“Lost” Indicates Ownership

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Nothing can be lost that is not first owned. Just as a parent is compelled by civil law to be responsible for his family and his property, so the Creator – by His own divine law – is compelled to take care of the children He has created. And that means not only caring for the good children, but for the bad ones and lost ones as well. So the word “lost” came to be for Mrs. [Hannah Whitall] Smith a term of greatest comfort. If a person is a “lost sinner” it means only that he is temporarily separated from the Good Shepherd Who owns him. The Shepherd is bound by all duties of ownership to go after all those who are lost until they are found.

Catherine Marshall (1915-1983)
Beyond Ourselves
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The Conclusion Is Inclusion

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Inclusion is the first component of the good news …

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive (I Corinthians 15:22). …

To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation (II Corinthians 5:19).

This is the good news that will overcome evil. This is the truth that empowers me to love my neighbor and my enemies. This is the message that releases from judging and excluding others. With this powerful word settled in my heart I can trust God in every circumstance. I can believe the best for everybody. I don’t have to hide from God anymore. …

As we realize how simple and fulfilling it is to experience the good news in our own lives, it will greatly alter our motivations for relating to others. We can love and accept people for who they are free of a pressure-producing agenda to get them to convert to our way of thinking and adopt our ways. God loved and gave. That’s the only motive we are to have – love and give ourselves to others. …

It is time for us to be mature enough to give up unsecure worries that God might abandon and leave some of us behind. Let’s appreciate as never before all that Christ accomplished via His life, crucifixion and resurrection. Let’s believe Jesus’ assurances that He came to seek and save what was lost – all of it! Let’s believe that God’s heart for us is conciliatory, not retributional. Because of His indescribable and unsurpassed love, God has no need to deal with us from a human perspective, as our sins deserve. He has too grand a vision of redeemed humanity to get sidetracked into petty, punitive vengeance. His love will not fail.

Steven L. Rogers
Quit “Going” to Church … and Other Musings of a Former Institutional Man, pages 146-150
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The Salvation Already Accomplished

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I came to appreciate that God created all humans in His image, with the destiny of being united to Him. God commits Himself to bring the cosmos to the destiny for which He created it. Thus, although we all have sinned … He loves us and desires to save us from sin and its consequences. Indeed, in Christ God has done precisely that. … In his death and resurrection, the salvation of all humanity is achieved. … God is now at work drawing people into the salvation already accomplished in Christ.

Robin Parry
Author of The Evangelical Universalist, under the pseudonym Gregory MacDonald
(In an interview with Tony Golsby-Smith)
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God Is Responsible for Satan

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Did you know that God created Satan as an evil creature? Christianity’s teaching of the so-called “fall” of “Lucifer” is not to be found anywhere in the Hebrew or Greek Scriptures.

From the beginning is the Adversary sinning (I John 3:8).

His hand formed the crooked serpent (Job 26:13).

I create evil (Isaiah 45:7).

I have created the waster to destroy (Isaiah 54:16).

God is absolutely in charge of His universe – including evil – even Satan. In fact, Satan is one of God’s great servants in this “evil age.” Thus, God always has been in charge; He always will be in charge.

One day, God will – through Christ – “reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in Earth, or things in Heaven” (Colossians 1:20). This reconciliation of God’s Universe to Himself certainly includes this creature who is now employed as the Adversary.

That in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in Heaven, and which are on Earth; even in Him (Ephesians 1:10).

For further study on this subject consider the following books:

The Creation of Evil, Sin and Satan
The Problem of Evil and The Judgments of God

Clyde L. Pilkington, Jr.
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All in the Graves Shall Hear His Voice

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… The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice (John 5:28).

Read the above words again, and then stop a minute and answer the question, “Who are in the graves?”

According to the common teaching, there are no people in the graves. They are either alive in heaven or in hell. If people are there already, what need is there for a resurrection, or a judging?

Something doesn’t fit here; and it is not God’s Word, it is man’s teaching that doesn’t fit. The problem is that people deny the fact of death. One cannot read the Hebrew Scriptures without running into verses that tell the state of the dead.

The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence (Psalm 115:17).

For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing … (Ecclesiastes 9:5).

Those who have died are still in the graves. There has to be a resurrection to make them alive, and this is not immediately when one dies. Paul tells Timothy of some who,

… concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some (II Timothy 2:18).

The fact is that the resurrection has not occurred yet … Those who died are still in the graves until the Lord gives the shout for them to rise. All, yes, all who are in the graves will hear His voice. That includes even the unbeliever.

Faith Fellowship, Vol. 59 No. 1
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A Losing Savior?

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Yes, Jesus really is the Savior of all mankind, not just potential savior, but the actual savior of all mankind. I personally like [to use ] the phrase “the victorious gospel of Jesus Christ.” I like it because it is Christ-centered; it is Gospel-centered, and it is truly Good News to all people. It is focused on Jesus’ victory.

Unfortunately for most of church history, the church has focused on a Hell which makes Christ’s victory really pathetic. Would you want to follow a leader who loses most of the time? According to the traditional church, Jesus loses most of mankind. What a pathetic view of the risen Savior! NO. Many times NO. Jesus saves all.

Gary Amirault (1947-2018)
Salvation of All Mankind?
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The Need of Sin

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Love lacks a foil for its display in a perfect environment. … Above all other things there was need of sin, which would produce suffering and misery, so that there would be the need and the desire for a Savior; as well as estrangement and enmity in human hearts, so that there could be reconciliation, and humanity could be drawn closer to the heart of God than any others of His creatures. This demands an imperfect environment to produce it.

A.E. Knoch (1874-1965)
Creation and Disruption
Unsearchable Riches, Volume 48
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