Tag: Universalism

Will Many Be Saved?

Have you gone to many, or any, funerals where you assumed a negative eternal destiny for a person? This is so hard to think about that we simply hope for the best, even in cases where there is little evidence that this could go well.

We are not to judge. We don’t have the ability to know what interactions a person has had with God. But even with the fact that Jesus died for the sins of everyone, and that God desires all people to be saved, one sobering verse stands out for me. I call it my least favorite passage of Scripture:

13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Matthew 7:13-14 (ESV)

The word “few” devastates me. It is a relative term, so against the billions of people who have lived and currently live “few” could still be a vast number. Still, to imagine an even larger number going to eternal damnation is staggering.

How can this be? Isn’t God love? Isn’t God all-powerful? Yes, He is. But He is also a God of justice who abides by what is “written”. So, He will not do a compromising end run around the Law, even for this. If Scripture is to be believed at all, people are damned and they are damned in vast numbers.

I would love to wrong about this. Perhaps, “few” is 49.999%. Or it could be “few” relative to the 100% that could have been saved. Maybe 95%. Or maybe the key is the word “destruction”. If destruction refers only to Sheol and not necessarily Gehenna, then perhaps Jesus would have a mechanism to evangelize the dead and to do so in mass. I’m not saying that any of these could not be, but the most natural way to read this verse is to expect many losses.

Who would make up the many? Good works can’t make up for sins. There would be many “good people” by our standards who would miss out. Many consider Jesus to be irrelevant and hold on to a “let’s see what happens” approach to death. They reason that either they just cease to exist, or it will be O.K. because they are nice.

Many hold on to an alternative worldview with an alternative means of salvation, even if they have heard the Gospel. Muslims hold on to a somewhat vague hope of Allah’s mercy if they follow the Five Pillars of Islam well enough. Hindus cling to gradual ascension through reincarnation if they live well. Cultural Christians cling to being “good enough” if they don’t understand the Bible. Then there are the atheists who expect to disappear. That is a lot of people.

Maybe there are multiple paths to salvation?

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 14:6 (ESV)

It makes sense. If there were other ways, would God have made Jesus do what He did? If you don’t like it, speak to Jesus. I didn’t say it.

Many people have not even heard the Gospel of Jesus. What about them? I personally think that 1 Peter 4:6 alludes to how God deals with the Church’s failure to get the Word out.

6 For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.

1 Peter 4:6 (ESV)

It is a somewhat vague, one passage testimony; but it makes more sense to understand this passage as Jesus or somebody preaching to the dead than all of the other weak explanations I have seen. If this were so, what sort of fool would reject the Gospel while toiling in Sheol? The mystery of faith is great. You would be surprised at how dense people can be.

When you add it all up it is sadly easy to imagine how the many end up in destruction. Can we move the needle in any way? Yes. Our witness to people matters. The few will still be a “great multitude that no could count.” (Revelation 7:9) I want to be in that multitude. I want those I love to be in that multitude. I want to have some role that many others will be in that multitude. And I still hope that the obvious way of understanding Matthew 7:13-14 is wrong.

Examining Near Death Experiences (Part III)

So far we have reviewed nine common (not unanimous) experiences that were discovered through extensive interviews and are reported in the book Evidence of the Afterlife by Dr. Jeffrey Long. To this point none are surprising given the information and experiences shared in the Bible. That takes us to the last three.

Encountering or Learning Special Knowledge. As with the others, not everybody indicated that this was their experience. The experience itself would provide special knowledge, but the question that yielded this response was driving at whether information was specifically given to the person. The Apostle Paul shares this about his experience, which may have been an NDE:

 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. 3 And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows— 4 and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.

2 Corinthians 12:2-4

Paul saw and heard things that he was not permitted to tell to others. He does not share whether some of what he does write about came from this experience. I would assume that it did.

The study did not compare the information, but I have noted some inconsistencies from accounts reported in various books. That greatest was a report of universal salvation versus people who experienced what they called Hell. The universal salvation report would also clash with Scripture. Jesus says,

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one come to the Father except through me.”

John 14:6

The exclusivity of salvation through Jesus makes sense if indeed there is a problem of sin between man and God. Is forgiveness just something God does because He can? If so, why would Jesus be required to go to the cross to atone for sin? The same can be asked about other religions and methods of “earning” Heaven. If that can be done, why would Jesus need to do what He did?

Reports of salvation without Jesus raise suspicion. Are the claims of universal love and acceptance a deception? If so, into whose hands can we fall when we experience a Near Death Experience? There is an assumption that the contents of the experience are necessarily truth. That may be misguided.

Encountering a Boundary or Barrier. There are very few descriptions in the Bible about a trip to Heaven. Those that exist are all focused on the throne room of God. There is also reason to conclude that these were visions. They definitely were not bodily trips to Heaven, nor are NDEs. A vision is not even a movement of the soul to Heaven. It is information about Heaven delivered to the soul. Would the throne room of God count as a place of no return with the only way to experience it is via a vision?

Of people experiencing an NDE, 31% reported that they encountered a point which they could not pass. The reason, or what was beyond, is not laid out. The only thing like it in Scripture is not in Heaven but rather in Sheol. In the account of Lazarus and the Rich Man , the rich man can speak to Abraham but he cannot go to Abraham neither can Abraham go to him.

But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’


Luke 16:25-26

A Return to the Body, Either Voluntary or Involuntary Isaiah, Daniel, Paul and John all have their vision or NDE come to an end. All would seem to prefer to stay . The same can be said for those who experience an NDE.

All we know is this life. There is something within us that clings to this life as long as we can. When people die, we often speak as if life is the prize and Heaven is the consolation prize. This is not the case. In Revelation 7 a picture of people in Heaven is given to us. John is asked if he knows who are these people. He defers to his questioner who tells him, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation…” While “great tribulation” may refer to an event or period of human history, a more likely understanding is that is how this life is referred to in Heaven. It is certainly not an endorsement. The good news is that something truly better does exist for those who are connected to Christ. We just fail to understand how much better.

Can Near Death Experiences Be Deception?

What does it mean to die?  It certainly doesn’t mean to slip into non-existence.  When we die what is conscious and immaterial about us breaks from what is material.  People experience this sometimes as hovering above their bodies, or going through a tunnel toward a light, or they experience the horrors of Sheol, but many times the experience is of a joyful, loving Heavenly bliss.  No one who experiences these joys is interested in returning.  Life suddenly loses its interest.  But, as we know, many people are resuscitated and live to tell the story.  But is the story real and accurate?

The majority of reported experiences are of Heaven.  “Reported” may be the key word here.  Most people don’t want to report they experienced “Hell” or for that matter even remember the experience.  Those who experience “Heaven” are more willing to speak, though no one wants to be considered delusional.

I don’t doubt the reality of Heaven nor the possibility that one might experience a bit of Heaven in a NDE.  I do have some doubts that everybody who reports seeing Heaven actually did see it.

A fairly large group of people return proclaiming a message that Heaven is a place of pure love that everyone will experience.  They endorse universal salvation.  This pronouncement runs contrary to those who experience Sheol.  It also runs contrary to what Jesus proclaims in the Bible.  Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  He also states, “For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.”  That’s not universal salvation.  How did people come back to life with a contrary message?

Transcendental Meditation seems to have a similar capability of separating your conscious self from the physical self.  This practice is not benign.  Some practitioners have reported experiencing evil, perhaps Satan himself, in whatever dimension TM puts you.  Could death, even temporary death, also put a person into a dimensional space (not Heaven) to encounter a spiritual being who there to deceive?  I think the answer is “yes”; and all experiences, no matter how positive or blissful, need to be tested.

I would very much wish for universal salvation.  Even God desires universal salvation.  But if universal salvation is not the truth, then a message of universal salvation is extremely dangerous and is exactly the type of misinformation that Satan wants to spread.

The goal of those who experience a NDE and return with a message of universal salvation is not to deceive.  They want to spread hope and remove the fear of death.  But they are the one’s who have been deceived.  We are neophytes when it comes to experiencing death.  We don’t know what we are experiencing and could easily be misled.  Perhaps this is part of the reason why God strongly forbade practices that could lead to such out of body experiences.  A NDE just happens to us, but discerning the reality of the experience takes some caution.

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