Spiritual Buzzwords spiritual Spiritual Annihilation: "Annihilation itself is no death to evil. Only good where evil was is evil dead." George MacDonald Lilith. Change: "All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into another!" Anatole France. Choice: "Those who exalt free choice believe God must operate only within the sphere of our sovereignty." George MacDonald Church and Community: "Every sin meets with its due fate-inexorable expulsion from the paradise of God's humanity." George MacDonald "The unlovely facts of the world that God turns to holy use--such as the unjust judge, the false steward, the faithless laborers-he ignores the temple." George MacDonald "The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brothers' is sure" Bonhoeffer, Life Together Darkness: ''All that is made seems planless to the darkened mind, because there are more plans than it looked for...There seems no plan because it is all plan: there seems no centre because it is all centre.'' George MacDonald Death: "The death of our body may be the salvation of our soul." Oswald Chambers "No man sinks into the grave. He only disappears. Life is a constant sunrise, which death cannot interrupt, any more than the night can swallow up the sun. 'God is not the God of the dead, but of the living'; for all live unto him."--George MacDonald, Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood Dreams: "All dreams are not false; some dreams are truer than the plainest facts. Fact at best is but a garment of truth, which has ten thousand changes of raiment woven in the same loom. Let the dreamer only do the truth of his dream, and one day he will realize all that was worth realizing in it - and a great deal more and better than it contained" George MacDonald, What's Mine is Mine, Chapter 5 Eternity O Father, thou art my eternity. Not on the clasp of consciousness - on thee My life depends; and I can well afford All to forget, so thou remember, Lord. In thee I rest; in sleep thou dost me fold; In thee I labor; still in thee, grow old; And dying, shall I not in thee, my Life, be bold? George MacDonald, Diary of an Old Soul 'Eternity is a cloak wrapped about and enclosing yesterday, today and tomorrow in one moment that never ends. Of all this, God's single glance, which is yet eternal, misses nothing: what He has made, what He could have made, the evil that is a tear in the fabric of the good, even what could have been and would have been had we not failed Him. Everything is naked and open to His eyes; down to the last beat of a heart, the first fluttering of desire, the strong steps of hope." Thomas Aquinas in My Way of Life. Evil: George MacDonald spoke of "the unpleasant cure of evil." ''We have learned of evil, though not as the Evil One wished us to learn. We have learned better than that, and know it more, for it is waking that understands sleep and not sleep that understands waking. There is an ignorance of evil that comes from being young: there is a darker ignorance that comes from doing it, as men by sleeping lose the knowledge of sleep.'' George MacDonald, Perelandra Ch.17 "We do not realize that evil is a gift from God, designed to bring us down to our proper place and raise God up to the position his deity demands in the glorious consummation, when he will be 'all in all.' We need evil for what we are and shall be, not merely for any wrong that we have done. Evil is not essentially a penalty, but a preparation. It is humbling and revealing and necessary for the appreciation of good and of God…Trial, probing, experiment is a thing God does not need for himself, since he knows all. But his creatures need it, for they are here to learn, like Job, not only what is in themselves, but also what is in God" A.E. Knoch Faith: "All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen"-- Emerson " Faith is that by which a man lives inwardly, and orders his way outwardly. Faith is the root, belief the tree, and opinion the foliage that falls and is renewed by the seasons. Opinion is, at best, even the opinion of a true man, but the cloak of his belief, which he may indeed cast to his neighbor, but not with the truth inside it; that remains in his own bosom, the oneness between him and his God. St. Paul knows well -- who better?--that by no argument, the best that logic itself can afford, can a man be set right with the truth; that the spiritual perception which comes of hungering contact with the living truth -- a perception which is in itself a being born again -- can alone be the mediator between a man and the truth. He knows that, even if he could pass his opinion over bodily into the understanding of his neighbor, there would be little or nothing gained thereby, for the man's spiritual condition would be just what it was before. God must reveal, or nothing is known. George MacDonald, A Dish of Orts "In God, we live every commonplace as well as the most exalted moment of our being. To trust in Him when no need is pressing, when things seem going right of themselves, may be harder than when things seem going wrong. ..". George MacDonald" What's Mine's Mine" In his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul speaks of the three most important spiritual "gifts" given to us by God. These are given to us; that is they come from the "outside"--God imparts some of his life to us and we receive spiritual enlargement. To say that "faith" is a gift from God is to say that God has revealed in measure to us a picture of who he is. That is, God himself is the object of our faith. Our will is involved, and sometimes emotion and a sense of surrender. But these only attend the basic gift of faith God has imparted to us... God's Sovereignty: ' ....My very self you knew; my bones were not hidden from you, When I was being made in secret, fashioned as in the depths of the earth. Your eyes foresaw my actions; in your book all are written down; my days were shaped, before one came to be. ....' from Psalm 139 Gospel: "The gospel is to be presented, not as a lifeless theory, but as a living force to change the life. God desires that the receivers of His grace shall be witnesses to its power. Those whose course has been most offensive to Him He freely accepts….. He imparts to them His divine Spirit, places them in the highest positions of trust, and sends them forth into the camp of the disloyal to proclaim His boundless mercy. He would have His servants bear testimony to the fact that through His grace men may possess Christ-likeness of character, and may rejoice in the assurance of His great love. He would have us bear testimony to the fact that He cannot be satisfied until the human race are reclaimed and reinstated in their holy privileges as His Sons and daughters." Ellen G. White, Desire of the Ages "The gospel speaks of God as he is: it is concerned with him himself and with him only" Karl Barth While the Reformation was a recovery of the Gospel, it was also the clarification of the components of the Gospel. These clarifications are phrases that emphasize certain aspects of the Gospel. They are Latin phrases commonly used to describe the Reformation emphases. These five phrases are: by faith alone (sola fide); by grace alone (sola gratia); by Christ alone (solus christus); to God alone the glory (soli deo gloria); and by Scripture alone (sola scriptura). These are not five individual phrases that can be held in isolation from one another. One is not more important than any other. To speak of one is to speak of the other four. God is sovereign over all, including the devil, who is described as only "a servant of God". The good news is that God fully saves and redeems his creation. This was St. Paul's gospel. "God is no longer counting sin against anyone" (2 Cor. 5:19). God "has made everything beautiful in its time" (Eccl. 2:9). . Paul, an early universalist wrote, "Every knee shall bow…" Goodness: "We have to do with God, to whom no one can look without the need of being good waking up in his heart; to think about God is to begin to be good" George MacDonald "We will want the good that is in us all, even in the worst of us, to flower and grow" Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. Grace A loving word may set some door ajar Where seemed no door, and that may enter in Which lay at the heart of that same loving word. In my still chamber dwell thou always, Lord; Thy presence there will carriage true afford; True words will flow, pure of design to win; And to my men my door shall have no bar. George MacDonald Grief Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot. --Charlie Chaplin The capacity for grief is as much from God, as the capacity for love ...and we have not really lived until we have sounded them both. -anonymous Grief drives men into the habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding and softens the heart. -John Adams - Letter to Thomas Jefferson 6 May 1816 Three things are fundamental to understanding mourning. First, each loss launches us on an inescapable course through grief. Second, each loss revives all past losses. Third, each loss, if fully mourned, is the water of growth and regeneration. -unknown There are powers to be born, creations to be perfected, sinners to be redeemed, through the ministry of pain, that could be born, perfected, redeemed in no other way. --George MacDonald, What's Mine's Mine Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.. Isaiah. 30: 26 Heart: "What comes from the heart touches the heart" Don Sibet Hell: "All those evil doctrines about god that work misery and madness have their origin in the brains of the wise and prudent, not in the hearts of children". George MacDonald " I believe that no hell will be lacking which would help the just mercy of God to redeem his children. Take any of those wicked people in Dante's hell, and ask wherein is justice served by their punishment. Mind, I am not saying it is not right to punish them, I am saying, justice is not, never can be satisfied by suffering-nay, cannot have any satisfaction in or from suffering. Human resentment, human revenge, human hate may." George MacDonald "We know there is no place of eternal torture from Jesus story of counting your soldiers before entering battle...don't start something you cant fully and successfully finish. And yet we are asked to believe that God started a creation that ends in terrible loss?!" It is curious that some Christians will become highly indignant over the idea that God will save every one of his creatures in the end--but the idea that God would torture his enemies forever in "hell"--to this they would not bat an eye. If "hell" is real, why did the early church appoint an avowed universalist as the president of the second council of the church in Constantinople in the fourth century? (Gregory Nazianzen, 325-381) Hope: "Hope is faith waiting to be made real by experience." Sally Day "To trust in the strength of God in our weakness; to say , 'I am weak; so let me be; God is strong’; to seek from Him who is our life, as the natural simple cure of all that is amiss with us, power to do, and be, and live, even when we are weary , - - this is the victory that overcometh the world" George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons Humility: “A humble attitude is simply one that recognizes where our power ends and God’s begins.” Earnie Larsen Hypocrisy: "I fear only lest, able to see and write these things, I should fail of witnessing, and I myself be, after all, a castaway--no king, but a talker; no disciple of Jesus ready to go with him to the death, but an arguer about the truth; a hater of the lies men speak for God, and myself a truth speaking liar, not a doer of the word". George MacDonald Justice: "If the great gods be just, they shall assist the deeds of justest men" --Pompey, Anthony and Cleopatra, Act II, Scene I, Willaim Shakespeare "In God shall we imagine a distinction of office and character? Every attribute of God must be infinite as himself. Mercy, for example, cannot be temporary but eternal." George MacDonald Life: "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards".” Soren Kierkegaard "To live means sharing one another’s space, dreams, sorrows, contributing our ears to hear, our eyes to see, our arms to hold, our hearts to love" Paul Tillich "Life, like beauty, is its own reason for being" Earnie Larsen Light: "I am saved--for God is light!" George MacDonald "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it".” John 1:5 "In a contest between light and dark, light always wins. Darkness never smothers light; light always dissipates darkness. Darkness has no initiative and no energy. It is helpless against the pulsating radiance of light".” Eugene Peterson Love: "Love is the child of freedom, never that of domination." Erich Fromm "Our creation is by love, in love and for love" Psychologist Gerald May "At the end of the road they will ask me, have you lived? Have you loved? And without saying a word, I will open my heart full of names"-Bishop Pedro Casaldiliga "In a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred, we have the privileged vocation of being the living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds" Henri Nouwen "What we have once enjoyed, we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us." Helen Keller "It is no strain of metaphor to say that the love of God and the wrath of God are the same thing, described from opposite points of view. How we shall experience it depends upon the way we shall come up against it: God does not change; it is man's moral state that changes. The wrath of God is a figure of speech to denote God's unchanging opposition to sin; it is His righteous love operating to destroy evil. It is not evil that will have the last word, but good; not sorrow, but joy; not hate, but love. ... R. J. Campbell, The Call of Christ [1933] Love in the prime not yet I understand - - Scarce know the love that loveth at first hand: Help me my selfishness to scatter and scout; Blow on me till my love loves burningly; Then the great love will burn the mean self out, And I, in glorious simplicity, Living by love, shall love unspeakably. George MacDonald from: ''Diary of an Old Soul'' Mercy "Such is the mercy of God that he will hold his children in the consuming fire of his distance until they pay the uttermost farthing, until they drop the purse of selfishness with all the dross that is in it, and rush home to the Father and the Son and the many brethren--rush inside the center of the life-giving fire whose outer circles burn." George MacDonald Morality "You are so concerned right that you sometimes entirely forget what is good" --John Wayne in True Grit Mystery of God: "If Christ be very God, he must be unknown" Karl Barth. For, "To be known directly is the characteristic mark of an idol" Kierkegaard. "God is the Tao that cannot be named" Marcus Borg Nature of God: "The represented God man may refuse...the revealed God no one can refuse." "It cannot be that any creature should know him as he is and not desire him. He is always, and has ever been, sacrificing himself to and for his creatures. It lies in the very essence of his creation of them". George MacDonald, Life sermon. "Macdonald removes from our thinking every vestige of the image of God as a tyrant who is pleased with nothing less than the humanly impossible, and then who condemns man for not achieving it." Rolland Hein. Nature of Man: 'The best in the man IS the man.' George MacDonald "God doesn't have his favorites but he has his intimates." Louis Palau Possessions: “Treat all things as if they were loaned to you without any ownership—whether body or soul, sense or strength, external goods or honors, house or hall….everything.” Meister Eckhart Power: "The opposite of love is not hate, it is power" CS Lewis "Undeveloped natures in the presence of a force revere it as power - understanding by power, not the strength to create, to harmonize, to redeem, to discover the true, to suffer with patience, but the faculty of having things one's own vulgar, self-adoring way" George MacDonald Prayer: "The essence of prayer does not consist in asking God for something but in opening our hearts to God, in speaking with Him, and living with Him in perpetual communion. Prayer is continual abandonment to God. Prayer does not mean asking God for all kinds of things we want; it is rather the desire for God Himself, the only Giver of Life. Prayer is not asking, but union with God. Prayer is not a painful effort to gain from God help in the varying needs of our lives. Prayer is the desire to possess God Himself, the Source of all life. The true spirit of prayer does not consist in asking for blessings, but in receiving Him who is the giver of all blessings, and in living a life of fellowship with Him. ... Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1929) "Never wait for fitter time or place to talk to Him. To wait till thou go to church or to thy closet is to make Him wait. He will listen as thou walkest." George MacDonald Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel describes the anger of Michael, a consentration camp inmate: "I want to blaspheme, and I can't quite manage it. I go up against God, I shake my fist, I froth with rage, but it's still a way of telling Him that He's there, and He exists...The shout becomes a prayer in spite of me." Rationalism: "If we make rationalism and atheism the basis of things, we shall find some great big tragedy will spit up and knock our theories to the winds…Before we seal up our mind on any of these matters, Jesus Christ says, "Believe also in Me" Oswald Chambers, The Shadow of an Agony Redemption: "Redemption is not going to be finished; it is finished. Believing does not make a man redeemed; believing enables him to realize that he is redeemed." Oswald Chambers Redemptive Punishment: I do not myself believe that mere punishment exists anywhere in the economy of the highest. I think mere punishment is a human idea, not a divine one. But the consuming fire is more terrible to the evildoer than any idea of punishment invented by the most riotous of human imaginations. Punishment it is, though not mere punishment, which is a thing not of creation but destruction: it is a power of God and for his creature. As love is God’s being and creative energy in one, so the pains of God are to the recreation of the things his love has made, and sin has unmade.” George MacDonald Religious Pluralism: "Truth (God) is one, paths are many." Bharat Naik quoting the Vedas, scripture of the Hindu tradition. "The great good God looked down and smiled and counted each his loving child, for monk and Brahmin, Turk and Jew, loved them through the gods they knew"-Alfred, Lord Tennyson "And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock and one shepherd" -Jesus Episcopal prayer: "That the church may cast a wide net, embracing people of every kind, leaving the separation of good and evil to God and to God's own time, let us pray to the Lord." Riches: “Which is more the possessor of the word—he who has a thousand houses, or he who, without one house to call his own, has ten in which his knock at the door would rouse instant jubilation?” George MacDonald Truth “The truth shall make you free.” John 8:32 Salvation: ' ...What is salvation? To be delivered from everything mean, low, despicable, selfish, cringing, fearing in my whole nature, that I may stand humble yet bold and free before the Universe of God, because God knows me and I know God. That is salvation, and nothing else will do for man or woman. ... ' from "The Story of Zacchaeus", 'George MacDonald in the Pulpit' Sanctification: " My Father, do with me as you will, only help me against myself and for you. To will not from self, but with the Eternal, is to live!" George MacDonald Shame: Do you so love the truth and the right that you welcome, or at least submit willingly to, the idea of an exposure of what in you is yet unknown to yourself -- an exposure that may redound to the glory of the truth by making you ashamed and humbled?... Are you willing to be made glad that you were wrong when you thought others were wrong?... We may trust God with our past as heartily as with our future. It will not hurt us so long as we do not try to hide things, so long as we are ready to bow our heads in hearty shame where it is fit that we should be ashamed. For to be ashamed is a holy and blessed thing. Shame is a thing to shame only those who want to appear, not those who want to be. Shame is to shame those who want to pass their examination, not those who would get into the heart of things... To be humbly ashamed is to be plunged in the cleansing bath of truth. ... George Macdonald (1824-1905), "The Final Unmasking" from Unspoken Sermons [1889] Sin: "Primarily, God is not bound to punish sin; he is bound to destroy sin. The only vengeance worth having on sin is to make the sinner himself its executioner" George MacDonald Suffering: "Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it" Helen Keller "Thank God religion to me has always been the wound, not the bandage" Playwright Dennis Potter, speaking a few months before his death of cancer. "Even in our sleep, pain which can not forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will comes wisdom through the awful grace of God"-Greek poet Aeschylus (c. 525-456 BC), a favorite of Robert Kennedy. Theologizing O Lord, I have been talking to the people; Thought's wheels have round me whirled a fiery zone, And the recoil of my words' airy ripple My heart unheedful has puffed up and blown. Therefore I cast myself before thee prone: Lay cool hands on my burning brain, and press From my weak heart the swelling emptiness. George MacDonald, Diary of an Old Soul "We usually mean by theology something remote that has to do with controversy, whereby our mind is tied up in knots and our practical life left alone" (Oswald Chambers, The Kenosis). Universal Reconciliation (The Hopeful Doctrine That All Shall Be Saved): "There are some cases where we cannot easily make up. I thank my God for the faith that there is a time coming when every conscience will become awake, when everyone who has done wrong to another will be able to say to him, 'I am sorry.' I have faith in the Infinite One from whom I came. . . . I believe His Spirit will reach every heart; it may be thousands of years before it all happens, yet the words will come, 'I am sorry; forgive me.' " George MacDonald, Lecture on Dante, 1887 "We think that the goodness of God, through the mediation of Christ, will bring all creatures to one and the same end" (Origen, De princip., I, vi, 1-3). “The mass of men (Christians) say that there is to be an end of punishment to those who are punished.” (St. Basil the Great, De Asceticis) “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. Jerome) "Every Christian should devoutly hope for it and even cautiously believe in, but none should presume on it." John Baillie "If we could only read the secret history of our enemies, we would find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility".Longfellow on the doctrine of Universalism "Until the last lost person comes home (referring to the parable of the prodigal son), God's mind and body are nailed to the cross." Andrew Sung Park, in his essay, The God Who Needs Our Salvation Here is a beautiful expression of Quaker universalism, written by John Woolman (d. 1772): "There is a Principle which is pure, placed in the human Mind, which in different Places and Ages hath had different Names; it is, however, pure, and proceeds from God. It is deep, and inward, confined to no Forms of Religion, nor excluded from any, where the Heart stands in perfect Sincerity. In whomsoever this takes Root and grows, of what Nation soever, they become Brethren." Source: Amelia Mott, The Essays of John Woolman (London, 1922), p. 180. "God has to answer to himself for his idea; he has to do with the need of the nature he made, not with the self born choice of the self ruined man. His candle yet burns dim in the man's soul; that candle must shine as the sun. For what is the all pervading dissatisfaction of his wretched being but an unrecognized hunger after the righteousness of his father. The soul God made is thus hungering, though the selfish, usurping self, which is its consciousness, is hungering only after low and selfish things, ever trying, but in vain, to fill its mean, narrow content, with husks too poor for its poverty stricken desires" (excerpt from: ''The Voice of Job'' as found in: Unspoken Sermons, Second Series by George MacDonald) Universalism Vs. the Doctrine of Eternal Torment: Early Church Writings It is a wonder that any of the early writing survived or were not corrupted. But God always leaves witnesses to the truth and many writings did manage to get through this dark period. I believe many more will come to the surface in the days ahead. I do not have space to quote all that I have come across. There is a short bibliography at the end of this writing that will direct you to many other quotes from the early church that have survived. St. Pantaenus (martyred c. 190) was the first known head of the catechetical school at Alexandria. Although none of his writings have survived, his leading disciple, who became the next head of the school, said that Pantaenus was "the man who understood and practised scripture." This disciple was St. Clement of Alexandria (150-215). He writes: We can set no limits to the agency of the Redeemer: to redeem, to rescue, to discipline, in his work, and so will he continue to operate after this life" (quoted by Neander in Hanson p. 118). "All men are his...for either the Lord does not care for all men...or he does care for all. For He is saviour; not of some, and of others not...and how is He saviour and Lord, if not the saviour and Lord of all? For all things are arranged with a view to the salvation of the universe by the Lord of the universe both generally and particularly"(ANJ v.2 p.524-5). We have quite a few of his writings preserved, but I can only quote a couple of short verses because this is supposed to be a short article. The next Christian leader deserves an introduction. I could not write more fitting words than those of church historian Phillip Schaff, who says the following of this man: "It is impossible to deny a respectful sympathy to this extraordinary man, who with all his brilliant talents, and a host of enthusiastic friends and admirers, was driven from his country, stripped of his sacred office, excommunicated from part of the church, then thrown into a dungeon, lead with chains, racked by torture, doomed to drag his aged frame and dislocated limbs in pain and poverty, and long after his death to have his memory branded, his name anathematized, and his salvations denied; but who nevertheless did more than all his enemies combined to advance the cause of sacred learning, to refute and convert heathens and heretics, and to make the church respected in the eyes of the world." Latourette adds these praises: "Origen was more than a great teacher: He was on fire with the Christian faith." "His was, indeed, one of the greatest of Christian minds." "A superb teacher, he had a profound influence upon his students. From them and through his writing issued currents which were to help mold Christian thought for generation" (A Hist. Of Christ., Latourette, 1953). To give you an idea of the kind of student of the Scriptures Origen was, I am going to quote Schaff in his History of the Christian Church, volume 2, page 792-3, Gerdman edition: "Origen is one of the most important witnesses of the anteNicene text of the Greek Testament, which is older than the received text...The value of his testimony is due to his rare opportunities and life-long study of the Bible before the time when the traditional Syrian and Byzantine text was formed. Origen was an uncommonly prolific author, but by no means an idle bookmaker. Jerome says he wrote more than other men can read. Epiphanius, an opponent of Origen, states the number of his works as six thousand, which is perhaps not much beyond the mark, if we include all his short tracts, homilies, and letters, and count them as separate volumes. Many of them arose without his cooperation, and sometimes against his will, from the writings down of his oral lectures by others. Of his books which remain, some have come down to us only in Latin translations, and with many alterations in favor of the later orthodoxy." Even though the teachers of "Eternal Torment" eventually got control of the church and began to rewrite the earlier Christian writings to conform to their own domonic doctrines, enough of the truth got through for us to see what was really going on. Listen. Listen to the words of Origen as he battles with a Greek philosopher named Celsus: "The Stoics, indeed, hold that, when the strongest of the elements prevails, all things shall be turned into fire. But our belief is, that the Word shall prevail over the entire rational creation, and change every soul into his own perfection...for although in the diseases and wounds of the body, there are some which no medical skill can cure, yet we hold that in the mind there is no evil so strong that it may not be overcome by the Supreme Word and God. For stronger than all the evils in the soul is the Word, and the healing power that swells in Him, and the healing He applies, according to the will of God to every man. The consummation of all things is the destruction of evil...to quote Zephaniah: 'My determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kings, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger, for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent'...consider carefully the promise, that all shall call upon the name of the Lord, and serve Him with one consent; also that all contemptuous reproach shall be taken away, and there shall be no longer any injustice, or vain speech, or a deceitful tongue" (Celsus, 6k8, ch. 72, ANF, v.4, p. 667). Of all the early Christian leaders, Origen rose to the top in defending the character of God against the pagan concepts of God that were beginning to penetrate. His life touched many who would become great men of God in their time. Many of their writings are lost or destroyed, but we have accounts of their lives recorded in letters from one church leader to another. St. Gregory of Thoumaturgus (c. 213-270), a church father and a disciple of Origen became bishop of Neo Caesoreia and was famous for the many miracles in his ministry. Pamphilus was also a disciple of Origen, who became head of the theological school at Caesarea. He founded the famous library which contained thousands of Christian writings. St. Athanasius, the Archbishop of Alexandria was also a student of Origen and defends him as orthodox. Athanasius nominated Didymus the Blind as president of the school of Alexandria. Didymus was a strong believer in the "Restitution of All Things." "Didymus was a zealous Universalist who explicitly endorsed Origen's opinion on the conversion of devils" (A Dictionary of the Bible, Hastings, publ. By Scribner, 1963). St. Jerome says of him, "Didymus surpassed all of his day in knowledge of the Scriptures." The highly acclaimed Didymus writes: "Mankind, being reclaimed from their sins..are to be subjected to Christ in the fullness of the dispensation instituted for the salvation of all" (Comm. in 1 Peter 3). St. Gregory of Nyssa (332-398), a bishop and a leading theologian says in his Catechetical Orations: "Our Lord is the One who delivers man (all men), and who heals the inventor of evil himself." As one can see, one of the greatest strengths of the early church was their strong faith in a God who can do what appears to the modern Christian as impossible. Jerome says this next man, Titus, bishop of Bostra was, "one of the most important church writers of his time." Titus writes: "Abyss of hell is, indeed, the place of torment; but it is not eternal, nor did it exist in the original constitution of nature. It was made afterward, as a remedy for sinners, that it might cure them. And the punishments are holy, as they are remedial and salutary in their effect on transgressors; for they are inflicted not to preserve them in their wickedness but to make them cease from their wickedness. The anguish of their suffering compels them to break off their vices" (Lib. 1, ch. 32). Next we have Diodore (c. 390), bishop of Tarsus and bishop of Jerusalem. In McClintock-Strong's Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature (publ. Baker Book, 1969), we read of Diodore: "A teacher of great repute in the school at Antioch, and afterwards bishop of Jerusalem, was also a Universalist, who, in opposition to the then general prevalence of allegorical interpretation, strictly adhered to the natural import of the text in his many commentaries on the Scriptures. He defended Universalism on the ground that the divine mercy far exceeds all the effects and all the deserts of sin." Diodore wrote: "For the wicked are punished, not perpetual, but they are to be tormented for a certain brief period...according to the amount of malice in their works. They shall therefore suffer punishment for a short space, but immortal blessedness, having no end awaits them. The resurrection, therefore is regarded as a blessing not only to the good but also to the evil." Here we see that leaders who used allegorical interpretation of the Scriptures and leaders who used literal interpretation of the Scriptures both came to the conclusive decision based on Scripture that eternal punishment was not scriptural! McClintock-Strong's Cyclopedia of Biblical Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature has this to say about the next church leader of the early church: "Theodore, who is called the crown and climax of the school of Antioch and whose writings were textbooks in the school of Eastern Syria, was a prominent and influential Universalist. His theory was that sin is an incidental part of the development and education of the human race; that while some are more involved in it than others, God will overrule it to the final establishment of all in good. He is the reputed author of the liturgy used by the Nestorians, a church which at one time equaled in its membership the combined adherents of both the Greek and Latin communions. In the addresses and prayers of this liturgy Universalism is distinctly avowed." Schaff-Herzog's Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge says that, "His influence for some centuries was more extensive than that of Augustine." Theodore, of whom the average modern Christian does not even know ever existed, has this to say: "That in the world to come, those who have done evil all their life long, will be made worthy of the sweetness of the divine bounty. For never would Christ have said, 'Until thou has paid the uttermost farthing' unless it were possible for us to be cleansed when we have paid the debt" (quoted from Christ Triumphant by Thomas Allin). Of John Cassian (c. 360-435), the Schaff-Herzog encyclopedia says: "Under the instruction of these great teachers (i.e. Theodore of Mopsuestia and John Cassian, etc.) many theologians believed in universal salvation; and indeed the whole Eastern Church until after 500 A.D. was inclined to it." Theodoret the Blessed (c. 393-466), was consecrated bishop of Cyrrhus in Syria against his will. He was also a historian and continued the historian Eusibius's work down to 428. McClintock-Strong says that he was, "a pupil of Theodore of Mopsuestia, was also a Universalist holding the doctrine on the theory advocated by the Antiochian school." Theodoret writes: "He shews the reason of penalty, for the Lord, who loves men, chastises in order to heal, like a physician, that he may arrest the course of our sin" (Hom. in Ezech. ch. 6). Peter Chrysologus (435), bishop of Ravenna, in a sermon on the Good Shepherd, says the lost sheep represents, "The whole human race lost in Adam," and that Christ, "followed the one, seeks the one in order that in the one he may restore all." Many more early Christian leaders could be quoted who believed that nothing was too difficult for the Creator of all, but again, this is just an article, not a book. When one looks at the first 500 years of Christianity, not one creed even hinted at "Eternal Torment;" not one creed denied "Universal Restoration;" no church council condemned "Universal Restoration" in the first several centuries. When one looks at the early Church's leaders and at which ones exhibited the nature of Christ's love, one will find that the vast majority embraced the "Salvation of All Mankind." When one looks at the lives of those church leaders who brought the doctrine of "Eternal Torment" into the church, we find a long string of envyings, power plays, persecutions, character assassinations, book burnings, murders, and tortures. They became like the God they created--tormentors! Their story is for another article. They exchanged the truth for a lie and brought darkness to the world--the Dark Ages. Remember them? Idolatry, corruption, rewritten history, inquisitions, crusades, relics (cutting up dead bodies of Saints and making money off of them as good luck charms), indulgences (selling certificates to sin), pogroms, witch hunts, Mary worship, corrupt popes, and torment--much torment--all in the name of Jesus Christ. The list above is not a list of abuses of the religions of the heathen--it is a much shortened list of the horrible acts and beliefs of the church! The church became so corrupt that it declared it a sin for a believer to have a Bible. For those of you who are not Roman Catholic and feel that the above list does not pertain to your denominational church history, I want to remind you of the fact that the two leading reformators of the Protestant movement, John Calvin and Martin Luther, were great admirers of the "Champion of Eternal Torment," that is, St. Augustine. As a matter of fact, Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk, and John Calvin was the main instrument in bringing back to life the "Predestination Doctrine" of Augustine, which said that God preplanned the majority of mankind to eternal torment and there was nothing a person could do to change his lot! The French, German, and English Bible translations that came forth as a result of these men's efforts still were corrupted due to many reasons into which I cannot get in this article. I will be happy to send you information about how men have tampered with the Bible. We have some audio tapes and literature that plainly show many examples of where our English Bible translations still reflect the Dark Ages and not the original Spirit and Word found in the original languages of the Bible. Protestant, Catholic, Pentecostal, Charismatic, etc., theologians are making false statements (often sincerely) about the accuracy of many of our English Bible translations. But enough of the truth remains in our translations to discover what Jesus Christ and His Apostles taught. Sometimes we can learn more about the truth from what a person did not say than from what they did say. For example, if Paul was commissioned by Jesus Christ to be the Apostle to the Gentiles (everybody except the Jews), and if salvation is deliverance from hell, why did Paul, who wrote about half of the books in the New Testament, never use the word "hell" even once? Think about it! I am now going to list some of the Scriptures that the early Christians used to prove to the heathen that God really loved them and that He truly had the power and desire to "save the whole world" and that He gave that power to His Son, Jesus Christ. Fortunately, for the early Christians, they did not have to weed out mistranslations of Greek words like "aion," which should have been translated "eon" or "age," but translations such as the King James translated into "eternal," "forever," "evermore," "world," and "age." It is this kind of translation that makes the Bible say that the world has no end and at the same time say that it does have an end. The King James Bible translators were specifically told by King James not to remove the Latinisms that crept into the Bible. King James was a strong believer in the "Divine Right" of the King and he wanted to make sure that the Romish teaching remained in his Bible. Please forgive me for going off course for a moment--this subject is one I'm very familiar with and love to talk about, but it is another topic. It is because of some of the above mentioned confusions that many sincere seekers "give up on Christ." I believe this generation is going to dig like no other generation ever born, and we will rediscover what made the early Christians the wonder they were. They conformed to the image of their God--All Consuming Love. You will conform to the image of your God. Who is He? If your God is an "Eternal Tormentor," your life will reflect that belief. If He truly is the Savior of the whole world and He truly loves the whole world and has all power and authority, then your life should reflect that. At least some of you who are reading this believe that what I am writing is true. I am going to list scores of Scriptures that will confirm what the early Christians believed and lived. There are some who will clearly see this wonderful truth throughout the entire Bible--but that is no enough. Knowledge in the head will never bring forth Life. This Truth has to be buried deep in the heart and the Spirit of our Father has to nurture It to bring forth the fruit of the Spirit. Those of you who now see this Truth, I beg you to ask your Father to plant It in your heart--that He would water and care for It. This Truth planted in the mind will only bring forth dogma and death. The Father seeks those who will worship Him in Spirit and Truth, not dogma and death. It is only then that you will know why you were created. It is only then that your knee will bend to your Lord to His glory and honor. It is only then that your heart can truly rejoice and praise the Creator, your Father. By Gary Amirault of Tentmaker Ministries. www.tentmaker.org Will "Those who exalt free choice believe God must operate only within the sphere of our sovereignty." George MacDonald "When the Spirit of God comes into a man, He brings His own generating will power and causes him to will with God, and we have the amazing revelation that the saint's free choices are the pre-determinations of God. That is a most wonderful thing in Christian psychology, viz., that a saint chooses exactly what God pre-determined he should choose" (Oswald Chambers, Biblical Psychology, Pg. 215).