"Truth" teaching question.

[M_Oliver]

Hey everyone,

I have had a question posed to me by someone still in "babylon".  He want's to know if there is any record-book-documentation etc. of anyone who taught the truth as we here know it POST New Covenant writings.  I think he may be trying to trap me but none the less I want to make sure my answer is honest.  My gut says no or I would have seen Ray mention it or it would appear here from time to time.  I understand the "salt of the earth" and all.  I just want to make sure there isn't something out there written by one of us {hopefuls} at some point in history since the Apostles that I'm not aware of.  Thank you!

Mark

[YellowStone]

Hi Mark,

You ask a wonderful question and I believe your answer is correct. However, a good response might be that many of the bibles today (even the King James) are somewhat lacking when it comes to the correct translation of the original Hebrew and Greek Scripture.

A good response might mention that the word: Hell is a concocted word of man that does not and never has existed in any original text. You might mention that the word "Eternal" is another often misinterpreted word, as is the word "Punish."

These three words pretty much cover the endless burning torture in hell doctrine of the church, based on phatom and mistranslated words. Kind of nullifies the doctrine and is a very good place to start.

I would mention that your belief and the teachings of this site are based on simple God given truths that can be readily found if one is willing to seek them out.

Love,

Darren

[hillsbororiver]

Hi Mark,

I found the following by Googling "Universal Salvation Early Church" these are just 3 portions of what is out there, I did not want to post links here but this stuff is not too difficult to find. I hope it helps.

His Peace and Wisdom to you,

Joe




"In the first five or six centuries of Christianity there were six theological schools, of which four (Alexandria, Antioch, Caesarea, and Edessa, or Nisibis) were Universalist, one (Ephesus) accepted conditional immortality; one (Carthage or Rome) taught endless punishment of the wicked. "The Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge" by Schaff-Herzog, 1908, volume 12, page 96.

Origen of Alexandria (185 -254AD) is the earliest Christian theologian known to have written about Universalism, that eventually everyone will receive salvation. However, we doubt that Origen had the full revelation of true Biblical Universal salvation. He appears to have also believed in an unbiblical concept of "the pre-existence and fall of souls; and transmigration of souls" as given in his written work (On First Principles). We want to be very clear that we are not teaching the same universalism, as purported to have been taught by Origen.

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Bible translators who recognize that the word aion do not mean "eternity" have rendered Matthew 25:46 differently. Young's Literal Translation (1898) translates the verse as "And these shall go away to punishment age-during, but the righteous to life age-during." The Holy Bible in Modern English by Ferrar Fenton (1903) : "And these He will dismiss into a long correction, but the well-doers to an enduring life." The Concordant Version (1930): "And these shall go away into chastening eonian, yet the just into life eonian." Rotherham's Emphasized Bible (1959) : "and these shall go away into age-abiding correction, but the righteous into age-abiding life."

A proper understanding of the Greek word aion (which appears 193 times in the New Testament) is fundamental to Christian Universalism. Also known as the Doctrine of Universal Salvation, Christian Universalism teaches that the whole world will ultimately be saved through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This doctrine is as old as Christianity itself. Universalist passages are abundant in the Apostle Paul's writings and Universal Salvation was explicitly taught by many of the early Church Fathers like Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Gregory of Nyssa. It was the prevalent doctrine of the early Church, for "In the first five or six centuries of Christianity there were six theological schools, of which four (Alexandria, Antioch, Caesarea, and Edessa, or Nisibis) were Universalist, one (Ephesus) accepted conditional immortality; one (Carthage or Rome) taught endless punishment of the wicked. ("The Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge" by Schaff-Herzog, 1908, volume 12, page 96) The doctrine of eternal torment eventually gained prominence in the Dark Ages largely due to the infiltration of the pagan ideas of the Roman Empire into Christianity. This influenced many Bible translators to superimpose the doctrine of eternal damnation into the Greek text. Fortunately, this is not true for all Bible translations. Many, like the translations named above, translate the Greek texts in a literal and consistent manner and do not contain the doctrine of eternal damnation.

Regarding hell, I have previously stated that it is an English word not originally found in the Bible. The Bible refers to "Sheol", "Hades", "Gehenna" and "Tartarus" all of which have been inconsistently translated as "hell" by some Bible translations.


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By the fifth century AD, the church had pretty much abandoned the Scriptures. The Scriptures were translated into Latin by Jerome who introduced many mistakes in the translation. Later, the people were forbidden to read the Scriptures in any language including Latin. During this period, the church incorporated thousands of pagan doctrines, rituals and traditions that, according to Jesus "made the word of God of no effect." (Matt. 15:6-9) While the Protestant church has discarded many of those traditions that nullify the plain word of God, it still has much Dark Age baggage on its back. Some of that baggage got into some our English Bible translations. The "lying pen of the scribes" (Jer. 8:8, NIV) added some of that Dark Age theology to our Bible versions. They put mythological characters like unicorns and satyrs into translations like the KJV even though we know today such creatures never existed. But the King James translators believed in them in seventeenth century England and so we have in some translations many things NOT found in the Hebrew or Greek.

The biggest tradition of fallen men that translators added to some Bible translations was the pagan teaching of a Hell of everlasting punishment. The word "Hell" comes from Teutonic mythology, NOT from the sacred Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. Most Christians do not even know there are major differences between English Bible translations. Most do not know there are many translations that do NOT contain the concept of a hell of eternal punishment. Here are a few of them: Young's Literal, Rotherham's Emphasized, Weymouth's N.T. in Modern Speech, Concordant Literal N.T., 20th Century N.T. as well as many more. While not popular in Hell-teaching circles, these Bibles can be ordered through most Christian book stores.

Clearly, the early believers of Christ and the church leaders taught universal salvation. St. Basil the Great, writing in the fourth century wrote, "The mass of men (Christians) say that there is to be an end of punishment to those who are punished." (De Asceticis) St. Jerome wrote in the same century, "I know that most persons understand by the story of Nineveh and its king, the ultimate forgiveness of the devil and all rational creatures." St. Augustine, while himself teaching eternal torment wrote, "There are very many (imo quam plurimi, which can be translated majority) who though not denying the Holy Scriptures, do not believe in endless torments." (Enchira, ad Laurent)

An honest look at history shows that the majority of the early church believed that all would eventually be saved. The Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge by Schaff-Herzog says in volume 12, page 96, "In the first five or six centuries of Christianity there were six theological schools, of which four (Alexandria, Antioch, Caesarea, and Edessa, or Nisibis) were Universalist; one (Ephesus) accepted conditional mortality; one (Carthage or Rome) taught endless punishment of the wicked." A most crucial and important in point in church history: when Emperor Constantine militarized and politicalized the church, the teaching of Hell became a more powerful weapon of control than a loving God who loved all mankind. At that point the teaching of universal salvation began to be stamped out through severe persecution. The result? The church created what we now call "The Dark Ages."

Before the Dark Ages, the church was vibrant with the teaching of God's love for all mankind. The second major church council composed of hundreds of bishops from the entire church met in Constantinople in 381 AD and elected Gregory of Nazianzus, an avowed Universalist, as president proving clearly that the great majority of the church leadership at the end of the fourth century believed in universal salvation. Yet today universal salvation is considered a heresy in most denominations. The early church better versed in the original languages of the Scriptures and closer to the apostles' teachings thought otherwise. Who do you think is more likely to have the truth? The early Church or the thousands of divisions of Christianity formed by men "drawing disciples after themselves" centuries later? (Acts 20:30)

Well-known and great men and women have embraced the "larger Hope" (as some coined the teaching of the salvation of all mankind.) Abraham Lincoln believed it. Perhaps his belief in the salvation of all mankind was Lincoln' s driving force to end slavery in this country. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence believed it. Famous theologians like Karl Barth, B.F. Westcott, and William Barclay embraced it.

Those who embrace this scriptural doctrine today are usually born from above, morally conservative, serious students on the Bible and are usually more versed in church history and the original languages of the Bible than the average Christian. They believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life and they are very Scripture-centered. The main difference between those who believe in the "Doctrine of Inclusion" is that they have greater faith in God's love, mercy, and power to save than those who think God's going to trash most of mankind. And this belief, that Jesus will do what He promised to do...save the world...is the source of great persecution by the hands of our own brothers and sisters in the Lord. In Carlton's case, it may have cost him the election. Another trait of these believers in the Glorious Gospel is that they believed denominationalism spoils the witness of one Lord and Savior and one body in the earth.

[hillsbororiver]

Mark,

I presented this topic a while back in the "Off Topic Discussions"




Abe Lincoln believed in UR
« on: September 20, 2006, 03:49:49 PM »      

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I found this to be very interesting, not exactly something you might find in your old history books, especially if you attended parochial school;


                                                                               Abraham Lincoln


Excerpts taken from "The Almost Chosen People" by William J. Wolf (Doubleday & Company Inc, 1959).

"One of Lincoln's associates, Mentor Graham, tells of Lincoln: 'He took the passage, 'As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,' and followed up with the proposition that whatever the breach or injury of Adam's transgressions to the human race was, which no doubt was very great, was made just and right by the atonement of Christ.'" (page 47)

"...Lincoln wrote an essay about 1833 on predestinated universal salvation in criticism of the orthodox doctrine of endless punishment. It is also consistent with the evidence that in 1850, Lincoln, through the reading of his pastor's The Christian's Defense and his own wrestling with the problem, became convinced intellectually of the validity of the biblical revelation. Lincoln's conviction that God would restore the whole of creation as the outcome of Christ's atonement would have been in itself a bar to membership in the Springfield church he attended." (pages 103-104)

"Another associate, Isaac Cogdal, tells of a discussion on religion in Lincoln's office in 1859: 'Lincoln expressed himself in about these words: He did not nor could not believe in the endless punishment of any one of the human race. He understood punishment for sin to be a Bible doctrine; that the punishment was parental in its object, aim, and design, and intended for the good of the offender; hence it must cease when justice is satisfied. He added that all that was lost by the transgression of Adam was made good by the atonement: all that was lost by the fall was made good by the sacrifice.'" (page 104)

"The second statement was one dictated by Jonathan Harnett of Pleasant Plains, describing a theological discussion in 1858 in Lincoln's office. 'Lincoln covered more ground in a few words than he could in a week, and closed with the restitution of all things to God, as the doctrine taught in the scriptures, and if anyone was left in doubt in regard to his belief in the atonement of Christ and the final salvation of all men, he removed those doubts in a few questions he answered and propounded to others. After expressing himself, some one or two took exceptions to his position, and he asked a few questions that cornered his interrogators and left no room to doubt or question his soundness on the atonement of Christ, and salvation finally of all men. He did not pretend to know just when that event would be consummated, but that it would be the ultimate result, that Christ must reign supreme, high over all. The Saviour of all; and the supreme Ruler, he could not be with one out of the fold; all must come in, with his understanding of the doctrine taught in the scriptures.'" (pages 105-106)

Thought I would share this with those of you who were not aware of this (like me until recently).

His Peace to you,

Joe
 

[M_Oliver]

Good stuff.  Thank you 

[gmik]

Good Refresher course Joe.  Thanks.
gena