1. Introduction

And this is going to be a glorious unfolding...

from “Glorious Unfolding” by Steven Curtis Chapman

1 Timothy 2:1–7 says:

“I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people... This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people.”

The word translated “wants” in verse 4 can also mean to will or desire (Strong’s G2309). God desires—He wills—for all people to be saved.

Notice how universal the passage is. Paul begins by calling Christians to pray for all people. He then says that God wants all people to be saved. He immediately connects this with Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people.

God’s saving desire is not narrow.

It encompasses humanity.

Job 42:2 says:

“I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”

And Ephesians 1:11 describes God as the One:

“who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.”

Put these truths together.

God wills the salvation of all people.

God accomplishes His purposes.

Jesus gave himself for all people.

That combination raises an enormous question:

If God truly desires every person to be saved, possesses all wisdom and power, and accomplishes His purposes, why should we expect His saving will to fail forever in even one person?

Acts 3:21 adds another extraordinary promise. Peter says heaven must receive Christ:

“until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.”

I believe the complete salvation and restoration of every person is the fullest fulfillment of this promise of the “restoration of all things.”

This section of my blog asks one central question:

What is God’s plan for the world?

My answer, after studying this issue extensively, is that God's plan from the beginning is far better than I once believed:

God intends ultimately to save and restore every person.

I did not grow up believing this.

For most of my life, I believed that only some portion of humanity would finally be saved. I believed this partly because that was what I had been taught by churches, spiritual leaders, Christian education, and the larger Christian tradition in which I was formed. Certain Bible passages also appeared very clearly to teach eternal punishment.

Even though unending torment seemed difficult to reconcile with the God of love I encountered throughout Scripture, with everything I understood about His character, and my own personal experience with God, I assumed the traditional interpretation had to be correct.

Nevertheless, especially beginning in college, I prayed earnestly for the salvation of all people.

I held onto passages such as Matthew 19:26:

“With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

The context concerns salvation. When the disciples ask, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus does not tell them to reduce their hope. He points them to God.

What is impossible for humanity is possible for God.

When I eventually considered 1 Timothy 2:4 and Job 42:2 together, universal salvation stopped looking to me like wishful thinking and started looking like a serious biblical possibility.

If God wants all people saved, and God's purposes cannot ultimately be defeated, what will the end of the story be?

The passages about judgment remained my greatest obstacle.

All God's words are true. Judgment is real. Sin matters enormously. There are terrible consequences for evil.

So the question became not:

Does God judge?

He clearly does.

The question became:

What is God's judgment for?

Is divine judgment endless retribution?

Or is judgment one of the means by which the God who loves sinners ultimately confronts evil, corrects His children, destroys sin, and restores His creation?

That question changed the way I began reading Scripture.

This blog attempts to answer the question: Is universal salvation biblical?

I do not claim to exhaust every passage or every possible objection. But I believe the cumulative biblical evidence is extraordinarily strong.

I will examine both the passages that explicitly describe God's universal saving purpose and the passages traditionally understood to teach eternal punishment. Particular attention will be given to the original words translated “eternal,” the biblical purpose of judgment, the nature of divine fire, resurrection, free will, salvation, sanctification, and God's promises to restore creation.

Several books were especially helpful to me while studying this issue: Thomas Talbott's The Inescapable Love of God, Thomas Allin's Christ Triumphant: Universalism Asserted, and J. W. Hanson's Bible Proof of Universal Salvation.

Reading these authors caused me to notice an enormous amount of Scripture I had previously passed over.

Passages such as:

“God... wants all people to be saved.” 1 Timothy 2:4 “As in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” 1 Corinthians 15:22 “Through one act of righteousness came justification and life for all people.” Romans 5:18“At the name of Jesus every knee should bow... and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord.” Philippians 2:10–11 God reconciles “all things” to Himself through Christ. Colossians 1:20 God becomes “all in all.” 1 Corinthians 15:28 God will bring about “the restoration of all things.” Acts 3:21

Taken together, these passages do not describe a God whose final victory consists of rescuing one portion of creation while abandoning another forever.

They describe something far greater.

They describe the complete victory of God over sin, death, alienation, and evil.

I am now convinced because of Scripture that all truly will be well.

God will restore all things.

And “all things” includes the people God created and loves.

Yes, God's judgment is real. This section will address it seriously rather than explain it away. But I now believe biblical judgment is consistent with God's unchanging character of love and ultimately serves God's restorative purposes.

God is not weak toward evil.

God destroys it.

But destroying evil is not the same thing as destroying God's children forever.

I believe God's ultimate victory is vastly greater than that.

Universal salvation also does not eliminate human freedom. I am not arguing that God drags unwilling people into eternal bliss.

Rather, I believe that God possesses enough wisdom, patience, truth, justice, love, and power eventually to bring every person freely to repentance.

I do not believe that any rational creature who finally sees God perfectly, understands truth completely, is healed of deception, experiences the consequences of evil, and encounters infinite Love will eternally prefer darkness.

Universal salvation therefore does not minimize either sin or judgment.

It takes both extremely seriously.

Sin is so destructive that God will not permit it to exist forever.

Judgment is so effective that God uses it to accomplish righteousness.

Christ's victory is so complete that death itself will finally be destroyed.

And God's love is so persistent that God will not abandon a single person forever.

Before examining the biblical evidence in detail, however, there is one historical question worth answering:

Is universal salvation a new Christian idea?

For many Christians, that question matters.

Universal salvation is not a new idea. Universal salvation has extraordinarily deep and early historical roots within Christianity. Major early-Christian theologians taught it centuries before the modern world existed, and even ancient opponents admitted that many Christians rejected endless punishment (Ramelli, 2013; Ludlow, 2000; McClymond, 2018).

If helpful, see this article on the witness of early Christian history regarding belief in universal salvation before continuing with my biblical exegesis on the topic: 9. The Witness of the Early Church: Is Universal Salvation God's Plan?