What Is God’s Plan for the World? A Summary

“And this is going to be a glorious unfolding…”

—from “Glorious Unfolding” by Steven Curtis Chapman

What is God’s plan for the world?

After studying this question throughout Scripture, I have come to believe the answer is far greater than I once imagined:

God intends ultimately to save and fully 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, while others would remain eternally lost. I believed this partly because that was what I had been taught and partly because several passages of Scripture seemed clearly to teach everlasting punishment.

But other passages increasingly became difficult for me to reconcile with that conclusion.

God “wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).

Jesus gave himself “as a ransom for all people” (1 Timothy 2:6).

God is “the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe” (1 Timothy 4:10).

Through one righteous act comes “justification and life for all people” (Romans 5:18).

God has “bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all” (Romans 11:32).

“As in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22).

Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:10–11).

Through Christ, God purposes “to reconcile to himself all things” (Colossians 1:20).

Christ reigns until every enemy is subjected, death itself is destroyed, and God becomes “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:24–28).

Peter speaks of the coming “restoration of all things” promised through the prophets (Acts 3:21).

And Revelation ends with God declaring, “I am making everything new” (Revelation 21:5).

Taken individually, Christians interpret some of these passages in different ways. Taken together, however, I believe they reveal the destination toward which the entire biblical story is moving.

Not the eternal preservation of sin.

Its destruction.

Not the permanent victory of death over part of humanity.

The destruction of death itself.

Not the everlasting existence of enemies who remain alienated from God.

The reconciliation of all things.

Not merely the offer of salvation to all.

The ultimate accomplishment of God’s saving purpose.

God’s plan is the restoration of all things—and I believe “all things” ultimately includes every person He created and loves.

1. Universal Restoration Is Not “Everyone Is Saved No Matter What”

Before going further, it is important to define what I mean by universal salvation, or universal restoration.

I am not arguing that sin does not matter.

I am not arguing that everyone automatically enters God’s kingdom regardless of what they believe, love, or become.

I am not arguing that judgment is imaginary.

I am not arguing that repentance is unnecessary.

And I am certainly not arguing that salvation occurs apart from Jesus Christ.

Scripture says that Jesus is the way to the Father (John 14:6) and that salvation is found through him (Acts 4:12). Universal restoration means that God’s work through Christ ultimately succeeds in bringing every person to genuine repentance, faith, reconciliation, holiness, and life.

Universal restoration does not eliminate repentance.

It predicts universal repentance.

It does not eliminate judgment.

It asks what God’s judgment ultimately accomplishes.

It does not make sin harmless.

It says God will finally defeat sin so completely that it no longer exists within His creation.

A cruel person must cease being cruel. A murderer must no longer be murderous. A liar must come to love truth. The proud must become humble. The selfish must learn self-giving love. Every person must ultimately become what God created human beings to be.

Salvation is not God pretending evil does not matter.

It is God actually saving us from evil.

2. Salvation Is More Than Escaping Punishment

This is why the biblical meaning of salvation matters so much.

All people have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Sin alienates us from God, corrupts our desires and choices, harms other people, destroys relationships, and ultimately leads to death.

But salvation is much greater than avoiding punishment after death.

God justifies believers by grace through faith. He forgives, reconciles, and brings people into right relationship with Himself through Christ (Romans 3:21–26; Ephesians 2:8–10).

And then God begins transforming them.

The New Testament can speak of Christians as people who “have been saved,” people who “are being saved,” and people awaiting the completion of salvation (Ephesians 2:8; 1 Corinthians 1:18; Romans 13:11; 1 Peter 1:5). God’s purpose is not merely to change our legal status while leaving us permanently sinful. He intends to sanctify us completely—to restore His image in us and make us holy.

Paul says Christians are being transformed into Christ’s image (2 Corinthians 3:18). God predestines His children to be conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29). Paul trusts that the God who began this work will complete it (Philippians 1:6).

Salvation therefore includes forgiveness, reconciliation, resurrection, freedom from sin, sanctification, and ultimately transformation into the people God created human beings to be.

God does not merely save us from punishment.

He saves us from sin itself.

3. Humanity Was Created for Life, Not Eternal Ruin

The biblical story begins with creation, not sin.

Humanity is created in God’s image. Before rebellion, death, or corruption enters the story, God calls His creation “very good” (Genesis 1:26–31).

I therefore do not believe sin defines what humanity fundamentally is.

Scripture unquestionably says that all people sin. But in my reading, it does not require the conclusion that God creates people morally corrupt or that Adam’s personal guilt is biologically transferred into every human being.

Rather, Scripture repeatedly describes people as going astray, turning aside, and becoming corrupt (Psalm 14:3; Isaiah 53:6; Isaiah 64:6). Romans 5:12 says death spread to all because all sinned. Adam’s disobedience had catastrophic consequences for humanity, but every person remains morally responsible for his or her own choices.

This distinction matters for understanding salvation.

God is not attempting to rescue creatures whom He designed to be evil.

He is restoring creatures made in His image who have become lost and corrupted through sin.

Humanity is not rubbish God reluctantly salvages.

Humanity is His creation.

His children have gone astray.

And salvation is the work of bringing them home.

4. Universal Restoration Has Deep Roots in Christian History

I also once assumed that universal salvation was essentially a modern liberal idea.

It is not.

Significant early Christians taught forms of universal restoration long before the modern period. Origen developed one of the earliest systematic Christian accounts of apokatastasis—the eventual restoration of creation to God—and Gregory of Nyssa is extensively studied by modern scholars for his belief that divine punishment ultimately serves purification and that evil will finally cease to exist (Ramelli 135–68; Ludlow 77–112).

This does not prove universal salvation.

Christian history does not determine truth simply by counting theologians on either side. Early Christians disagreed about many things, including final judgment.

But the history does remove one unnecessary objection.

Universal restoration is not something invented by twenty-first-century Christians who simply became uncomfortable with judgment. It belongs to an ancient Christian conversation about Scripture, Christ, punishment, resurrection, freedom, and the final victory of God.

The decisive question therefore remains the biblical one:

What does Scripture actually teach?

5. The Old Testament Pattern: Judgment Is Real, but Judgment Is Not Always the End

Before the New Testament makes sweeping statements about the salvation of all, the Old Testament establishes a pattern.

God judges.

Sometimes severely.

But again and again judgment is followed by mercy, healing, restoration, and renewed relationship.

God wounds and heals (Deuteronomy 32:39).

His anger is not presented as His everlasting disposition toward His creatures. The Psalms repeatedly contrast temporary anger with enduring mercy and steadfast love (Psalm 30:5; Psalm 103:8–10; Psalm 136).

The prophets pronounce devastating judgments upon Israel and the nations, yet those same prophetic books repeatedly move beyond judgment toward restoration.

God judges Egypt, yet Isaiah eventually pictures Egypt knowing and worshiping the LORD and astonishingly calls Egypt “my people” (Isaiah 19:21–25).

God judges nations, yet the prophets envision the nations streaming toward God, learning His ways, and worshiping Him (Isaiah 2:2–4; Micah 4:1–4).

Zephaniah moves from divine wrath to a purified humanity calling on the name of the LORD (Zephaniah 3:8–9).

Isaiah looks toward the destruction of death itself and God wiping tears from all faces (Isaiah 25:6–8).

This does not mean every Old Testament judgment passage explicitly teaches universal salvation.

It means judgment and restoration are not biblical opposites.

God can judge in order to correct.

Destroy in order to rebuild.

Wound in order to heal.

Humble in order to restore.

That pattern becomes increasingly important as Scripture moves forward.

6. Jesus and the Apostles Intensify the Universal Scope

The New Testament does not narrow this hope.

It expands it.

Jesus says that when he is lifted up he will draw all people to himself (John 12:32). He is identified as the Savior of the world (John 4:42; 1 John 4:14). John says Christ is the atoning sacrifice not only for believers but for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2).

Paul repeatedly uses language whose scope is difficult to minimize.

One trespass brings condemnation; one righteous act brings justification and life to all (Romans 5:18).

God binds all over to disobedience so that He may have mercy on all (Romans 11:32).

As all die in Adam, all will be made alive in Christ (1 Corinthians 15:22).

God purposes to reconcile all things through Christ, “whether things on earth or things in heaven” (Colossians 1:20).

God’s plan is to bring unity to all things in Christ (Ephesians 1:9–10).

Every knee bows—in heaven, on earth, and under the earth—and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:10–11).

Paul calls God “the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe” (1 Timothy 4:10).

None of these passages needs to carry the entire doctrine by itself.

The argument is cumulative.

All saved.

All ransomed.

All receiving mercy.

All made alive.

All things reconciled.

All things united.

Every knee.

Every tongue.

Every enemy subjected.

Death destroyed.

God all in all.

At some point, I think we must allow the cumulative force of this language to speak.

7. The Final Horizon: Death Does Not Win

First Corinthians 15 has become especially important to me because Paul does not stop with resurrection.

Christ reigns until every enemy has been placed under his feet.

Then Paul identifies the final enemy:

death.

And death is destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:25–26).

After every enemy is subjected and death itself is gone, the Son subjects himself to God so that God may be “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28).

Whatever precisely that final phrase means in every detail, the picture is extraordinarily comprehensive.

Death is not eternally maintained.

Death loses.

Enemies are not eternally outside Christ’s reign.

They are subjected.

God is not all in only part of a permanently divided creation.

God becomes all in all.

This fits Peter’s language about the “restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21), Paul’s language about the reconciliation and unification of all things, and Revelation’s proclamation that God makes all things new.

The Bible’s final victory is not God successfully protecting a small portion of creation from an eternally undefeated realm of sin, death, suffering, and rebellion.

The final victory is the destruction of those enemies.

8. But What About Judgment?

This was the greatest obstacle for me, and I think any serious case for universal salvation has to face it directly.

Jesus warns about Gehenna.

There is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

There is exclusion.

There is wrath.

There is destruction.

There is fire.

There is the lake of fire.

There is the second death.

Revelation contains terrifying descriptions of judgment.

Hebrews contains terrifying warnings.

I believe them.

The question is not:

Does God judge?

Scripture plainly says He does.

The question is:

Does Scripture teach that divine judgment must preserve a sinner forever in suffering, rebellion, or alienation from God?

Or can judgment be severe, genuinely punitive, and simultaneously serve God’s larger purposes of correction, purification, repentance, justice, and restoration?

Scripture gives explicit examples of judgment serving salvation.

Paul commands the Corinthian church to hand an immoral man over for severe discipline so that his spirit may ultimately be saved (1 Corinthians 5:5).

He hands Hymenaeus and Alexander over to Satan so that they may be taught not to blaspheme (1 Timothy 1:20).

Hebrews describes God’s discipline as painful but says its purpose is “for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness” (Hebrews 12:10).

Malachi depicts God as a refiner purifying what is impure (Malachi 3:2–3).

First Corinthians 3 depicts a person suffering loss as his work burns while the person himself is nevertheless saved (1 Corinthians 3:12–15).

Judgment can therefore destroy what is evil without destruction being God’s final word over the person.

This is the framework I now bring to the difficult judgment texts.

Throughout my longer study, I repeatedly ask four questions:

What does the passage actually say?

What does it not say?

How does it fit within the whole biblical story?

Which interpretation best fits God’s revealed character and purpose?

Those questions do not make the frightening texts disappear.

They keep me from making them say more than they actually say.

9. Jesus Spoke Within a Jewish World of Judgment

The Jewish background is also important.

Modern Christians sometimes hear words such as “Gehenna” and immediately translate them mentally into a fully developed later Christian doctrine of an everlasting conscious torture chamber.

But Jesus was speaking within a Jewish world in which ideas about resurrection, destruction, punishment, Gehenna, and the fate of the wicked were diverse (Lehtipuu, 2007).

Gehenna itself developed from the Valley of Hinnom and the prophetic imagery associated with judgment there. Jewish traditions did not all give it one identical meaning or duration.

A later rabbinic tradition preserved in Mishnah Eduyot 2:10, for example, says that the judgment of the wicked in Gehenna lasts twelve months; Rabbi Yohanan ben Nuri gives an even shorter period. This source is later than Jesus and therefore cannot prove what Jesus personally meant. But it demonstrates that Jewish use of Gehenna was not inherently equivalent to the later Christian doctrine of endless conscious torment (Mishnah Eduyot 2:10).

That historical context changes the burden of interpretation.

Jesus’ warnings about Gehenna should be taken with complete seriousness.

But “Jesus said Gehenna” is not itself proof that Jesus meant conscious torment with absolutely no possible end.

The duration and purpose of the judgment still have to be established from the text and the larger biblical story.

10. “Eternal” Judgment Requires More Careful Language Than I Once Realized

One of the most important lexical questions concerns the Greek words aiōn and aiōnios.

The noun aiōn can refer to an age, epoch, or extended period. The adjective aiōnios is related to that word. Its history and range of usage are more complex than a simple rule that it always means either “temporary” or “endless.” Classical and early Christian usage connects aiōnios closely with aiōn while also allowing it to describe realities understood as everlasting (Ramelli and Konstan).

That means I do not argue:

Aiōnios means temporary.

Nor do I argue that eternal life eventually ends.

Scripture independently establishes the permanence of the life God ultimately gives: mortality becomes immortality, death is swallowed up in victory, and death itself finally disappears (1 Corinthians 15:53–55; Revelation 21:4).

My point is narrower.

The adjective aiōnios cannot, by itself, bear the entire theological burden of proving that a punitive process must continue consciously for infinite duration.

Matthew 25:46 is therefore serious: Jesus speaks of aiōnios punishment and aiōnios life.

The parallel matters.

But the larger biblical context must still tell us the ultimate nature and duration of what is being described. The life of God’s coming age becomes everlasting because Scripture tells us death will be abolished. The judgment belongs to the coming age and is real and severe. The remaining question is whether Scripture separately requires that God must continue the act of punishing forever after every righteous purpose of judgment could have been accomplished.

I do not think it does.

The same caution applies to words translated “destruction,” “damnation,” “unquenchable,” and similar terms.

Destruction means destruction.

Judgment means judgment.

Fire means fire within the imagery being used.

But none of those words automatically contains the additional sentence:

“And God can never afterward heal, resurrect, reconcile, transform, or restore this person.”

That conclusion must be demonstrated rather than assumed.

11. Final Judgment Does Not Necessarily Mean the End of Every Redemptive Stage

Some of Jesus’ hardest warnings explicitly concern the Day of Judgment, the resurrection, the coming of the Son of Man, or the end of the age.

These texts deserve more than saying, “The Greek word does not necessarily mean forever.”

The stronger traditional argument is:

Christ returns. Humanity is divided. Some receive life and others receive judgment. Therefore both groups have now entered absolutely irreversible final destinies.

I understand that reading.

But I no longer think Scripture requires it.

First Corinthians 15 itself describes an eschatological sequence.

Christ comes.

Christ reigns.

Enemies are subjected.

Death is finally destroyed.

Then comes the consummation in which God is all in all (1 Corinthians 15:23–28).

Revelation likewise contains stages of resurrection, reign, judgment, the second death, the appearance of the New Jerusalem, the destruction of death, and the healing imagery at the book’s conclusion.

Therefore a judgment associated with Christ’s coming can be genuinely eschatological without necessarily being the last thing God will ever do with the person being judged.

Judgment can be final with respect to an age, verdict, kingdom entrance, or particular stage without every divine purpose in the history of that person having necessarily reached its absolute endpoint.

12. Revelation Contains Both the Strongest Judgment and Astonishing Images of Healing

Revelation is perhaps the greatest test case.

It contains some of Scripture’s strongest judgment language.

The beast worshipers experience terrifying torment.

The lake of fire is real.

The second death is real.

The Book of Life matters.

Nothing unclean enters the New Jerusalem.

I do not want to soften any of this.

But Revelation also ends in ways I once did not adequately notice.

Death and Hades themselves are thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14).

Then God announces that death will be no more (Revelation 21:4).

The New Jerusalem appears, and its gates are never shut (Revelation 21:25).

Nothing unclean may enter—which tells us holiness remains absolute.

Yet the nations walk by the city’s light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory into it (Revelation 21:24–26).

That language is striking because “the nations” and “the kings of the earth” have repeatedly appeared earlier in Revelation in association with deception, Babylon, rebellion, and opposition to Christ. Scholars have recognized the interpretive difficulty created when these narrative categories reappear positively at the end of the book (Korpman 138–55).

Then John gives an even more remarkable image:

“The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:2).

Why healing?

And why the nations?

John has modified earlier prophetic healing imagery specifically so that the nations become recipients of healing. This does not by itself prove every detail of universal restoration, and scholars propose different explanations for the passage. But the transformation within Revelation’s final vision is real and deserves weight (Korpman 138–55).

The final city does not lower its standard so evil can enter.

Nothing unclean enters.

Universal restoration instead asks:

Can God cleanse the unclean?

Can God heal the nations?

Can enemies become worshipers?

Can death itself finally be defeated?

I believe the answer of the biblical story is yes.

13. Some Passages Remain Genuinely Difficult

I do not want universal salvation to become a theological system that makes me incapable of admitting difficulty.

Some passages are difficult.

Revelation 14’s description of the beast worshipers is severe.

Revelation’s Book of Life imagery raises real questions.

Jesus’ warning concerning blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is especially difficult. Matthew says this sin is not forgiven “either in this age or in the age to come” (Matthew 12:32), and Mark uses exceptionally strong language concerning an aiōnios sin (Mark 3:29).

Taken by themselves, these passages do not provide an explicit description of later restoration.

That should be acknowledged.

But neither do they say everything later theology sometimes adds to them.

They do not explicitly say that the sinner can never change.

They do not explicitly say God can never bring the sinner to repentance.

They do not explicitly say death can never be overcome for that person.

They do not explicitly revoke the biblical statements that God desires all saved, has mercy on all, makes all alive in Christ, reconciles all things, destroys death, and becomes all in all.

A judgment passage does not have to contain the entire story.

Scripture interprets Scripture.

The difficult local texts matter.

So do the universal promises.

I believe we must allow both to speak rather than erasing either side.

14. Judgment Announcements Are Not Always God’s Last Word

Scripture gives another category that has become important to me:

intercession.

At the golden calf, God announces devastating judgment upon Israel. Moses intercedes. Scripture then says that God relents from the disaster He had announced (Exodus 32:9–14).

In Amos 7, judgment is announced. Amos intercedes. God says, “This will not happen” (Amos 7:1–6).

Jeremiah explicitly explains that when God announces judgment against a nation and that nation turns from evil, God may relent from the announced disaster (Jeremiah 18:7–8).

This does not mean God is unjust or unreliable.

It means judgment announcements function inside a living moral relationship in which repentance, mercy, and intercession really matter.

And Christians are commanded to intercede for all people (1 Timothy 2:1).

Only a few verses later, Paul explains that God wants all people saved (1 Timothy 2:4).

That connection is beautiful.

We do not intercede because we are trying to convince an unwilling God to become compassionate.

We intercede because we participate in the compassion He already has.

15. What About Free Will?

Perhaps the strongest philosophical objection is simple:

What if some people simply refuse God forever?

Love cannot be forced.

I agree.

Universal restoration should not mean that God turns human beings into puppets.

But freedom does not require the ability to remain irrationally enslaved to evil forever.

Human beings do not choose in a vacuum. We choose under conditions of knowledge, ignorance, trauma, temptation, deception, desire, maturity, relationship, and experience.

Scripture repeatedly shows God acting upon those conditions.

God teaches.

He reveals truth.

He confronts.

He disciplines.

He humbles.

He heals.

He frees captives.

He opens blind eyes.

He removes deception.

He corrects.

He resurrects the dead.

Paul was actively resisting Christ when Christ confronted him. Israel can be hardened and later receive mercy. Broken-off branches can be grafted in again (Romans 11). Blasphemers can be disciplined so that they learn not to blaspheme (1 Timothy 1:20).

God therefore does not face human freedom as though He and sin were two equally helpless advertisers competing forever for an eternally neutral consumer.

Truth is better than falsehood.

Love is better than hatred.

Healing is better than brokenness.

Freedom is better than slavery.

Life is better than death.

God can bring a person to see reality truthfully without ceasing to treat that person as a genuine human being.

I therefore see no contradiction between genuine human freedom and God’s eventual success in bringing every person freely to repentance and love.

16. Universal Restoration Does Not Weaken Justice

Another serious objection concerns victims.

What about someone who has committed horrifying evil?

Does universal salvation trivialize what happened?

It must not.

A doctrine that simply says, “Eventually everybody gets in, so nothing really matters,” would be morally repulsive and biblically false.

God judges every evil.

Truth matters.

Accountability matters.

Consequences matter.

Victims matter.

Repentance must be real.

Restitution and reconciliation cannot be reduced to pretending that evil never happened.

A murderer cannot enter God’s final holy creation while remaining murderous.

An abuser cannot remain abusive.

A tyrant cannot remain a tyrant.

The person must actually change.

Universal restoration therefore does not require God to call evil good.

It requires God to defeat evil completely.

That includes the evil committed by the oppressor and the wounds suffered by the victim.

The victim must be healed.

The truth must be known.

Justice must be done.

The perpetrator must become radically different.

God’s victory is not complete if He eternally preserves the oppressor as an evil person and preserves the victim’s story forever without full healing.

The greater victory is the destruction of the evil itself.

17. The Elect Are Blessed to Become a Blessing

Universal restoration also changes the way I understand election.

Election is real.

But throughout Scripture, election often has a purpose larger than the person or group chosen.

God chooses Abraham—and promises that all nations will be blessed through him (Genesis 12:1–3).

Paul calls that promise the gospel announced beforehand (Galatians 3:8).

Israel is chosen to serve as a priestly people.

The servant becomes a light to the nations.

Jesus chooses disciples and sends them into the world.

Christians receive reconciliation and then receive a ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18–20).

The pattern is:

chosen → blessed → sent outward in blessing.

Election therefore need not mean:

God chooses us because everyone else is disposable.

It can mean:

God calls us first because everyone else matters too.

The elect are servants.

Witnesses.

Priests.

Firstfruits.

Firstfruits imply a harvest.

Being first does not necessarily mean being the only ones who will ever come.

So instead of asking only:

Am I saved?

Universal restoration challenges Christians to ask:

What has God saved me for?

We receive mercy so we can show mercy.

We receive truth so we can speak truth.

We receive the Spirit so God’s love can work through us.

We are reconciled so we can become reconcilers.

We are blessed so that we can become a blessing.

18. Universal Restoration Makes the Gospel Better News, Not Less Urgent

If everyone will eventually be restored, why evangelize?

Because knowing God is good.

Because sin is destructive.

Because truth is better than deception.

Because reconciliation is better than alienation.

Because holiness is better than bondage.

Because receiving the Holy Spirit is better than resisting God.

Because participating in God’s kingdom is better than opposing it.

Because judgment is real.

And because beginning our restoration now is far better than continuing down a path that destroys ourselves and harms others.

The gospel does not need eternal conscious torment in order to be urgent.

Jesus did not merely come to tell people how to escape punishment later.

He proclaimed the kingdom of God.

He healed.

He forgave.

He freed.

He called people out of darkness and into life.

Under universal restoration, evangelism becomes participation rather than panic.

Christians are not desperately trying to make God willing to save someone before an arbitrary deadline expires.

God already desires that person’s salvation.

We proclaim Christ because we are participating in what God wants for them.

We pray.

We serve.

We teach.

We love.

We invite.

We call people to repentance.

And we can tell every person genuinely good news:

God has not given up on you.

Turn to Him.

Come into the light.

Receive forgiveness.

Receive the Spirit.

Follow Christ.

Join God’s kingdom.

Begin your restoration now.

19. What Is God’s Plan for the World?

So after studying the biblical story from creation to Revelation, how would I now answer the question?

What is God’s plan for the world?

God created humanity in His image for life, holiness, relationship, joy, and love.

Human beings turned away from Him.

We sinned.

We became corrupted.

Our sin produced suffering, injustice, bondage, alienation, and death.

But God did not abandon His creation.

He promised that all nations would be blessed.

He sent Jesus Christ to save the world.

Through Christ, God provided reconciliation, forgiveness, resurrection, and life.

God calls people to repentance and faith.

He justifies by grace.

He gives His Spirit.

He transforms His children.

And God judges evil.

Sometimes severely.

But judgment is not evil’s eternal preservation.

God exposes evil in order to defeat it.

He disciplines in order to produce holiness.

He humbles in order to restore.

He destroys what must be destroyed.

He heals what has been wounded.

He raises the dead.

He continues until the lost are found.

Jesus describes a shepherd who loses one sheep.

The shepherd does not say:

Ninety-nine is good enough.

He goes after the lost sheep “until he finds it” (Luke 15:4).

That image increasingly captures the way I understand God’s heart and plan.

Humanity wanders.

God seeks.

Humanity sins.

God corrects.

Humanity becomes corrupt.

God restores.

Humanity dies.

God raises the dead.

The sheep is lost.

The Shepherd keeps seeking.

Until he finds it.

Universal restoration does not make repentance unnecessary.

The sheep really must be found.

It makes the Shepherd successful.

20. All Truly Will Be Well

For most of my life, I believed that the biblical story ended with part of humanity permanently restored and part of humanity permanently lost.

I no longer believe Scripture requires that ending.

I believe the Bible gives us something far greater.

God wants all people saved.

Christ gave himself for all.

God has mercy on all.

All are made alive in Christ.

All things are reconciled.

Every knee bows.

Every tongue confesses.

Every enemy is subjected.

Death is destroyed.

God becomes all in all.

Everything is made new.

The gates of God’s city remain open.

And the nations are healed.

I do not claim to understand every mechanism by which God will accomplish all of this.

There are difficult passages.

There are mysteries.

There are questions I still have.

But after weighing both the universal promises and the strongest judgment passages I can find, I believe the biblical witness points overwhelmingly toward ultimate restoration.

God really judges.

God really opposes evil.

God really requires repentance.

And God ultimately restores.

That conclusion has profoundly changed the way I understand Him.

“God is love” (1 John 4:8).

His justice is not the opposite of His love.

His holiness is not the opposite of His love.

His judgment is not the opposite of His love.

God confronts evil because He loves what evil destroys.

And Scripture says that “mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13).

I now believe God’s purposes will not finally be thwarted.

Love will not fail.

Death will not win.

Evil will not last forever.

The lost will not remain lost forever.

God will finish what He began.

The Church has prayed for centuries:

“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).

And what is God’s stated saving will?

He “wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).

I believe that prayer will be answered.

God’s kingdom will come.

God’s will will be done.

The last enemy will be destroyed.

God will make everything new.

God will restore all things.

And I believe every human being God created will ultimately be reconciled, healed, made holy, and brought home.

What is God’s plan for the world?

Love.

God really is that good.