Christian Universalism In Relation To The Doctrine Of A Works-based Salvation

An essay

My proposition is simple: the notion of a Christian universalist view wherein any type of “works-based salvation” or “faith plus works” doctrine exists as dogma is incoherent with biblical teaching – not just regarding the mechanism of salvation itself, but also regarding the eschatological framework for ultimate universal salvation laid out in scripture.

Before I begin my extrapolation, I must say that this entire essay is based upon my own assumptions and interpretations on biblical texts – of course the issues at hand have been treated to many different interpretations, my own being that of a Christian universalist and simultaneously a believer in the doctrine of salvation by faith alone.

I am open to many different viewpoints on scripture – but above all I am aware of the complete transcendence of God beyond the human capacity to understand innumerable things of both the finite and infinite, and I recognize the Bible shows us a glimpse of what was and what will be without being a complete rendering of the entire truth. If absolute truth is found in the Bible, as I believe Jesus Christ to be, it is on the Bible’s own terms – nowhere does the Bible claim to have given its readers all knowledge, but rather some – that we may have faith. It is my opinion that no earthly person other than Jesus Christ has had, nor shall have, the full counsel of God in this age.

On that note, I say that I am happy to be corrected (though a “correct” reading of any scripture is a foggy concept in itself), should I be shown to be truly incorrect in any of my statements.

Now, to my contention: I propose that the reformed doctrine of “faith alone” in Jesus Christ as a means of receiving salvation is a correct interpretation of the biblical teachings regarding the saving of humanity (though I must add at the outset that I certainly do not believe that all reformed Christian ideas are quite so biblically accurate).

To sum up, I shall make my pitch that Christian universalist doctrine (such as it is, being that it is largely non-systemic and not held as dogma in any mainstream denomination) and the reformed theological principle of “Sola Fide” (or “faith alone”) are capable of being perfect bedfellows; able to hold themselves together as compatible beliefs – at least, I hope, within the context of examining the rich subject of the principles of corporate human salvation in Christ, regardless of the differences between the respective schools of thought from whence they both came.

Adherents to more legalistic wings of Christian tradition must wince at the famous Lutheran words of “sola fide” whenever they hear them spoken (some universalists oddly share this disdain also, as we shall see). Likewise, all Christian universalists surely cringe with agony upon hearing the eternal damnation spiel propagated alongside the fiery protestant (and indeed Roman Catholic) caricature of God, Him armed with a healthy lust for wrath and punishment.

Similarly, it must be true that many a reformed eye has rolled when the issue of a universal salvation has been brought up – what of “the elect”? What of the hell that Augustine, Aquinas, Luther and Calvin all believed in? This seems a shame to a believer like myself, whom happens to be both appreciative of many reformed ideas and a committed universalist.

In this arena of theological battle is the continuing work of God being made manifest, in order that Christian universalism one day shall find its rightful home in the hearts of all believers – I pray that whenever I can, I may participate in the will of our Lord to that end.

It is important to briefly mention here that there are of course the “Five Solae” – a collective of reformed Christian disputations which only became a completed list in the 20th century.

For the purpose of pre-emptively removing potential clutter in my argument, I am going to focus on the singular protestant pillar of “faith alone” for dexterity in using terminology and in keeping with the most biblically sound idea of the Five Solae (incidentally, Sola Fide is probably the most important of the Five Solae anyway, at least with regards to salvation). Thus I shall pit the biblical and logical case for the faith alone doctrine against the ideas of one well-known Christian universalist’s viewpoint, in the hope that other universalists will perhaps understand the logic and the truth that I am reaching for in my ideas.

In summation of my proposition then, I shall attempt to deconstruct the strange premise of the Christian universalist position which espouses a works-based salvation (most commonly found in the Eastern Orthodox tradition). I shall also try to unite universalist eschatological thinking squarely with the wisdom of the faith alone doctrine. In order for me to achieve this end, obviously the traditional reformed doctrine of everlasting hell with no chance of reprieve for non-believers must be thrown on top of the bonfire of bad ideas at this point before I begin (along with any generalized works-based salvation doctrines) for my proposition to make sense.

As I will show, a works-based salvation doctrine, or any teaching for that matter which demands human adherence to any law, edict or tradition to attain salvation (incidentally I am happy for them all to be united under the loose banner of “works-based salvation” for the purposes of deftness in the writing/reading of this essay) serve as the arch antithesis of the faith alone doctrine – and a sensible universalist view surely cannot consistently and coherently embrace the view of a works-based salvation doctrine, or any view that even seems close to it.

I propose that faith alone in Christ is the cornerstone, the master key, the doorway of light unto salvation and reconciliation to God for all people universally – during their time on earth should they be saved, and at the final judgement where all outside of Christ shall (ultimately) be saved.

What pushed me to write about this was the brilliant and world-renowned Christian universalist Dr. David Bentley-Hart’s opinion on the works/faith subject, which I discovered in a brief clip from an interview which I came across on the internet whilst researching.

In the clip, he gave his apparent backing to the idea of a works-based salvation, and seemed to scorn the general evangelical position on being saved through faith alone.

Having not read much of Dr. Hart’s work in book form (as I write) I must confess that most of my knowledge of his theology and philosophy I have received rather by listening to him in numerous lectures, talks and interviews. I have also read many of his online articles.

I generally concur with his theological opinions (some of his views indeed I find breath-taking and revolutionary – for example his bold insistence that if Christianity is not ultimately in the end universalist then it is not worthy to be believed, and his thoughts on the unbreakable connectedness of humanity and thus the impossibility of eternal bliss for those in heaven if an eternal torture chamber for those outside of heaven exists perpetually) but his views on works and salvation irked me enough (as a fellow Christian universalist) that I felt compelled to tackle the issue as I see it, using Dr. Hart’s view as the scope for my reasoning.

Dr. Hart’s views (as interpreted below) begged me to ask this question: how do works of faith and their importance in the “working out” of our salvation and the beliefs of Christian universalism fit together – furthermore, how does all of this synchronize in an eschatological sense?

I hold to the Pauline principle of a salvation through faith in Jesus Christ alone – and thus I shall set to work breaking down some of the points made by Dr. Hart in the clip and seeing if universalism and a works-based salvation could logically fit together in my mind – especially in eschatological terms.

The video source is entitled David Bentley Hart on ‘works vs faith’, found on the Christus Victor YouTube channel, and in it Dr. Hart explains what he believes the meaning of “believing” or having “faith” (being read in the original Greek) alludes to.

Dr. Hart states that Paul insisted on one’s doing works as being indicative of one’s having faith; that Paul’s use of language insinuated an underlying “trust” in his meaning, that works should and would be an essential facet to being saved. Dr. Hart’s intimate knowledge of Greek gives him the means for his interpretation of this subject.

Furthermore, Dr. Hart ascribes Christ’s hyperbolic (and to my mind obviously unattainable) command to the Jews to “be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect” as a literal command for them to act out (Jesus also used many other phrases non-literally as hyperbole, to serve as stark antithesis to opposing statements, to ask rhetorical questions or even to amp up already dramatic tensions regarding Mosaic law, for example throughout the Sermon on the Mount in the gospel of Matthew).

Dr. Hart brings up a meagre smattering of other scriptures (compared to the vast swathes of the New Testament which contradict his opinion) which he uses to try to justify that perhaps “faith alone” is, or at least should be, a dead duck in Christian theology.

He even goes as far as to assume that Paul is simply teaching that the apparently more menial “works of the law” (i.e. circumcision and kosher rules precisely) are what do not justify or make righteous converts to Christ; Dr. Hart thus by default insinuates that other works of the Mosaic law perhaps do – an idea I find glaringly false when one considers the overall theme found in Paul’s epistle to the Galatians, where Paul clearly rules out the possibility that human adherence to any law, rule or edict should lead to the granting by God of divine justification and righteousness.

Another particularly striking teaching of Paul regarding the Mosaic law is found in 2 Corinthians 3:7-8 – “But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?”

In my eyes, there is only one possible explanation for the deliberate mention of laws “engraven in stone” – Paul is clearly referencing the ten commandments in this text, and is beyond all shadow of a doubt giving the imagery of the tablets to be envisaged by the reader as he talks about “the law” as a “ministration of death” being “done away” as a concept for attaining righteousness.

The attempt by many to shoehorn the idea of chopping-and-choosing which laws Paul specifically makes mention of in his writings that no longer serve as a means to attain righteousness into the faith/works debate is vacuous – it is clearly seen above that the entire law is that which Paul targets as being “done away” with, for the purpose of reconciliation to God. As I will show, other apostles including James are in firm agreement with him.

The Mosaic law is of course a solid, indivisible system comprised of three main bodies (the division into three was simply done for the purposes of rabbinical teaching, not (as generally thought) to assuage some kind of three-tiered importance of the law). The idea that the law could be divided in reality is of course totally dissolved by James in his epistle – James explains in no uncertain terms that those whom are under the law must abide by the entire system – for if one law of the system is broken, so too are all of the laws. Picking and choosing between which laws are to be followed (at least for the attainment of divinely accepted righteousness) is a firmly closed door; not only in Paul’s epistles, but also predominantly in James’ and Peter’s writings also.

All works of the law then, fall under this “all or nothing” predicament that God establishes for us in the Mosaic law – this predicament thus shows us humanity’s absolute need for Christ’s fulfilment of the law on our behalf. This truth is beautifully revealed by the mechanism of God’s revelation of an unattainable law system - an idea first seriously propagated in modern times by Martin Luther, after his renewed understanding of Paul’s writings.

By Jesus alluding to the perfect fulfilment of the law in human beings during His earthly ministry, His emphasis (as padded out in the teachings of the apostles after His death) is surely for people to realize that they cannot achieve His requirements of them in the law – leading them inevitably to trust His own attaining of perfection by the law in their place, leading on to the truth that He atoned (or paid the ransom) for their sin upon the cross, and thus designated the law as an “old” covenant in the wake of His resurrection and completed defeat of sin and death on the cross.

If this were not the case, the implications for the application of God’s grace would be very muddled indeed, as I shall show below.

Dr. Bentley-Hart also pushes with the idea that the outcome of God’s ultimate judgement (incidentally, I do not deny at all that God’s judgement of our earthly works is biblically valid – rather, I question the principle of the degree to which God’s judgement of Christians is based upon their works overall, in view of the entire scope of the New Testament on the subject) is hugely reliant upon the “works of love” borne out of faith. I think it’s worth noting that Dr. Hart avoided explaining by what scale these works are to be potentially measured, either by us in our earthly lives, or by God in eternity.

Furthermore, he insists that “a faithfulness that necessarily is one of works of love” is the core message of Paul. His culminating idea in the video clip is that the final judgement of God shall be based upon the provision of our loving works, rather than the “unmerited justification without the provision of works” of the Christian elect, whom are justified not by faith alone – as that belief (in his interpretation of the New Testament at least) is simply fundamentalists aping an “unmerited” (and surely, by definition, incomplete (due to a lack of merit)) idea of salvation in Jesus Christ through our simple belief and trust in Him as our saviour.

It surely is obvious here at the outset to all seasoned Christians reading this, that all whom are saved by grace through faith in Jesus’ death upon the cross are so saved whilst being unmerited creatures – even “enemies of God”, as Paul put it. How else can any sensible and self-aware Christian view their salvation? As merited? This idea seems preposterous.

When one glances at the alternative to an unmerited righteousness realized by God’s grace alone and the responding faith alone for the justification of sinners (the idea of which Dr. Hart simply scoffs at in the aforementioned interview) it must be by default a merited righteousness through a faith that must be justified by works in order to be valid to qualify for salvation. Here, I fear that Dr. Bentley-Hart falls on the wrong side of the overall trajectory of Pauline thought regarding the law, and the convictions of the other New Testament authors too.

Even if Dr. Hart didn’t come out with a solid, unmistakable rebuttal of the reformed “faith alone” position, he may as well have done – similarly, if his true opinion on the matter exists somewhere in his writings that faith alone in Christ is indeed the ultimate proviso for salvation which is far beyond the importance of human works “which are excluded, lest we should boast” as Paul contends, he was loathe to mention it in the source interview – though of course I am happy, indeed I hope – to be corrected, if this should in fact be the case.

It is worth mentioning here that I am using Dr. Bentley-Hart’s opinions as a means to open debate precisely because I value his opinion so deeply. For me, his viewpoints are wholly worthy of dissection for the purposes of developing universalist thought due to his standing as a modern giant amongst his contemporary peers within the Christian universalist movement (such as Thomas Talbott, Ilaria Ramelli and Robin Parry to name but a few) and his outstanding contribution towards developing Christian universalism as a better defined doctrinal force.

I am in no way trying to put Dr. Hart down here – I am trying to use his thoughts on works in relation to salvation as a mirror to bolster my own case for the reconciliation of opposed ideas in this most tricky subject of Christian theology. His universalism is a key factor in my decision to reference his views – for it is fellow Christian universalists of the same persuasion as Dr. Hart that I am looking to persuade with my arguments, for the betterment of universalist thought all around.

I believe it is perhaps due to Dr. Bentley-Hart’s vehemence against Christian evangelical fundamentalism in general that the common reformed trope of “saved by faith alone” may stick in his craw – the faith alone doctrine may then simply be an innocent party caught up in the collateral damage of Dr. Hart’s broad-stroked disagreements with (mainly American) post-modern Christian fundamentalism.

Dr. Bentley-Hart correctly derides other more questionable reformed doctrines which do indeed muddy the waters surrounding the profound and proper “faith alone” teaching within reformed theology, such as the sinister insistence on an eternal conscious torment for the unsaved, or the wholly demonic Augustinian and Calvinist doctrines of double pre-destination and Jesus’ atonement being limited to a select few.

Nevertheless, after seeing the entire clip of the interview as a single small window into Dr. Hart’s general theological outlook however, it came to my mind (almost defiantly, I must confess) what a certain protestant American minister once quipped regarding salvation in Christ – “faith plus something equals nothing”.

Before I put my full case forward as to why Dr. Bentley-Hart’s opinion is incorrect, it must be noted that works of faith through love (of which are so present throughout the New Testament) are entirely biblically warranted as being expected as our response to God (and thus grace-provided for by God) and are intertwined inescapably with our walk with Him.

Jesus Christ taught the necessity of works, as did all of the apostles. Between even the most pious of worshippers bowed at Christ’s very knee two millennia ago, all the way to the average present-day back-slidden pew-dodger – they have either known deep down and taught with certainty or have heard it preached with a sting to the sinful conscience that one way or another, “faith without works is dead”. However, surely it is faith which guarantees salvation, not the necessary works which result from said faith.

To focus on my counter-arguments to a works-based salvation then, the works of faith which James refers to in his epistle are certainly not law-based works (he references Abraham’s justification by works of a true faith – Abraham of course existed over 400 years before the emergence of Mosaic law). Paul of course states copiously in his writings that not only is the law part of a superseded covenant – the old being replaced with the new – but describes this process in no uncertain terms – faith is the key to opening the door to this new covenant, not works.

Any suggestion from Christians at any time that salvation itself can be gained or improved upon by works, or that the Holy Spirit requires our works as some kind of trade-off for grace, or that human perfection enabled by grace can be achieved through works are of course standing upon a rotten legalistic plank, seemingly unaware of the sharks belonging to centuries of unsound traditionalism circling below in the dark waters of the “works-based salvation” doctrine.

How negatively does a more legalistic regard for works (and indeed other connected teachings of a similar nature, like “progressive sanctification” for example) affect not only the general thrust of the gospel for believers and non-believers alike, but also, more specifically, of the doctrine of Christian universalism itself?

It is alluded to within the bible that the final position in the coming ages for believers in Christ may be in some way dependent upon works of faith or indeed the lack of them – Jesus speaks of heavenly rewards for good works for example, or a lack of rewards for a lack of works; many crowns or simply one crown, and perhaps a fiery chastisement before acceptance into the Kingdom may well be in store for many believers (let alone the judgement which non-believers may face before entering paradise depending upon their works).

Indeed, walking with the Holy Spirit should, then, naturally produce good works in believers (I maintain that all good works in human beings are rooted in a tendency towards the good as pertaining to our being made in the image of God, but this is a divergence from the main subject). Amongst many other new spiritual discoveries and surprising occurrences aside from good works during the believer’s walk with God, a deeper recognition and awareness in the believer of their sin is unavoidable. The very notion of ever thinking sin is finished, or that one good work expels a bad work in some crude twist on the system of karma, or that the believer can ever root out sin completely in human life at all (let alone by their actions) seems ridiculous.

Salvation is gained only through the gift of faith through grace, not through works, as Paul abundantly points out (famously in his epistle to the Galatians but also at many other points in his writings). Furthermore, the logic of Paul is to take the issue further: once salvation is received through faith, believers can rest peacefully in the knowledge of their completed salvation (regardless of rewards or lack of them, or perhaps even punishment or the lack of it).

Our ultimate eternal position as Christians then: as saved, justified, made righteous, sanctified and redeemed is presented biblically as a closed case – a completed action – there is no wiggle room in Pauline thought for those whom may be tempted to pull at the threads of that particular sweater.

As soon as we trust in Jesus’ death as our Passover for sin and death, we are spiritually converted (I will not go into the merits and biblical instruction of baptism here, but I am aware of its significance, if not its absolute necessity for ultimate universal salvation, obviously).

The doorway of Christ’s victory upon the cross for God’s outpouring of abundant grace, forgiveness, salvation and the completed holy sanctification upon believers in Christ is made very clear (repeatedly) in the aorist (or “completed”) tense in the original Greek, as well as being made altogether plain to us in (even the very poor) English translations. “It is finished”, as Jesus said upon the cross immediately before His death.

Christians are “sealed” by the Holy Spirit. Converts can never take away, nor add to, Christ’s completed work, as the reformed tradition often claims, correctly in my view. I think that to believe otherwise is dangerously presumptuous for any Christian, of any persuasion, and those whom do believe they have a hand in their own ultimate salvation directly dilute Christ’s finished work.

It is in the knowing of the divinely revealed truth of the basis in Christ’s death upon the cross for our salvation then, that should set us free not only from the burden of the Mosaic law for attaining righteousness, but also our own self-righteous mentality not to mention our weak, ongoing fleshly sin as a reminder of our inability to save ourselves, even perhaps as propagators of much rich fruit in Christ.

I see that Paul teaches (through revelation to himself from Christ – thus it stands that Paul’s revelations regarding human relation to Mosaic law are commanded by Christ and are to be followed as such by believers in just as high a regard as any other of Jesus’ commands) Jesus’ own sentiments that He held during His earthly ministry that faith and trust in the finished work of the cross (even “belief” itself as a manifestation in believers is granted as a gift through grace and is otherwise not attainable by human effort) leads unequivocally to salvation to those whom accept the free divine gifts of grace and faith in Jesus as saviour.

In short, being saved in its purest or truest sense can only be a spiritual happenstance, followed by perhaps an intellectual acceptance which plays catch-up. The only thing left for the believer to do is to accept the work of God that He has successfully procured to secure reconciliation to Him. God surely requires only our trust in His Son as our Passover for their salvation to be complete – for anybody to believe God expects anything else in relation to salvation negates Paul’s continued insistence to us that salvation and faith are gifts.

As a true and actual gift, then, it makes no sense to suggest we must “earn” the gift of salvation, or that we must work for it after we have received it freely in “payment”, or even work to “maintain” the gift of eternal life (all of which it seems to me suggest gaping double standards in principle when mirrored against the idea of the reception of a gift).

Increased, intended works of faithing in fellowship with God through the guidance of the Holy Spirit (not works borne under the law, from which Jesus’ death and resurrection freed us) are obviously a huge part of the personal spiritual development of each Christian, but they proceed from the flowing fountain of an actual, realized and completed salvation; they do not precede salvation from the dry pit of our unsaved state, so thus logically they cannot be required to attain salvation if they are not possible before salvation in the fallen flesh.

I think it is fair to say that good works (done either with or without having trust in Christ) have no bearing on our ultimate salvation – this point seems especially pressing when considered from the universalist position, which maintains all will eventually be saved – clearly, as I will explain, works do not seem possible in any way as a precursor to salvation at the final judgement for the unsaved.

Incidentally, final judgement (as we see in the Book of Revelation) includes reference to human works which are read from books – salvation however seems to be linked to a separate “Book of Life”. Those whose names are not found in the pages of the Book of Life are cast into the Lake of Fire. Works and salvation it seems are distinctly separated by some degree even at the final judgement of God.

If works, then, do not earn or secure the divine salvation of potential converts to Christ, whose ridiculous logic dares to suggest that works secure or maintain such a divine salvation once it is definitely attained by legitimate, confident Christians?

To suggest this idea is to imply that an effect (in this case, works) of a cause (salvation through God’s providence) becomes essential to the attaining or sustaining of its cause. Effects maintaining their causes, or even worse – effects causing their own causes is mind-numbingly illogical.

To make the non-essential condition of works falsely essential to salvation is short-sighted when we consider that all along, at the most crucial points in the process of salvation (namely Christ’s sacrificial death upon the cross and the believer’s acceptance of that gift) – the said condition of works was never required by God.

As an example of an evil work in the Bible having an effect (or not) upon the eternal standing of a believer’s salvation, I point to the case of the Christian man in 1 Corinthians, whom was having sex with his father’s wife and was crudely boasting of his deeds to the church: even this heinous act was not enough to work a clearly outraged Paul into even a hint of anti-salvation rhetoric – rather, Paul deliberately made mention of the man’s preserved salvation – in fairness, this emphasized fact was penned sitting directly next to a strict command that the man must be given over to Satan for the destruction of his evident pride and fleshly immorality.

Incidentally, Paul’s sympathy for this man is made clear in 2 Corinthians; his worry was that his orders may have been too harsh. He reminded the Corinthians not to forget the traps of the Devil – using our human failure against us, which in turn would lead us to woe and misery in our shortcomings that would dry up the roots of our faith. How important, then, is it for all Christians to rely on Christ’s perfection when we fail, or feel we are not good enough.

The danger then, of telling those whom are saved that they must work to attain a “higher level” of salvation (or, in my cynical view, what I deem to be the incorrect idea of a more “completed” version of the beautifully unique person of whom God has deemed clean and righteous in Christ) is that naturally the work that must be done for God surely has to be measured (if works truly are a Godly requirement for salvation).

Let’s remember before moving on, that any improved behaviors of saved people do not ultimately change the person, rather their better acts are the result of the same person whom existed before being saved simply behaving in a new manner through the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

This is an important distinction to make – it seems the “new” man in Christ and the “old” man put to death in Christ are expected by many Christians to exist in a mutually exclusive manner – which is clearly ridiculous. I am the same person that I was before I was saved, and no amount of works will alter the very reality of my being me – the idea of my reaching a “perfect” or “sinless” state is clearly reserved for another time and another place. To even attempt to achieve this glorified state in my earthly flesh as I have touched upon (and will explore further) would seem ultimately to be attempting an impossibility (painted as an achievable possibility by certain Christian traditions) – which brings nothing but spiritual dryness, self-critical misery and a torturous walk of imperfect natural failure whilst attempting to walk hand-in-hand with an intimidatingly perfect God.

If there is the absolute need to “achieve” or to “live” in true faith (and thus salvation) by works, as Dr. Bentley-Hart believes Paul teaches, then that would mean by default that there is a possibility for believers to “under-achieve” – which is another way of saying that it is possible for us to be failures in working out, by our own acts, our eternal salvation – or else why would he labour the point of being commanded to be “perfect as your heavenly father is perfect” as a black-and-white command from Jesus? This thinking then inevitably leads to the question of “how safe are the saved?”

How frail, wavering and weak the idea of salvation would seem to me, if it were built upon human effort – whether by grace or not. Even to have human work as one leg among four legs holding up the table-top of an apparently secure salvation, I would only see three trustworthy legs placed by God; I would never truly trust that the fourth leg would not snap under the unbearable weight of that which it supported.

It is needless to say at this juncture that I firmly believe that if we continuously measure our salvation by anything other than our trust in Christ’s work upon the cross in our place, as Christians we enter very choppy waters indeed.

If gaining or retaining salvation is ultimately based upon our performance-based glory (or lack of it), this glory by its nature must be measured by us before our bodily deaths and the judgement – or else there is no way to actively “progress in one’s sanctification” or to “grow in one’s salvation” during earthly life without comparison to when one was not progressing, or growing. Progress or “change for the better” can only ever be regarded by those terms if they can indeed be measured and quantified.

Without the reflection upon (and thus comparing between) one’s works in the past, the works of the current time and the predicted works of the future with regard to one’s “holiness”, or “improvement by grace”, how then shall one know whether one is headed in the direction that God wants one to be in? Clearly God’s grace is no longer at all pure in any scenario where performance-based effort for God’s fellowship is dominant. A tree does not measure its own fruit – it simply produces it naturally. As the Pentecostal minister Derek Prince once said, “You’ll never see a tree straining to produce fruit”.

For example, the slippery slope of ignoring the main principle within the story of the thief upon the cross in Luke’s gospel (that the simple trust of the thief in Christ’s name and His identity as saviour gifted the thief instant justification and entry to paradise); the result of which is that we sinners too see in the thief’s story that our own simple trust in Jesus as saviour is a stand-alone requirement for salvation, which is an idea espoused richly throughout New Testament teaching.

A similar account exists of the Canaanite woman whose daughter was terribly ill whom approached Jesus for help. He firstly turned her way, referring to the Canaanites as “dogs”, as she was not of the House of Israel – only for her faith (and complete desperation) to eventually break through to Jesus’ heart of compassion – even amongst the boorish yelling of the disciples who wanted to shoo her away.

Indeed, Jesus even commended her “great faith” in acknowledging His position as master of all (not only the House of Israel as was obvious to her in the first place) and that ultimately she was correct to come to Him in his rightful position as Lord, for mercy and healing.

The danger of ignoring these truths (and many more like them to be found in the Bible) is that Christians fall headlong into foul legalism – something that we know Paul particularly hated.

Dr. Bentley-Hart mentions that some evangelicals regard Paul as “almost antinomian” – or “anti-law”. I myself find this a silly label to give to Paul of course – he certainly taught the ongoing purposes of the law – for giving context to Christ’s importance to potential converts and the ongoing effects of the law regarding non-believers and as a continuing mirror for reflection and even a “natural” law – however, if Paul explaining to his readers that Christians are “no longer under the law for righteousness” and him saying that the “ordinances written against us” were “nailed to the cross” makes him antinomian, then I am sure he would have been glad to have been named as such.

Sloppily labelling Paul as antinomian is obviously incorrect – however I think it’s important to realize exactly how he did view the law and its pertinence to Christian life in its most pressing form (namely that it has been replaced by grace). Labelling those whom have a clear vision of Paul’s teachings regarding the law as antinomian is equally as sloppy as others giving Paul the same title.

If then, our own works of obedience take priority in our hearts and minds for attaining righteousness or “perfection” (surely this mindset serves to ironically ride roughshod over God’s grace to actualize our walk in Christ) the only possible way of deducting our performance within that frame of mind is comparing ourselves to the only thing available to measure such matters (again I insist, in logical terms, progress requires measurement to be defined as progress) – the Mosaic law.

For how can we measure our works done through grace, if that is what we presume they are – do we attempt to measure our works by the scale of grace? That is not possible. God’s grace is immeasurable. This is a constant problem in faith – the faithful thinking that they can measure grace, handle grace, measure things next to grace, or use grace for their own ends in any such manner as these.

How can any Christian even begin to quantify how well their works have either pleased or displeased God, or what the ramifications (good or ill) of any seed sown in faith may be?

Within the human nature is the propensity to note progression, record successes and push to attain more. By what scale could anyone measure the merit of works in a Christian-based system of thought? There is no other way, I propose, to measure our achievements as believers (were we to be so foolish as to attempt to do so in our veiled understanding) other than by the Mosaic law, for “the law of Christ is not written upon tablets of stone, but upon the fleshy tables of the heart”.

It surely is much easier to mirror our works upon the written laws upon stone, than to bring our works as “filthy rags” to the immeasurable, all-graceful and unknowable love of God, Him alive within our hearts, whom manifests nothing to which we can hold a mirror to by ourselves, or to pick apart to analyze and understand fully like a list of laws; rather He exists as an unfathomable yet glorious, comforting presence within us, for us to share in His love and to share His love alike with our fellow human beings as the Holy Spirit guides us. That is Christian liberty. That is a transcendent freedom.

A common Christian misconception is that the works of the Holy Spirit are conformed – bound even – to the Mosaic law; as if the Holy Spirit could possibly be bound by a finite set of laws which He entrusted to His angels to deliver to the tribes of Israel, within a now replaced covenant, of which God Himself has declared passed away, and that those whom live in His new covenant were now dead to. What folly to suggest such a scenario!

Whatever points anybody may argue (for or against) concerning the continuing function of Mosaic law, it is certainly biblically clear that the law is not, nor should be, the main focus of the Christian life – rather obviously, the fulfilment of the law by Jesus Christ for our sake is.

If any person could be perfect under the law as Christ was, then Christ’s achievement is surely devalued – in that view then, Christ’s perfection is rendered no longer a miraculous, one-time occurrence but rather a lesser commodity in the scenario where (as works-based faith ultimately ends up pointing towards) humans can achieve the same level of Christly perfection as Jesus, whilst in their fallen state.

Moreover, we see very often in the Bible that human frailty is not only expected by God and provisioned for, but is of course sympathized with by God, and is ultimately defeated by God’s love for humanity upon the cross – not by our own human effort.

Asserting that works do not earn or gain salvation should be very easy – as this teaching is so vividly plain in the New Testament, and indeed it may be so liberating that perhaps most Christians are somehow scared of such freedom; they may cling to the law as a way of anchoring themselves to the old, trusty schoolmaster; scared to leave the corridors of his house of knowledge, as their loving Father waits patiently outside of the school for His children to let go of the teacher’s trouser-leg and to run to Him, knowing that they can gain nothing more from that rigidly unbearable tutor.

To do away with works to attain righteousness is not to do away with works altogether as the lazy Christian may assert – just as Christians naively toiling away with works for righteousness actually never alter the end result of them being saved; as the linchpin of salvation on both sides of the same coin is their faith in Jesus Christ, and what that faith should produce: namely, love.

The completely opposite view to a faith-based salvation is the perhaps more common (and to my mind exceedingly incorrect) belief of those whom still haven’t quite grasped the open-endedness and unlimited possibilities of true, selfless works of love (not under the law of Moses but within the law of Christ, or the “law of liberty” as James puts it), that the Holy Spirit’s mission is to ensure that earthly Christians should (through grace, apparently) perform the Mosaic law perfectly in this earthly life, nay, even “effortlessly” perform the duties of the law, as I have heard a few preachers suggest. I would suggest in reply to this dire idea that a more absurd fantasy it would be hard to find in all of Christendom.

If it was indeed the case that the Spirit of God’s mission was to somehow enable fallen men and women to perfectly enact the law, even through the mechanism of grace – then what a miserable failure the Spirit would have to admit to being – for whom among the Christian elect of this age or any other would dare to say that they have lived a sinless day?

If then, the Holy Spirit’s purpose is to achieve perfect obedience to God in the flesh, as many contemporary Christians believe is possible, then in saying the purpose of the cross is to necessitate our responsive actions or “obedience” as universalist George Macdonald saw it – are we not saying then, that the Holy Spirit is wholly and fundamentally a failure in His mission? If we admit in truth that not ourselves, nor any other person, has attained or ever will attain the perfect standards of the law in its entirety, by grace or not?

We also must never fall into the trap of false belief which suggests that the very Mosaic laws which Jesus Christ emphatically triumphed over through His perfect life and death upon the cross (the laws then being destroyed as a means for righteousness and put under our feet upon our path to justification in Christ) are the very same rules and regulations God is now in His new covenant trying to enable us to achieve through works! That idea seems to be a gross contradiction in terms.

Knowing that we were unable to keep the law in the flesh, and thus knowing that God abolished obedience to the law as a means of attaining righteousness, do we say then that (through the Spirit) the same weak flesh is essentially required to become perfectly obedient under – even to the hopeless end of trying to maintain a salvation that we could possibly lose, should we fail to obey entirely?

If this is true, again, I beg you to look to Christendom in all seriousness and grave honesty, and show me this sinless, perfect model of obedience, so that I may worship him along with Christ. Does the Spirit of God expect perfection from imperfect flesh? Even Paul himself, in all of his glory and might, as perhaps the most fruitful Christian to have ever lived, admitted he had “not yet attained”, and that he was (in very much the present tense as he himself wrote it) the “chief of sinners”, and “not worthy to be called an apostle” due to his past sins (those sins of course never complete without mention of his systemic murder and persecution of a religious sect for their beliefs) – sins which, by the way, put him precisely in the same camp as Adolf Hitler, or Saddam Hussein, if we approach Paul’s own self-condemnation and the biblical account of his actions seriously.

If this apparent perfect obedience in the Mosaic law is not attainable at its height by any person in the flesh (except Jesus Christ), why would any earthly person bother (at even the lowest points of the law) to try to attain a complete and absolute impossibility with their own cynical eternal gain inevitably in mind (if we follow the aforementioned models of good works in order to be saved)?

It may indeed be true that at some point, all evil, sin, fleshly lust and rebellion shall be purged from all people individually during their healing in the Kingdom of the new heavens and the new earth. I would go as far as to say that this is indeed the end goal of God for us all – but nobody should fool themselves into believing that it is a requirement through our acts in our fallen flesh for our salvation – and certainly the process and outcome of our pure, sinless perfection (in my view) shall have very little to do with our active input.

What shall be made glorious in us shall be done by God’s hand alone, just as our creation and salvation appear to us also. To even claim that I myself hammered a single nail into a wooden beam in order to strengthen the structure of God’s roof of salvation over my life, I should presume too much glory upon myself in the whole affair; nor would I wish to think such a thought.

It is an interesting point that salvation surely does not depend on human acts, denomination, philosophy or theology or any other nuance of “correct” human assumption – for if salvation were based on our requiring correct views on what was being presented to us in scripture, whom could be saved? Whom would have the brass neck to say they were correct in all of their beliefs? And by what measure? I posit that there could be no conversation in the world with more than two Christians present where the end result was that they agreed completely on biblical interpretation.

Faith in Christ and a relationship with Him is the only possible way to salvation – this seems simply obvious from any Christian perspective. Placing a time limit on this happening however, with the absurd accompanying idea that God’s redemption for humanity could be thwarted because of such a time limit is ridiculous in my eyes. It also puts a stop to God’s endless love and mercy (which, as is found in James’ epistle, supersedes judgement).

Furthermore, whom could put a limit on God’s ability to save all, other than God Himself? This idea, when examined even at a glimpse, seems nonsensical. Any imposed time limit or unending withholding of any person’s salvation would not be the act of an all-loving God at all.

Of course, there are a few scriptures which may appear to contradict the above interpretations. I will make a special mention at this point of another fetid doctrine widely circulated within mainstream denominations that has its basis on a couple of poorly interpreted scriptures – namely the idea that Christians can lose their eternal gift of salvation.

From the universalist position at least, it seems obvious that the idea of a “loss of salvation” is essentially a non-issue, if the core of our belief in the gospel provides evidence to us of an ultimate universal salvation. Notwithstanding, I want to be clear that the idea of any person losing their salvation once it has been received in faith is beneath contempt; to the point where I feel spending any more time discussing it here wouldn’t be necessary.

Works then, as a necessity for being truly saved, or to “complete” or “secure” our salvation (as if God’s love and His gift of redemption is some kind of a cosmic credit card debt that must be paid off in instalments) is not what we see systemically in New Testament language at all; a reaction to God with our actions is certainly called for – commanded even – yet the deformed theologies we see in the church today are a far cry from the liberation that is found at the heart of the gospels.

Yet “works-based salvation” and “progressive sanctification” (doctrines inevitably dependent upon the observation of the law, as shown above) are core teachings and belief systems in much of modern Christianity – even, most alarmingly, amongst some Christian universalists, whom as I shall show have a tougher job of reconciling what happens without works in relation to the overall subject of salvation for the unsaved, than do non-universalists.

The Christian universalist must see that there shall be salvation offered – and inevitably accepted freely – to all non-Christianized human souls after their bodily death in order for universal salvation to be achieved in reality, as we believe that the scriptures describe.

The universalist then, must wrestle with how the unsaved then shall attain righteousness once they are in the grave, without the possibility of works at all – whereas Augustinian thinkers, for example, have the easy option available to them in their theology to cite eternal damnation as the ultimate result for those whom fall at the hurdle of accepting Christ in their earthly life. Horrifically, even helpless, unbaptized dead babies suffer such a fate in Augustinian tradition.

For some Christians whom believe in the loss of salvation, hell also awaits those whom were unable to keep a grip on the apparent greasy ladder of Christian conversion amidst a tortured path of works-based progression towards “enhanced holiness” (ironically a hellish experience in itself) – hell being the fate for even staunch believers whom crumble under the pressures of “mortal sins” and slip away from Christ into the abyss through sin, along with the great unsaved.

However, thankfully we see abundantly in Paul (and also in other apostles’ letters) that the Mosaic law is declared an “unbearable yoke”, a “curse” to those whom are under it; that for anyone to break one law is to break them all, and that those Christians whom rest in the law “fall from grace”. The list of biblical references regarding the abolishing of law-based works to attain righteousness with God indeed goes on and on, but you see the point the New Testament is making here: works according to the law, or done in any way shape or form to cynically cozy up to God, or done to establish our own shiny baubles of labour to show off to God in order that we may receive rewards is to me the very encapsulation of falling from grace.

Works of love done with even a hint of the idea of “earning” something in return as an essential part of the bargain, in my view, do not qualify as works of love at all. Selflessness it seems has no place in the idea of “progressive holiness” - only when we truly see that we are as saved as we will ever be, will we really produce fruit in freedom and liberty from the law.

Grace then, and “resting in the promise” as Martin Luther so wonderfully put it (or what I call the overriding principle of faith in Christ which supersedes anything else in importance for salvific purposes) is perhaps an entirely practical, biblically sound reformed Christian teaching, and is entirely in line with the whole thread of New Testament teaching.

In summary so far, I believe that the focus of the Christian mind and heart should rest firmly in Christ’s finished work upon the cross for salvation. Even a mild brush with a works-based salvation mindset (as is the case with Dr. Bentley-Hart, and also it seems with George Macdonald, whom wrote that the highest and central purpose of the cross was “obedience” to Christ, in his “Justice” essay) eventually fuels a quite natural mistaken focus on works which pulls our trust away from grace; something which in turn can only serve to bend our focus sorrowfully and inevitably back to the Mosaic law for righteousness, as I have demonstrated.

Herein lies the danger of the doctrine of lawful obedience in relation to our preserved or ongoing salvation (the “Lordship Salvation” doctrine is one of the common modern titles amongst protestants for this type of theology). Similarly, the false doctrine of a necessary and systemic “progressive sanctification” (and all of its accompanied legalistic trimmings) that we find so fundamentally in Roman Catholic theology is to my mind equally poisonous as anything the reformed protestant denominations have come up with historically.

My stance is that Christians are (biblically speaking) already fully sanctified in Christ – this term “sanctified”, or “set apart for a purpose” is written as a completed action in the Greek, numerous times in the New Testament. This simple fact gives serious weight to the idea that, though works and growth spiritually are the marks or the good fruits of true Christian faith, they are definitively not a requirement for sanctification (which is completed upon conversion) or binding upon any person’s ultimate status of salvation itself going forward.

For example, what I may think is a good work could possibly not be in truth, and alternatively what God requires me to do as a work I may consider to be unthinkable or impossible. This is a tension in every Christian life – but to rely on our own ideas of what classes as good (which for Christians is normally always based upon Mosaic law, as the church shows widely) rather than the Holy Spirit is, to my mind at least, undesirable. The Holy Spirit, by the very fact that He is God, makes nothing of the law when the law is placed next to Him and His glory. The difference between following the Holy Spirit and following the Mosaic law is vast – and Christians whom don’t grasp this, sadly, I doubt have ever had a close relationship with the transcendent Holy Spirit at all.

I contend that, given all of the importance of works of faith and the following of Christ’s commands (which in turn include Paul’s gospel given by revelation of Jesus as an extension of Christ’s ministry, only aimed rather at the Gentiles, not the Jews predominantly) that our trust in Jesus’ finished work and our acceptance of the free gift of salvation through grace towers far above the eternal importance of any human obedience to any command of law or edict, any works of the flesh through said edicts or indeed also traditions or doctrines – God’s grace and love indeed towers above any amount of sin and failure which may abound in any of us – for “grace abounds much more”.

Finally then, to tie up my reasoning on why even a sniff of a “works-based” gospel is so destructive specifically to the Christian universalist position, I shall now make my case.

Firstly, the reason why I have specifically focused on comments by the brilliant Dr. David Bentley-Hart (and in a small way upon universalist George Macdonald) is because it is important that Christian universalists spot potential inconsistencies within the thinking of their own fellowship, either of theology or philosophy, if indeed any of us see issues in what we are collectively as Christians sharing and putting forward to the world.

Universalists, armed with their lofty, liberal convictions of Apocatastasis, joyously picking on piss-poor “turn-or-burn” Southern Baptist sermons are simply hunting easy meat – but universalists challenging their own internalized disagreements and questions regarding other universalists’ thinking (in the spirit of churchly fellowship of course) for theological growth seems far more prudent for the advancement of fruitful universalist belief than picking on ECT-believing young-earth creationist Calvinists, for example.

Now, if works is in any way related to the ultimate objective of God’s restoring all to Himself and His being all in all, then the issue to me seems very clear – how (if, as most Christian universalists agree, that a huge number of souls outside of Christ at the point of death must be saved after their bodily death) will works even be able to play a part in salvation in any way after the death of the unsaved and prior to their restoration? (I think it is safe to assume here that a glorified bodily resurrection which is promised to believers and therefore making works possible in the Kingdom is not possible for souls whilst they are still in unbelief or rebellion towards Christ, which I’ll touch upon again later). How would it be possible for a soul without a body in Hades (or in the Lake of Fire) to even contemplate the idea of works as a basis for their redemption? How would works be facilitated in such a state, were they indeed even an option?

God then, when faced with billions of unsaved souls at the final judgement, could not possibly expect works to play a part in their salvation, nor their progressive growth towards Him, or their progressive enlightenment (or any other pick from the myriad of strained ideas about becoming “more” righteous, or “maintaining” salvation) – which unfortunately most Christian traditions maintain, and (oddly) some universalists agree with them.

The idea of adding works to faith in Christ’s death and His resurrection for righteousness within the traditions of many different denominations of Christianity (shown, for example, in their saints’ proclaimed piety, humble works of faithing, eating bread and wine diligently at Mass, good moral behaviour and lofty, yearly repeated rituals with gaudy processions around the church yard at Easter and Christmas) shall surely be very far from the consciences of those unsaved souls desperately looking for salvation after death.

Billions of souls will technically be dead outside of Christ in lieu of the terms of their “free will position” maintained in their earthly life (this is a generalized state of non-believers after death, only mentioned here alone without reference to other good and proper reasons for many people dying outside of Christ through choice (or not) in order that I may simplify the issue to benefit the flow of my discourse).

Here then, is where the “faith alone” doctrine of the early reformers and the doctrine of Christian universal salvation, I believe, can match up together to become beautiful partners. For if the very cause and method of Godly salvation (at least from our limited human perspective relating to our ability to engage with God’s purposes for us) is to react to the work of Jesus Christ upon the cross as a covering for our sin – to accept His work, to acknowledge our sin and to trust His finished mission and thus to love Him in truth when His righteousness is imputed to us (not earned via works) – then works have no place in salvation being secured by a human soul, either in the earthly life (as Paul makes emphatically clear), or as it logically follows, also in the afterlife.

It is reasonable to suggest then, that the acceptance, acknowledgement of Jesus and trust in His completed atoning work and love for Him can all be performed (with a free will and conscience) by a self-conscious human soul existing without a body outside of space and time, in God’s presence at the final judgement. In essence, the faith alone doctrine stands up in the universalist view for ultimate salvation, whereas within the universalist model of all being saved, a works-based salvation falls flat.

Thus, to put all of the above processes of bodiless contrition and non-worked-for grace into the neat phrase of “faith alone” (for the purposes of a quick reference point for all of those things), being saved through choosing to repent (upon judgement) and in trusting in Christ’s atonement through faith alone is not only entirely possible for every single bodiless human soul to achieve, but I maintain logically that it is the only possible path for all human souls outside of Christ to take, once they are disembodied and beyond the physical realm.

A possible fly in the ointment here is the definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1 – that it is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”. I maintain that the wider idea of faith (or eventual trust, to use another definition) in Christ can surely stretch into other areas of the New Testament which show that repentance (or a turning to God) and the accepting of Christ as saviour play a huge part in confirming any person’s faith which in a sense comes after repentance and our decision to accept the gift of faith from God.

Nevertheless, God being made present to all of humanity at the final judgement could be construed as the very manifestation or completion of Hebrews 11:1 – in earthly faith we hope for and do not see God, though He offers us evidence during our earthly walk that He shall fulfil our hopes and that we shall indeed see Him. Indeed, faith as it is described in Hebrews is only truly applicable to mortal human beings living upon earth.

Faith is only faith (as we understand it) because God is not now fully revealed – the term “faith” then may evolve beyond its current parameters to encompass trust, repentance and a loving response to the fully revealed God, with the same merits offered to the repentant soul after death, of which any repentant soul receives in an earthly life.

The context then, of human faith with regards to our “not seeing, yet believing” God fully in our earthly human ability, to “seeing” God after our death (thus making earthly faith in the “unseen” surely void) will not restrict God from His purpose of universal reconciliation. Rather, faith in God after death will look more like the trust and love of human souls, at first outside of the Body of Christ, whom shall be exposed to God’s judgement in order that they shall be made one with Christ.

God has promised in the very definition of faith in Hebrews, that indeed He is revealing Himself through faith to mankind – there is no reason to doubt that this leads to a bigger picture of universal revelation of Himself to all – and this of course leads to the idea of universal salvation.

Honouring my promise made earlier, I will make a quick interjection here regarding the resurrection of the new body. Some everlasting hell-endorsing Christians believe that all dead sinners outside of Christ shall be resurrected to a new body (a brief rest from their dwelling in Hades) for the final judgement, and that their new bodies shall go on to endure eternal conscious torment (their inescapable fate having already been made clear to them whilst they were previously burning in hell before their bodily resurrection) after being tossed into the Lake of Fire in a second (and, it seems, pointless) run-through of their already realized, irrevocable judgement. The truth that hell will itself be cast into the Lake of Fire doesn’t seem to bother those who hold the above belief – perhaps the Lake is just a hotter version of hell in their view.

A common idea then is that our great God in all of His endless wisdom and limitless love, will resurrect all non-Christians at the last judgement (temporarily removing them from hell) before judging them (as if that would be needed if they are already aware of their inescapable fate) in order to place them into the Lake of Fire for eternity with a new body, as if to bolster His goal of providing extra sadistic discomfort and misery for them, forever. Based on this view, there is no need to wonder why most Christians are inwardly miserable, knowing that they are having to constantly convince themselves that they must love and praise a God capable of such evil.

With this absurd eschatological idea briefly considered then (the ECT doctrine forces otherwise sane people to try to bend their wills to accept such garbage), it seems safe to say that we must look further afield for a sound belief in what actually happens at the final judgement in a reality where God is not a brutally nonsensical, insane sadist.

The “resurrection to judgement”, I contend, is not a bodily one, but a spiritual one. Though some may disagree (in light of differing ideas of the doctrine of the Rapture, for example), I maintain a glorified body for any soul must have the new heavens and the new earth to inhabit – New Jerusalem comes to pass after the final judgement chronologically in the Revelation. Thus, my assumption is that the final judgement will not be manifested physically by the bodies of those present, but rather by the bodiless souls of all humanity (pending the gift of incorruptible new bodies in Christ to come).

The very idea of works continuing after human bodily death, or works having any bearing upon salvation for the unsaved after death surely become out-of-place parodies in any viable scenario of God’s judgement upon the billions of souls found outside of not just time, but outside of the physical realm and of the Body of Christ also; works appear to me in this premise as a vague shadow of the past worldly life, not at all necessary or even possible at the judgement, nor to any soul outside of Christ (cast into the “outer darkness”, perhaps) crying out to God for mercy and a naturally desired reconciliation to Him thereafter.

Works truly are of no use to a bodiless soul outside of Christ at God’s judgement seat, as that soul shall have no body (yet) to work with, nor a world (yet) to work within.

All that remains then after death is the same choice offered to those in life whom hear the call – to trust in Christ and His work upon the cross and thus to be reconciled to God through His work, not ours. Again, as I have mentioned, God’s fiery judgement upon non-believers shall surely play a crucial part in this process, as faith and the nature of faith as a means to salvation (as we now know it) must surely change once we are faced with God in all of His glory at the judgement.

Is there any need, however, for the pure, divinely-gifted salvation through Jesus Christ to be any more complicated or difficult to receive after death, than it was during its manifestation to humanity upon Earth, in finite time? I do not believe so.

The simplicity of the gospel is evident now to those who seek it in modern times – I am sure it will be made even plainer once the veil is lifted in the ages to come – when we shall all truly see God.

I believe God has deliberately made salvation in Christ an extremely simple process in this life and the next for all unbelievers – it is the natural compulsions of fallen Christian human beings in this life that have perhaps complicated the matter.

The legalistic traditions of systematic, organized religion have crushed the freedom of spiritual exploration of the human spirit; the dry, convoluted pomposity of many of the doctrines of the ancient church (spawning from its own immense pride, grounded perhaps in its steadfast (but now groaning) survival over the millennia) has overtaken the simplicity of the gospel, just as much as the new (protestant) kids on the block have – with their blend of deeply misplaced literalism, King James only-ism, muddled traditions, the dark doctrines of hell, double predestination, TULIP and many other ultimately incoherent and downright evil ideas (stemming mainly from the reformed Christian dependence on the belief in eternal conscious torment) relating to hugely complex and nuanced ideas within scripture which deserve, I feel, far better interpretations.

The entire body of Christ over the millennia are responsible and are in some part to blame (some in a larger part than others obviously – not to mention the powers and principalities working tirelessly against true and proper Christian expression being clearly culpable) for a tragic occurrence which has culminated from the procession of human mistakes in times past and which have lead to this biggest of flaws in the modern day model of Christianity: the disappearance of how divinely-gifted salvation in Christ is actually realized in a widely-understood truth (and thus a feasible reality) for all unsaved people; whether alive or dead.

Nothing is of more importance to Christian faith and religion – and, in my opinion, it is being lost. The simplicity of the gospel is being mercilessly piled upon by a slew of poor biblical translations, absurd legalist doctrines, skewed or simply false traditionalist views like everlasting hell (based more upon ancient power struggles and purges of unhelpful foes to that end rather than being true to good theology) – not to mention the inclusion into the mix of flawed human philosophy and poor historical analysis regarding the faith which all in turn help people stray away from grounded, humble, Holy Spirit-guided exegesis of the Bible.

This state of affairs then contributes to inept forms of Christianity amongst the leadership of the church as a whole (which can be exposed within most denominations by any well-read layperson of any congregation, where even basic theological knowledge of some so-called elders is as deep as a puddle).

Of course, anybody within the church but outside of the umbrella of Christian universalism can easily point to any of my arguments here and make counter-claims about how I am wrong about works-based salvation doctrine or Christian obedience to the Mosaic law in relation to salvation – many of these points could only be made against me based on widely-varying denominational traditions, rather than arguments based strictly upon sound biblical teaching for reply.

However, my focus here is the workings of the Christian universalist mindset in this area. If we are to believe that God will be “all in all”, then we must understand His ability to do this using the unendingly rich gift of Christ upon the cross (aside from all human effort in the flesh) for all salvation; for those saved whilst on Earth of course, but also for those whom shall be be present in Hades or who will be subsequently cast into the Lake of Fire too, if we are to ever understand how those many billions of unsaved human souls shall be brought to reconciliation to God through Christ – at a juncture where they shall be of no flesh whatsoever to do works with, nor in a place where works are possible – at least not in the fashion that we would currently define as “doing good works” or “living in faith”.

If we approach works in the traditional sense, and give more credence to works with regards to salvation than is owed to them, we shall make a mockery of any realistic system or logical mechanism within God’s plan for universal reconciliation as it is found in the scriptures.

Lest we be found in the camp of those saved folks whom yell “wait, so I’ve been a Christian all of my life, and atheists will just confess their trust in Christ in the Lake of Fire and they’ll be saved?”, we universalists must pay heed to the very limits that non-universalist Christians put upon God’s power to save all – which may in turn be lurking completely out of place within our own pro-universalist outlooks.

It is not just the idea of works or good deeds becoming redundant after bodily death for a means of reconciliation and fellowship with God. Other possible mechanisms which shall be employed by God to save those outside of Christ after their bodily death will surely be absent of any kind of faith or belief whatsoever – as already mentioned, if we go by the definition of faith found in Hebrews, rather than being an “unseen God”, God and His glory shall be revealed to all at the final judgement, thus the idea of an earthly “faith” being necessary for salvation or hope in the unseen as an essential cog in the wheel of salvation, like earthly works, becomes obsolete.

From the unbelievers’ perspective, belief in a God shall not be necessary once God is made absolutely present to them and thus becomes undeniable.

I think, as many Christian universalists do, that the biblical idea of God as a “consuming fire” shall not have the pillars of earthly human faith and good works (which we perceive in our finite time upon earth as essential) remaining relevant when dealing with ethereal souls outside of the physical realm.

The Lake of Fire is indeed where judgement is meted out for those whom are found outside of the Book of Life at the final judgement of God – though this begs the question (if we still insist that human confession of Christ as Lord and saviour is the only key which unlocks complete human reconciliation to God) – would not most human souls confess Christ immediately upon seeing Him revealed in His total power and glory as the living God? Perhaps the judgement for all is sealed upon death – and only judgement can open the way to salvation for the unsaved, not just some simple repentance based upon the initial revelation of God to them. Judgement is certainly biblically inevitable – perhaps for the very reason that those outside of Christ cannot simply waltz into the Kingdom without a change in their spiritual circumstances – namely their willing submission to Christ as their saviour from death.

This leads to the “free will” debate regarding salvation and that is a huge subject in and of itself. Needless to say, God’s promise of universal reconciliation in 1 Corinthians 15 is a prophecy of an eternally realized reality – how that reality is reached in relation to the “free will” of the unsaved when faced with a fully revealed God is a different focus from the one I have in this essay – incidentally, Dr. Bentley-Hart has some brilliant, cogent ideas on this subject. Nevertheless, it would be far beyond me to doubt biblical prophecy, even the most difficult prophecies to understand. 1 Corinthians 15, for example, is nothing less than a prophecy of God’s ultimate plan for mankind – and if we respect all biblical prophecy, we must certainly show the universalist prophesies proper attention.

Moving on then, perhaps the confession of Christ as Lord shall result in salvation for those whom die outside of the Body of Christ, however God’s love is surely the fire that first consumes a human soul before a human soul’s confession of Christ can be made. Again, I make mention that the fire of God shall burn all imperfections and sin and rebellion from believers as well as non-believers, but of course intimate knowledge of the process of humankind’s ultimate salvation is (in a biblical reading, at least) limited at best. The ends is clearly stated in scripture – the means however, as with many biblical statements of God’s transcendent acts – is far less clear.

This is all to say that no Christian (even if being “salted with fire” is a certainty) could possibly argue that facing the judgement as a saved Christian would not be preferable to facing judgement as a non-believer.

Notwithstanding, the idea of a Christian believing they themselves are saved through grace and faith alone whilst holding the idea that a similar process of God’s wonderful grace alone will not save all people rather than just some, especially when considering the reformed understanding of a deep lack of human input towards salvation as a concept, seems incoherent. If salvation is nothing to do with human effort and is completely in God’s hands to make a reality, what could possibly stop God from achieving His will that “none should perish”? Only if we ultimately put the responsibility for salvation into the hands of human beings and their efforts and judgements do we struggle to see how this would be possible.

God’s loving judgement, His loving wrath, His loving punishment, His loving mercy, His loving will for all humanity is what ultimately will be at the core of every human soul’s eternal destiny whether salvation begins in a person’s earthly life or during their existence after bodily death. God is love.

In this context (not the strained view of Calvin that “God is love” only to the elect, but rather as 1 John very intentionally and simply extrapolates, God’s very essence of being is love) we should expect that the processes of God’s judgement, punishment or wrath of any kind shall have good ends that go far beyond any unpleasant means by which those outside of Christ shall be brought into reconciliation with Him. Indeed, this idea carries over into life in general – most Christians hold true to the notion that the best is yet to come in God’s plan, and that the supposed means of this life shall ultimately be justified by the end result.

God’s final judgement may be extremely uncomfortable for some of those under divine condemnation – and with certain well-established avenues of relationship with God in the earthly realm perhaps no longer valid (good works, or faith and trust in the unseen for example), it is fair to say that the picture of universal reconciliation and the mechanisms by which this shall happen are reduced down to the awesome, all-consuming blast of God’s full manifestation to unredeemed humanity – the process which in earthly life is more of a drip-drip revelation for believers perhaps being closer to a tidal wave of exposure for those whom had had little relationship with God whilst in their earthly lives.

Even after keen analysis of the biblically-based doctrine of Apocatastasis and what has been made available in scripture to us regarding the process of complete universal reconciliation, these things, in the end, remain mysteries hidden within God’s eternal plan for humanity, which of course are not fully explained in the bible but are only alluded to or are confirmed as things that will happen and thus is not for anyone to speculate upon too much for fear of straying too far into fanciful conjecture or thin philosophical accompaniments to truth, rather than keeping close to the biblical narrative of universal reconciliation.

However, the view that 1 Corinthians 15 is the key which unlocks all of scripture (as Dr. Bentley-Hart in my view correctly claims, in union with Gregory of Nyssa, one of Dr. Hart’s favourite universalist fathers) then we must, after all is said and done, have faith and trust in the fact that God will get the job of universal reconciliation done, despite our lack of in-depth knowledge surrounding that particular promise.

For Christian universalists, even those as brilliant as Dr. Bentley-Hart, to put good works and a “working faith” on a level par with the notion that it is not by human effort, but by faith and trust in Christ alone as saviour that gets humanity over the line from death to life, is to not see the problems which that view creates when we look to the final judgement and the ways in which the unsaved indeed must become saved.

Surely only the faculties of human reaction to God in the form of repentance in the seat of the human soul remain to respond to God’s consuming love (once the body and earthly existence is no more). To attempt to include any current earthly premise (other than purely spiritual repentance and willing submission to Christ) that we now see as being a part of salvation whilst in the flesh into a future scenario where the fallen, fleshly body is no more, we heap more difficulty upon an already tough theological nut to crack as universalists.

The notion of a “free pass” for sinners into the Kingdom without any of the earthly doubt, strife and struggle of the believers in Christ whom converted while in the flesh (let alone the measure of good works and charitable acts of selflessness that good Christians will have accrued as opposed to the many evil works of sinners) simply by the unbeliever confessing Christ and worshipping Him when it becomes convenient may seem to some as a form of cheating God, or at the very least, is “unfair” to Christians whom had believed without seeing.

As universalists then, we see two important implications in the Bible: that the judgement of all men is inevitable, and that so to is universal reconciliation (if we take the plentiful universalist passages seriously and correctly translate and interpret some of the more testing passages in the Bible regarding God’s corrective punishment).

Just as the judgement of each person for their own works shall perhaps be mightily terrible for some (including Christians by the way), equally so shall their eventual salvation be mighty and all-conquering; when all death, sin, evil works and misery in the hearts of all shall be burned like chaff by God’s consuming fire – which surely must be a visual metaphor for His pure essence of divine love that shall eviscerate all sinful foulness that cannot bear the light of God.

Through this burning of God’s love, the presence of His very essence eviscerating all but the purest of what we are, we shall all be brought forth from darkness to live with Him in harmony forever.

As Jesus clearly states, and the Book of Revelation confirms, salvation is not to be an “all at once” occurrence, but rather a staggered arrival of all of humanity into the New Jerusalem, through its eternally-opened doors.

This then gives poignant meaning to Jesus’ saying that “the first shall be last, and the last shall be first”. Give thought also to the workers in Jesus’ parable of the labourers, whom gripe and moan to their master when the people hired at the last hour are paid the same as those whom had toiled all day under the hot sun.

These sayings (amongst many others found in Jesus’ teachings) are dripping in universalist intention, and rightly invite a universalist interpretation. We must then, as Christian universalists, understand that in our earthly lives we try to get correct in our theology the relationship between eternal salvation through repentance and faith in Christ and the separate issue of works. It must logically fit that temporal works are a result of salvation, not a requirement for salvation, nor an obligation to preserve salvation, especially when viewed in an eschatological sense.

As Christian universalists, we may truly believe God will save all based upon correct interpretations of scripture, but how He shall achieve this end should not be a surprise to us as Christians.

Shall the difference in God’s methods of salvation for those at the judgement be completely removed from His current methods? I doubt it. I believe the principal of trusting Christ shall remain the same requirement for all – through natural acceptance, or through that same reaction only after judgement. All shall be saved in faith alone in Christ through the gift of His mercy. Any other fashion of salvation where works are essentially required renders grace redundant, makes the salvation of souls whom cannot work after death and before the judgement impossible. As I hopefully have effectively shown, the idea of works attaining salvation is essentially against the Word of God given throughout scripture, from the promise to Abraham to the detailed revelation of the fulfilled promise in Jesus Christ to Paul and the apostles.

Additionally, if works are truly crucial to salvation for the converted in the flesh but upon death this criticality is stripped away (once the soul has no access to a body or an earthly environment for works to be made possible – yet salvation is still an absolute certainty), we see a clear, jarring inconsistency in the overall divine mechanism for salvation.

Also, we have the interesting idea here of billions of souls in the afterlife being brought into Christ without a single work, without one act of progressive sanctification or strenuous active change of their own selves through behaviour (through grace or not) at all being relevant to their salvation. These processes are either enacted by a fiery judgement, by the pruning hand of God over a period of time in the coming age; or perhaps are not enacted at all – just how much of what we are now existentially in our flesh and spirit shall make it through God’s judgement remains to be seen.

Incidentally, this opens a fantastic avenue of thought – what exactly happens to souls before they may enter the Kingdom? What state of existence does the human soul have in the Kingdom? What are the true workings and aims upon our very human essence once we are saved and see God? Alas, this is an avenue which I shall investigate and write about another time.

So it stands to reason: biblically, if works of progression are not a prerequisite of salvation for the living nor a means to retain salvation, why then should progression and development in holiness through works be a condition of salvation for the dead at the judgement? Also, reversely, if works are indeed a pre-requisite for salvation to the living, but cannot be fulfilled by the dead – well, the inconsistency is clearly evident. For committed non-universalists of course, this entire subject is altogether a non-argument – eternal conscious torment whilst writhing in hell for all non-believers whom didn’t believe in Jesus “in the nick of time” is their ridiculous answer to the problem, as if a pernicious “time limit on salvation” is actually a concrete biblical teaching in evangelical la la land.

If the very process of being saved then, becomes one rule for those in the flesh, and another rule for the dead – not to mention that an unjust, or a fundamentally unbalanced means of fulfilling God’s will regarding universal reconciliation doesn’t seem to be in keeping with what we know to be God’s nature – we have a clear division of God’s ultimate method of salvation, where no division need exist, if faith (or trust) alone in Christ for salvation is essentially a constant, unchanging mechanism (again, repentance and submission to Christ upon His revelation to the unbelieving dead is as good as saying they shall have “faith alone”, for want of a better term to make clear the biblical premise that human works to “achieve” salvation are excluded).

Salvation by faith alone is the only idea that fits with the universalist doctrine in our understanding of the mechanism of salvation for the unsaved dead – because “faith alone” does not produce a split between those saved in life and those whom are saved after the final judgement: all are saved in relatively the same way: through faith in Jesus as saviour, without works as a necessity, either by choice through grace, or alternatively through judgement. To pretend that judgement by fire which leads to salvation is a process whereupon those judged do not need to submit to Christ, but are saved by “fire alone”, if you like, again is unbiblical.

To introduce the idea of completely different mechanisms for salvation in Christ for the living and the dead and (more deeply) for the believer converted whilst on earth and the heavenly non-believer at the fiery judgement seems to me to be opening a Pandora’s box of ropey theological conjecture.

The restoration of all things shall surely be achieved through His overflowing grace and mercy through the unstoppable streams of His wonderful love – the outpouring of which must assuredly be non-requiring of any works on our behalf to gain His embrace – just as the father of the prodigal son cared for nothing except to hold his son again, the Father asking us only for our humble trust so that in the New Heaven and the New Earth, all shall finally have a place to willingly and happily work anew in true completion of self, this made possible only in a glorified body of the resurrection, our new bodies far removed from the sinful fog surrounding us upon which our very souls did choke, and which shrouded our hearts whilst we lived upon the Old Earth as fallen creatures. Though works are of course the fruits, the evidence of our faith and the will of God for our edification and our holiness, they are not what saves us. Our salvation, ultimately, is the work of God. We only need to accept it as a gift, not work for it as debtors.

I pray that we shall all be healed and thrive in the pure peace which comes from the knowledge of a universal restoration and the everlasting truth that is found only in the loving providence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit throughout the ages and forever more.