Jesus the Universalist

The last year has seen something of a resurgence in interest in the afterlife, Heaven, Hell, and the end of the world. Different books, thinkers, blogs and perspectives have been declaring this, declaring that. On Heaven, I'd recommend N.T.Wright's "Surprised by Hope". on Hell, "Is Hell For Real...", and on the end of the world I'd merely caution readers to be wary of the rapture. For a great overview of all these issues, I'd thoroughly commend to you a book by Anglican Theologian - par excellence - Anthony Thiselton, entitled "The Last Things".


But to understand Universalism, we need to look at what Jesus says.


The simplest possible sense of universalism is the belief that every human will be saved, because God's Love is the defining, victorious characteristic of his being.


I think, in a different sense, that Jesus was a universalist.


Indeed, technically, in one sense, he absolutely was.


I believe that Christianity - the salvific, redeeming Gospel message preached and personified by Jesus, and then propagated by Paul and the Early Church - is a universal faith, with universal appeal, that is backed up by the boldest statements ever made about anything. I feel quite strongly about Universalism - my thoughts are here - but I also feel very strongly that the wild, unbounded, radical love of Jesus is a universal love. I mean this in that this amazing Gospel of Grace is held out to everyone. 

Anyone. 

Even you. 

Even me.

Everyone. 

Jesus makes this sort of thing INCREDIBLY clear on a number of occasions;

"Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him" (Jn 3.36)

Jesus stated that anyone - "WHOEVER" believes in him - will have eternal life. That is a mad, wild, joyous truth.

"And he said to them, "Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation" 

(Mk 16:16)

Jesus proclaimed and commanded an international, world-changing Gospel. Something to be proclaimed universally to the whole of creation. This is no small, western religion, or eastern cult.


Jesus came to pronounce the incoming radical grace-based and love-inflamed kingdom of God. He came to proclaim and initiate the possibility of real, eternal life for those who would believe and follow him. He came to start - through the awesome drama of his Crucifixion and Resurrection - an unstoppable chain of events that will one day result in the best possible reality - God's fully inaugrated and redeemed kingdom. We jokingly call that 'heaven' - and it will be, but it will be even better than that.


Jesus is a universalist - in the truest, most open, most God-honouring sense of the word. His death and life make it possible for anyone to come to God - because God first loved him, and first loved us.


This Jesus is amazing. The Best News Ever.