Читать книгу The Gospel of The Restoration of All Things - Tim Hodge - Страница 6

INTRODUCTION

This book is written out of a deep desire to share with people a magnificent truth which I believe has been lost in mainstream Christianity for about 1,800 years. It is called ‘the Gospel of the Restoration of all Things’, and I will be sharing what I’ve discovered over the last 20 years as a follower of Jesus and a student of the Bible.

My first introduction to Christianity was as a child when I attended an Anglican Sunday school. My parents were steeped in Anglican culture and we attended church regularly and learnt about God through Bible stories and the singing of traditional hymns.

The teaching was basically that we should try really hard to be good and to think of others before ourselves, and we thought of Jesus as a good kind teacher who unfortunately was killed but overcame death by rising from the dead. This was my sum understanding of Christianity for many years.

It was as a young adult at the age of 21 that I heard the ‘Evangelical’ version of the Gospel: that God loved me personally and had sent Jesus to die for my sins on the cross and would come to live within me if I asked him in. I immediately believed this was the truth and I knelt down in my room and asked the living Jesus into my life to be my saviour and Lord. Three things followed from this:

1.I knew God was real.

2.I knew I was born again.

3.I knew the Bible was the word of God.

I don’t know how I knew, but I just knew.

In those days I was given a copy of the Bible by those who were mentoring me, and this was a ‘Good News Bible’. I began reading it, but really didn’t understand it, and quickly realised that most Christians I knew didn’t understand it either. Yes, there were certain verses and passages that they would quote and maybe even preach on, but also whole swathes of scripture ignored by most Christians. However, I persevered with it and began attending Evangelical meetings and house groups and listening to as much teaching as I could.

The teaching was basically that God had created this world and given us all a free will, but we had used that free will against God and become guilty sinners. This made God angry with us, and, as sinners, we deserved to be separated from him in hell forever, but God had sent Jesus to die for us, so that if we repented of our sins and trusted Jesus as saviour, God would forgive us and give us eternal life in heaven. This was the Gospel I presumed was true for many years.

I studied many Christian books, listened to endless sermons and Bible studies and quickly realised that within Evangelicalism there were many different versions of the Gospel: Calvinism, Arminianism, Charismatic, Reformed, Pentecostal, and so on.

Some believed in ‘once saved, always saved’; others denied it and taught that the believer was in danger of losing their salvation. There were different baptisms, and some believed in the gifts of the Spirit, while others believed the gifts ended with the Apostles. But the one thing they all had in common was that not everyone would be saved and that most people would end up in the eternal conscious torment of hell!

I began thinking ‘how could this be a Gospel at all?’ After all, the word ‘Gospel’ means ‘good news’ and it seemed really bad news that most people would be lost and end up in hell.

When I asked my Evangelical friends why God created people knowing that they would reject him and end up in hell, I got many trite answers but most just said ‘we can’t know all about God and we have to just leave these things with him.’ But this didn’t satisfy me, and gradually I started to realise that this Gospel (in its various forms) was fundamentally flawed and was a perversion of the original Gospel as revealed in the Bible.

Firstly, I began researching the word ‘hell’, and quickly came to realise that it didn’t mean what traditionalists had said it meant. I also discovered, from the Bible, that hell was not eternal.

It then dawned on me that not only was the fall of man universal but that every person had become a sinner not by his own choice but by being physically descended from Adam.

I then realised that, just as the work of Adam was universal, so the work of Christ was universal and that Jesus had died not just for Christians but for the sins of the whole world, and Paul in his letters seemed to compare the two, showing that the work of Christ undoes the work of Adam.

‘Consequently just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.’

(Rom 5 v 18 – NIV)

My Evangelical friends said ‘yes, Jesus did die for the sins of the whole world, but it needs personal faith to appropriate that salvation and most will never believe.’

Then I read:

‘At the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those in heaven, of those on earth and those under the earth. And that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of God the Father.’

(Phil 2 v 10-11 NASV)

They then told me that ‘Yes, they will bow and confess, but it will be too late to be saved, there is no chance for people after they die.’ This seemed to be contradicted by Paul who said in Romans that death does not separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8 v 38-39) and Peter tells us that the Gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that although their bodies were punished with death they could still live in the spirit as God lives (1 Peter 4 v 6 Living Bible).

I then realised that the words ‘eternal’ and ‘forever’, and the phrase ‘forever and ever’, were in many instances mistranslations from the Greek word ‘aion’, meaning ‘age’, ‘aions’ meaning ‘ages’ and ‘the aions of the aions’ meaning ‘the ages of the ages’. I found that even in English the words ‘eternal’ and ‘forever’ were used in the Bible for things that clearly come to an end. Why not judgement?

I then realised that the word ‘things’ in scripture is used of people or ‘beings’ both human and angelic and not just of inanimate objects, and that ultimately ‘all things’ would be reconciled to God through the work of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world.

I also discovered that:

‘In the dispensation of the fullness of time he would gather together in one all things in Christ. Whether it be things in heaven or things on earth even in him.’

(Eph 1 v 10)

There are many other areas and doctrines within Christianity that I’ve come to realise are false as the Lord has been opening up the scriptures to me, and that God’s love is much more universal than traditional Christianity would have us believe.

In the chapters that follow, I outline what I’ve discovered and commend to you the Gospel that was once delivered to the Saints - ‘The Gospel of the Restoration of all Things!’

Sometimes in this book I will use the word ‘Universalism’ instead of ‘the Restoration of all Things’. The word Universalism is not in the Bible, but nevertheless it perfectly conveys the same meaning, so I will be using the words interchangeably.

I firmly believe that the Gospel of the Restoration of All Things, the teaching that ultimately every human being that has ever lived, is living or will live in the future will be saved and re-united with God, is the original Gospel (or Good News) taught in the Bible.

We have to understand that there are different versions of Universalism out there, with many liberal Christians saying that all people will obviously be saved because God is love and would not judge anyone, but in this book I base the teaching on a literal interpretation of scripture.

I have also used many Bible quotes because I want the scriptures to speak for themselves on these issues.

My aim in writing this book is to persuade Evangelical Christians, who are firm Bible believers, that the Bible doesn’t teach everything they have been taught about the destiny of unbelievers and to see that the work of Christ is much more universal than they’ve realised and to encourage them to question traditional orthodox teaching.

I also want to appeal to liberal Christians, many of whom have rejected much of the Bible because of the Orthodox teachings on hell and judgement, and non-Christians to show them that the Bible reveals a God who loves the world so much that he sent his only begotten Son to be the saviour of the entire world and that God’s judgement and his love work together in a beautiful harmony.

Many Christians will disagree with what I’ve written and many will call it ‘heresy’ but no matter.

‘What I have written, I have written.’

(John 19 v 22)

I hope that readers will be like the Bereans in Acts 17 who searched the scriptures to see if what I’ve written conforms with the Bible.

I hope and pray that this book will encourage Evangelical Christians, inspire liberal Christians to return to the Bible and bring non-Christians to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ who is the saviour of all men (especially those who believe) and has a good plan for them and his whole creation.