The globe on the cover of the August 24 Banner, at first glance suggests the familiar ad of a certain paint company and then, on a closer look, the red tide of Russian Communism spilling over the world. The text, however, about Christ’s atonement “for the sins of the whole world,” prepares us for the dominant theme of this issue of our denomination’s paper, “universalism” (the teaching that all will be saved).

Entertaining Universalism

Professor Cornelius Plantinga of our Calvin Seminary, in a guest editorial, begins the series of special articles showing the strong appeal of the attractive arguments for universalism. “Turning to the Scriptures doesn’t settle the matter either, for from them we hear more than one voice.” Tracing universalism’s origins on occasion under a high Calvinism, its historic appeal to great theologians, its plausible arguments, and the difficulties of the idea that “God wants everybody saved but never intends to save all,” he, while not endorsing universalism, commends those who are raising the questions and suggests the need for more discussion.

Next, Rev. Neal Punt advocates an approach to all as elect, on his unprovable assumption that “all persons are elect in Christ, except those who the Bible explicitly declares will be finally lost.” Notice the contrast between this notion and our Lord’s warnings that, “Many are called, but few are chosen” (Matt. 22:14). In contrast with the Canons of Dordt’s Calvinistic polemic against Arminianism, he has been promoting this idea as a satisfactory middle way to resolve the conflict between the two.

The most orthodox-sounding of the series of articles is that of David Feddes, a 1987 graduate ofCalvin Seminary, and new pastor of the Westmount Church at Strathroy, Ontario. Although expressing appreciation for Punt’s stress on breadth of the texts which he cited, he points out that these are counterbalanced by those in which our Lord stressed the narrowness and exclusive ness of the gospel. Luke 9:50 is accompanied by Luke 11:23, and our Lord warned, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life and only a few find it” (Matt. 7:13, 14). “There are still times to remember the traditional premise, that the broad road leads to destruction. And in our witnessing, we should assume only that the just will live by faith. We do not proclaim unconditional good news. We proclaim the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”

Finally, Dr. Richard J. Mouw, now a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, writes on “The Waning of Hell.” Citing Liberal Lutheran Martin Marty’s observations that Christians today rarely think of hell, Mouw, while not endorsing “the universalistic teaching that all people will be saved in the end,” is also not “absolutely certain that universalism is false.” He, in gene ral, is inclined to welcome the reduced emphasis on hell and God’s punishment (although he found some urban black preachers, in their concern about social justice, stressing it). “We cannot doubt that we have talked about hell too much. We have often said much more than Scripture allows us to say. To admit this, to want to correct this, is not liberalism. It is an important exercise in Christian honesty.” “It is not so important, finally, that we think and talk a lot about hell.” (Mouw’s comments recall the suggestion of his predecessor at Fuller, also a former Calvin College profess of, who started an argument in The Reformed Journal some years ago by his suggestion that we should hope that hell would be empty. Later we heard him [L. Smedes] talk himself out of a teaching job in Calvin Seminary when he suggested in his synod interview that he thought of hell as something like being caught in an airplane over O’Hare Field unable to come down. Evidently many of the delegates were convinced that such joking about hell did not show appropriate qualification for teaching gospel preachers.)

Mouw’s minimizing hell somewhat parallels Karl Barth’s “slight correction” of John Calvin in this treatment of Calvin’s Catechism (The Faith of the Church, p. 173): “We do not have to believe in hell and in eternal death. I may only believe in the resurrection and the judgment of Christ, the judge and advocate, who has loved me and defended by cause.”

A few years ago a Calvin College professor saw the threat to the Christian faith and life among us as a creeping universalism—not with respect to salvation, but first a cultural universalism, that slides also into a universalism about salvation. This Banner strikingly confirms his perception.

Despite Mouw’s assurance that such views are “not liberalism,” but “Christian honesty,” his and others’ avowed uncertainty about universalism are the direct result of a Liberal misuse of the Scriptures. That way of treating the Scriptures, as Plantinga said, “hears in them more than one voice,” so that our Lord’s stern warnings are considered opposed to some writings of the Apostle Paul. The direct result is that the gospel certainties are re placed by these academic uncertainties. Paul in his pastoral letters repeatedly warned us against this very thing: “Shun foolish questionings . . . for they are unprofitable and vain” (Titus 2:9; cf. 1 Tim. 1:4; 6:3 ff.). The way in which this universalistic speculation must undercut serious gospel proclamation is obvious. We can hardly join Paul’s “Knowing therefore the fear of the Lord, we persuade men,” when we preface it by contradicting the gospel certainty of judgment which drives that persuasion (2 Cor. 5:10, 11). How can we warn anyone to “flee from the wrath to come,” when we contradict John the Baptist’s warning of the judgment fires, with an assurance that a loving God could hardly punish anyone (Matt. and Luke 3:7)? Must not the assumption that all who do not reject the gospel are saved suggest that we bring the gospel to NO one in order that all may be saved ? It is hardly an accident that such universalisms have characterized dying churches and their missions.

It is significant that the one writer in this series who seriously argues against such universalism is moved to do so by the disagreement he sees between it and the Scriptures. If our churches are to recover a serious and convincing proclamation of the gospel, such a return to the Bible as God’s Word is the route by which we must find it.

Denying the Antithesis

Plainly evident in these Banner articles encouraging a “creeping universalism,” is a fact pointed out a while ago by another Calvin College professor, that such prevailing attitudes may be traced to and better understood as a perversion of “common grace” ideas. Thereby we begin to lose any sense of “antithesis” (or “opposition”), and therefore find “moments of truth” in everything. Dr. Henry Stob in 1983 published a very important essay on The Antithesis (in De Klerk and De Ridder’s Baker book, Perspectives on the Christian Reformed Church, pp. 241–258). In this essay he maintains that the antithesis “was introduced not by God but by proud Beelzebub and by disobedient man” and that Christ came to remove it (p. 243, f.). Therefore, “the antithesis is for Christians less a principle to be applauded than a factor to be banished.” It “in short, is what the gospel is out to destroy” (p. 245). If this means what it says, it means that this (“reconciling”) Christian gospel is wiping out the difference between true and false, right and wrong, God and the devil! It may be that no one is stating the matter that crudely—but that is exactly what we see happening within the churches, including our own.

This is exactly the development which Harry Blamires characterized in his 1963 The Christian Mind (pp. 112, 13). The result is a culture “bedevilled by the it’s-all-a-matter-of-opinion code,” and “anarchy in which the difference between truth and falsehood will be no longer recognized.” “Truth is regarded as a kind of pudding, or brew, which you concoct from human opinions,” “something assembled from a million answers, Yes, No and Don’t know, obtained from a cross-section of the human race,” instead of what God revealed.

“Salad Bar” Heresy

This modern “smorgasbord” or “salad bar approach” to Christian doctrine that suggests, “Choose your own from as wide a variety of ideas as possible, and mix to your taste!” is the exact opposite of the Bible’s teaching of a faith that must be kept in violate just as God gave it. Paul wrote, “O Timothy! Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and vain babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith” (1 Tim. 6:20). Similarly Jude must urge Christians “to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (v. 3). The “salad-bar,” “choose your own mix” style of theology being promoted is the essence of every “heresy”—The word is a form of the verb “to choose” and, as Peter warned against it, means a self–chosen opinion, held in defiance of God’s revealed truth (2 Peter 1:16–2:2). There is no more effective way to lose the gospel (and to wreck a church) than to substitute for it such a “mix-your-own” doctrine.

God’s Gospel Against the Devil’s Universalism

Despite Dr. Stob’s arguments against the Antithesis of truth against error, the Bible informs us that it was God, not the devil, who said (Gen. 3:15), “I will put enmity . . . .” He, not the devil, throughout the Bible, announces and maintains and never minimizes or obscures this antithesis between true and false, between right and wrong, between Himself and the devil; it is the devil, who always attempts to obscure the differences, in order to achieve his purposes. The apostle John stressed the distinction between the truth and the lie, and that “no lie is of the truth” (1 John 2:21). Therefore he warned, (4:1 ff.), “Believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world,” and he went on to show how to tell the difference between the two.

Of the destructive process of obscuring the antithesis, The Banner propaganda for universalism is an exceptionally good example. Few may remember that the original name of our church publication The Banner was The Banner of Truth. Today we find its pages, while not exactly endorsing, yet expressing profuse appreciation for the devil’s oldest lie, “Ye shall not surely die!” Every one in office in our churches solemnly vows to oppose and try to keep the church free from errors particularly the errors of Arminianism exposed in the Dordt Canons. Today, not only are these errors being commended, and the Canons’ warnings against them ridiculed, but a much more extreme attack on the gospel exclusive claim, “he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16), the universalist heresy that all are saved, is being entertained.

The Christian and the church may indeed learn to better appreciate the gospel from the battle with false doctrines, but we do not have to welcome errors in order to properly “balance” our perception of God’s truth! When the Bible’s clear antithesis between true and false is obscured, and its revelation as the standard by which we must test which is which ignored, the inevitable result is total confusion. The doctrines that contradict the gospel are welcomed for our education, instead of being rejected as the “destructive heresies” which they are. Thus we betray our trust of the gospel and we and our followers become the devil’s dupes. We see this happening in this playing with universalism. (We also see it in the newly adopted ecumenical charter, which, despite cosmetic changes, begins with the assumption that all churches, regardless of differences, are one, and must seek to learn the as yet unknown truth by mutual dialog.) This destruction of any awareness of the antithesis between the gospel and its attackers is one of the basic causes of the growing confusion and disunity of our churches and of the demoralization of our educational and missionary programs.

The apostle Paul reminded us that the first requirement of a soldier in Christ’s army (as that of an effective soldier in any army) is that he put aside other concerns, to obey his commanding officer (2 Tim. 2:4). He pointed out further that it isn’t possible to even play a game unless the players abide by the rules (v. 5). How can a Christian or church expect to be anything but ridiculous when they ignore the orders of Christ, their Commander, and the rules He gave for Christian living? No ball team would tolerate a player who insisted on throwing the ball in the wrong basket. Yet it is such nonsense that we are seeing in our churches’ publications and educational institutions when they entertain even such a far-out heresy as universalism. Thus our denomination is rapidly losing the respect of other members of the Reformed family of churches, as well as the respect of many others whom it encounters in efforts at missionary outreach. Forty years ago sailors who had had bitter experiences with Liberal chaplains sometimes expressed surprise and appreciation at hearing the gospel in a church service. In the last ten years as editor of this periodical I have on occasion encountered a similar surprise and appreciation of a publication that still tries to speak clearly in a testimony to the full gospel and against all compromise of it. The Lord has promised to sustain and use that kind of testimony to His Word. If our churches are to regain our lost unity, morale and credibility, we will have to prayerfully try to regain such a Biblical gospel testimony that presents it for what it is, God’s saving truth against the devil’s destructive lies. The apostle thanked God when he saw this testimony “welcomed . . . not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe” (1 Thess. 2:13).