whether they know it yet or not.

In the end, as in the beginning, you can’t lose your salvation. It’s universally given and secured in Christ, by which all are redeemed, now and forever. You can’t lose what Jesus has already found and he even found us in human flesh. He became us so we return to being with Him. He will leave the 99 reasons you think it is not true until you come to the one realization it is. As offensive as it might appear to some, let Jesus be everything and you will see everything in the proper Light. All else is blindness and a hardening of the heart to the Good News. Therefore, I reject the universalism of “the fall” that does not see the universalism of God’s love that redeems all. God shows no partiality, and will see to it that all will be awakened in their time.

What better time than now?

“Today is the day of salvation.”

-PH