Rowland Croucher wrote: Here’s a topic I can’t remember our opening up here. G H Morling, the venerated principal of the NSW Baptist College, was apparently a convinced universalist. He would have been crucified for that in NSW if he didn’t have the patriarchal status he had. Another Baptist College principal (won’t say where) got into trouble when he said in a class ‘I’m within a whisker of being a universalist’.

Nathan responded:

I suspect we are called to evangelise as though God were not a universalist and pray that God is a universalist.

I’m not sure that it is one of those theological questions that can be solved. And perhaps we would not be wise to spend too much time trying to solve it.

It is God’s will that all should be saved. Has God retained the power to always ensure that the will of God is accomplished? If so, then universalism ought to be true. But perhaps God has deliberately created creatures that are beyond the power of an all-powerful God to control. If so, then perhaps God’s will is in danger of not being done and we are called to keep strenuously evangelising and praying for God’s will to be done. Perhaps God’s love is so irresistable that in the resurrection, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and all will be saved to the glory of God. And perhaps it is possible to live in such a way that you can eternally harden your heart against even the most irresistable love and grace and thus by your own arrogance refuse God’s free gifts.

Perhaps it makes no difference in the here and now whether we lean towards universalist beliefs or not. So long as we continue to be a people who fervently pray for God’s will to be done on earth as in heaven, even the universalists among us will not give up the evangelistic endeavour.

Am I a universalist? Probably not, but I hope God is.

Peace and hope,

Nathan

______________________________________ Nathan Nettleton Pastor, South Yarra Community Baptist Church Melbourne, Australia