Do you understand universal atonement as meaning the fulfillment of Christ saying: "And I, if I be lifted up (on the Cross), will draw ALL unto Me..." ? And if yes, does this mean unending existence in condemnation for those condemned? And the reverse for those not condemned? All to be sorted out at the Last Judgment? That is an Orthodox understanding...
Arsenios
My belief is that Jesus did draw all unto himself at the cross and in resurrection. In that regard, all are included in his atonement, it being inclusive and fully effectual, even unto their last breath, whereby if they take it in blatant, educated rejection of him will likely experience resurrection in the same state; they with eyes wide opened and still refusing him, therefore confine themselves to the second death, the death for which Christ did not die, and thus the death from which there is no escape.
Most evangelicals say if you don't place your faith in Jesus Christ, you're going to hell; however, they do not hold to a theology that confines infants to hell who die before having placed their faith in Jesus Christ. And so at some level they get this. They may not have thought it through, but if those babies do not stay in the grave, at the least, or go to hell by way of some Adamic curse, on what accord are they resurrected, if not in the universal atonement of Jesus Christ, his victory over death being the basis for their resurrection to life everlasting; because innocent or not, death itself would hold them in the grave had not something happened to defeat that death. That something is the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the inclusion of all humanity in him. Death at the least would hold them in the grave had not the nature of death been changed forever in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, his resurrection being that which broke the chains of death for those infants.
Why then share the gospel with anyone, if no one goes to hell except for animated refusal of Jesus Christ? Because the Gospel is Good News and produces belief in those who hear it, it being the power of God no less into (
eis) salvation for those who believe. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not only the Good News of salvation; it has the power to change lives right now on this side of death. It
would change the world if it were truthfully taught. The few who hear it and don't believe stand in animated, educated unbelief and thereby condemn themselves in the refusal of the One they know has redeemed them. This the Bible calls false prophets and false teachers, anti-Christs and blasphemers of the Holy Spirit ~ in other words, not your average Joe. Evidently the change the Gospel produces in the lives of those who do hear and believe out weighs the loss of the few who hear it, know it, and reject it, because we are called to spread it unto the ends of the earth.
I waffle back and forth as to whether "condemnation" is unending
existence. If hell and the second death are the same thing, then hell may actually be unending
un-existence, the very thing that the first death would have produced were it not for the victorious resurrection of Jesus Christ. The second death, the one from which there is no resurrection, may very well produce the same return to nothingness, an unending un-existence, everlasting in that there is no undoing it.
Blessings,
