Wrestling with Bad Christian, Part 1: Universal Salvation
I've been listening to the Bad Christian podcast on and off for the last 8 months. The biggest motivator is that my boyfriend listens to it and I wanted to know what's driving his wrestling with God. I have found myself more often wrestling with what the podcast hosts say than God. Most of the time I brush it off as I just disagree without digging into it anymore. The last podcast I listened to is from January 11 where the guest was author of "The Shack", Paul Young. I wasn't expecting much out of this podcast but BOY did it light a fire under me! I intensely disagreed with must of what was said and rather than sitting on my righteousness, I decided to open my Bible and see what God had to say about the matter.
So here we are, with me opening this blog back up for the first time in many years. My motivation is two-fold - 1) coherently record the issues I had with what was said in the podcast and my responses to it (backed up by scripture) and 2) develop my ability to write/discuss my beliefs. We'll see how that goes.
The three parts of the podcast I had problems with are universal salvation, Young's objection to "penal substitution", and his challenge of the existence of hell. Now, these three things are all tied together so each post may blur lines a little, but I'll try to focus them as much as possible.
The idea of universal salvation is fairly self-explanatory - it means that everyone is saved, period, no matter what the believe. Now, without even looking up anything I straight off disagree with this because "it is by faith we are saved..." implying that in fact there _is_ something we must believe before we are saved. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Young brings up this idea in response to his issues with "penal substitution" but I didn't want to get into that one first so you'll just have to wait until the next one to see where I went with that. He says that everyone is automatically saved through Jesus, arguing that the Bible says that "when he died, we all died, we he rose, we all rose." He says that the Good News isn't about salvation, but about relationship, which I agree with, but he takes it a step farther. He says that you don't have a choice in salvation, it is automatically granted to you. But you can choose to be in relationship with God or not, that doesn't change your salvation.
Let's break it down.
The chapters he says back up auto-salvation are Corinthians 5, Romans 5, and Galatians 3. Here are the relevant verses (as far as I could find, he didn't quote them specifically in the podcast):
We are all God's creation and his children and that relationship doesn't go away. That's true in the Old Testament as well and most people did not have a personal relationship with God. They had a very distant, sacrifice and rules-based relationship with God. They had to because God's righteous being requires punishment for sin. God wanted to make it easier for more people to be in close relationship to him so he gave us another option! He sent Jesus! But just as in the Old Testament when people had the choice to follow the commandments and the Law, we have a choice to accept Christ's sacrifice for our sins. That is the WHOLE deal with salvation!
Once again, what's the context? I'll just put the rest of it below (emphasis mine):
The significance of verse 28 is that there are many who wanted Paul to exclude those who did not come from a Jewish background and there were others who wanted to exclude those who did come from a Jewish background! There is no distinction in Christ between anyone - we are all equal and we are all offered the "promise by faith in Jesus Christ" but as seen in verse 22, we have to believe! This is throughout the New Testament that we MUST choose.
I understand the temptation to say that all our loved ones are automatically saved even if they don't choose to believe, but that's just not biblically sound.
That's part 1. Part 2 will be on the idea of "penal substitution"!
So here we are, with me opening this blog back up for the first time in many years. My motivation is two-fold - 1) coherently record the issues I had with what was said in the podcast and my responses to it (backed up by scripture) and 2) develop my ability to write/discuss my beliefs. We'll see how that goes.
The three parts of the podcast I had problems with are universal salvation, Young's objection to "penal substitution", and his challenge of the existence of hell. Now, these three things are all tied together so each post may blur lines a little, but I'll try to focus them as much as possible.
The idea of universal salvation is fairly self-explanatory - it means that everyone is saved, period, no matter what the believe. Now, without even looking up anything I straight off disagree with this because "it is by faith we are saved..." implying that in fact there _is_ something we must believe before we are saved. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Young brings up this idea in response to his issues with "penal substitution" but I didn't want to get into that one first so you'll just have to wait until the next one to see where I went with that. He says that everyone is automatically saved through Jesus, arguing that the Bible says that "when he died, we all died, we he rose, we all rose." He says that the Good News isn't about salvation, but about relationship, which I agree with, but he takes it a step farther. He says that you don't have a choice in salvation, it is automatically granted to you. But you can choose to be in relationship with God or not, that doesn't change your salvation.
Let's break it down.
The chapters he says back up auto-salvation are Corinthians 5, Romans 5, and Galatians 3. Here are the relevant verses (as far as I could find, he didn't quote them specifically in the podcast):
An argument could be made here that "then all died" means literally everyone died with Christ and lived/was raised with him as well. Now, he did die for all so that all may live, but not specifically addressed by this verse is something that comes up many other places in the New Testament - we have to choose to accept the gift he gave us. If you look at Romans 6:3 it says that "all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death." And in 6:7 "for the person who has died with Christ has been freed from sin." Clearly qualifying that though Christ died for us, we must choose to die with him, he doesn't take us along without our consent. A note in my study Bible had an interesting perspective on 15. "For some his death would confirm their own death, but for others his death was their death to sin and self, so that they now live in and with the resurrected Christ."
2 Corinthians 5:14-15 HCSB
14 For Christ’s love compels us, since we have reached this conclusion: If One died for all, then all died. 15 And He died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the One who died for them and was raised.
I didn't even have to look elsewhere in the Bible to find why his interpretation of this was wrong, just had to look one verse back. 17 says ""...how much more will those who receive the overflow of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through one man, Jesus Christ." Whenever you see a "so" or "therefore" in the Bible, you have to look at what precedes it to get the context. Yes, Jesus's death is a gift freely offered to everyone, however not everyone accepts it. They aren't just rejecting relationship with Jesus, they're rejecting his very existence, much less his salvation. To imply that we have that salvation whether we accept it or not seems to reject the very idea of free will; the purpose God created us for was to CHOOSE to love him and be in relationship with him. If we say no and we are still "given" salvation - it's not really a choice.
Romans 5:18 HCSB
18 So then, as through one trespass there is condemnation for everyone, so also through one righteous act there is life-giving justification for everyone.
We are all God's creation and his children and that relationship doesn't go away. That's true in the Old Testament as well and most people did not have a personal relationship with God. They had a very distant, sacrifice and rules-based relationship with God. They had to because God's righteous being requires punishment for sin. God wanted to make it easier for more people to be in close relationship to him so he gave us another option! He sent Jesus! But just as in the Old Testament when people had the choice to follow the commandments and the Law, we have a choice to accept Christ's sacrifice for our sins. That is the WHOLE deal with salvation!
Galatians 3:28 HCSB
28 There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Once again, what's the context? I'll just put the rest of it below (emphasis mine):
Galatians 3:22-29 HCSB
22 But the Scripture has imprisoned everything under sin’s power, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. 23 Before this faith came, we were confined under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith was revealed. 24 The law, then, was our guardian until Christ, so that we could be justified by faith. 25 But since that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ like a garment. 28 There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise.
The significance of verse 28 is that there are many who wanted Paul to exclude those who did not come from a Jewish background and there were others who wanted to exclude those who did come from a Jewish background! There is no distinction in Christ between anyone - we are all equal and we are all offered the "promise by faith in Jesus Christ" but as seen in verse 22, we have to believe! This is throughout the New Testament that we MUST choose.
I understand the temptation to say that all our loved ones are automatically saved even if they don't choose to believe, but that's just not biblically sound.
That's part 1. Part 2 will be on the idea of "penal substitution"!
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