My writing Sabbatical is being interrupted to introduce my new audio message, How Many Will God Save? I believe this may be the most important (and perhaps the most controversial) item I have ever posted at my website. I think it is so important that I am offering it free of charge so anyone can hear it without any cost.
This message offers an entirely new perspective on afterlife issues. Many Christians do not realize that many Christian beliefs about afterlife issues come not from the Bible, but from the fictional works of a 14th century writer named Dante. His fictional works presented horrific imagery of an everlasting place of torment for the unsaved, a concept that Christianity adopted as a dogma which it has largely retained ever since in its doctrine of “hell.” The word “hell” in the Bible almost always comes from the Hebrew and Greek words, sheol and hades, which simply mean the grave. These words do not convey any meaning representing a place of conscious, eternal torment.
My audio message urges you to consider afterlife issues with a “clean mental slate” after erasing all preconceived notions and dogmas so you can consider literal biblical teachings on afterlife subjects in a new light.
Modern Christianity tends to include two different intellectual camps on afterlife issues. One thinks the unsaved go to a place of conscious eternal damnation and torment, as taught in Dante’s unscriptural writings. The other camp, called the annihilationists, believes that God will eventually burn the unsaved in a lake of fire and they will be eternally dead and unconscious as if they had never lived as all. But if God is a loving God and people can only be saved via accepting Jesus Christ as taught in Acts 4:10-12, how can a fair or loving God condemn the billions of people who have lived since creation who never even had a chance to hear the name of Jesus Christ, must less act knowledgeably on any information about it? My audio message offers an alternative viewpoint about afterlife issues which, I believe, is scripturally-based and satisfactorily answers that question.
The “ever-burning hell” images of Dante’s writings so permeated the Medieval Catholic Church that it was retained by the Protestant churches even after the Reformation and it made its way into the translations of the King James Version of the Bible and other translations as well. The ancient Greek texts contain a word which is sometimes accurately translated “ages” in New Testament passages, but in other locations it is translated as “eternal,” “everlasting” or “world.” The Greek word is “aion,” from which we derive the English word “eon,” which means an indefinitely long period of time with both a beginning and an endpoint. In Colossians 1:26, Paul wrote there were mysteries hid from past ages, and in Ephesians 2:7, he taught that there were still more “ages” to come in God’s plan for mankind. If you check a concordance and look up the words “eternal” or “everlasting,” you will be surprised to see how often these words are translated from the Hebrew word “olam” and the Greek words “aion,” “aionios,” and “aionon” (forms of the same Greek word), and all of them literally mean “age-lasting,” applying to a particular God-ordained dispensation in a particular “age.” This subtle but critical difference has huge implications for biblical afterlife teachings. I find that the Young’s Analytical Concordance makes this point clearer and more understandable than does the Strong’s Concordance.
This audio message may be one of the most encouraging ones you have ever heard. It reveals the “breadth, height and depth” of the power of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice as it will be revealed during the future ages that Paul said would unfold in our planet’s future. Many Christians overlook the biblical teachings that when Christ returns, the only people resurrected are the righteous saints who will rule with Christ for 1000 years (Revelation 20:4 and 6), but the “rest of the dead [the unsaved] lived not until the thousand years were finished” (Revelation 20:5). When the unsaved are all resurrected after the millennium, the “book of life” is again “opened” (Revelation 20:11-12). This statement has huge implications for afterlife issues, as is explained in my newly-posted audio message.
I’ll offer a cautionary statement before you listen to this message, which is divided into three parts. The first part, which focuses on scriptures about God’s mercy, will sound doctrinally “liberal.” However, the second part, which focuses on scriptures about God’s justice, will make me sound very doctrinally “conservative.” The final portion of the message will attempt to reconcile these contrasting scriptures and bring balance to the biblical teachings about afterlife issues. There definitely is a future place and time of torment for sinners, but its conditions, purpose and duration are different than most Christians have traditionally assumed.
I hope you find this message to be very uplifting and encouraging. If you find it to be so, please share it with your Christian friends and fellow church members. It will offer tremendous comfort concerning the fate of their loved ones who died “unsaved.”
I’ll now return to my long-overdue and very much-needed Sabbatical. It is my hope that I will be able to return to posting on this blog with renewed health and vigor after the Sabbatical. I very much appreciate the prayers of readers that this will happen in God’s good time. Until that time arrives, I wish you all God’s Divine blessings and protections in the years that lie ahead of us.
How Many Will God Save?, 58:55 length, 26.9 MB audio message
