twists on vergadering.nu

Originally posted on September 10, 2008 – by Andre Piet

Addition January 2026: this site is now offline

On the website of vergadering.nu a response can be read to a letter to the editor of mine that was printed yesterday in the Dutch Daily. This letter to the editor is more or less a shortened version of the weblog I posted earlier. The marginal notes on vergadering.nu (written by Harry Sleijster) unfortunately reveal superficial knowledge of the matter and—worse—prejudice. This also applies to the rest of the file he has compiled. Below are Sleijster’s marginal notes on my letter and a brief response from my side to them.

The reference to Mark 10:45 was not clever, because Christ indeed gave Himself as a ransom for all, according to 1 Timothy 2:6. But the question that matters is whether those ALL have accepted Jesus and the ransom. TO be a ransom does not at all mean that this ransom becomes effective without faith, or even in rejection and denial. The Bible nowhere says that murderers will receive the ransom without repentance; on the contrary. Not to mention the devil, who according to the universal reconciliation advocates would also qualify for it. It is clear that ‘all’ is not always ‘all’.

A text that advocates of universal reconciliation also like to involve here is 1 Timothy 4:10, that God is a Sustainer of all people. Here one tries to read this as “a savior of all people.” Both meanings can be given to the word Soter. But even if one chooses ‘savior’, the same applies again: only those who come to the Savior are saved. Compare Joseph, who in Genesis 41:45 is called savior of the world. But only those who came to him were saved.

Eternal is indeed sometimes not eternal, but usually it is, and certainly so when it is said that something does not cease: “…where their worm is not dying and the fire is not being quenched.” Or as John 3:36 says: the indignation of God is remaining on him. Eternal therefore is always eternal when it concerns heaven? And when it concerns the eternal God?

And then come the own conclusions: that people who do not want to are nevertheless saved against their will. In other words: without faith they are saved, because, however contradictory, God Himself is the One who grants faith (which, admittedly, was not accepted).

The doctrine that faith in Christ ultimately does not matter for being saved can hardly make clear what the value of Christ’s suffering and death is.
God does not let go and He seeks until He has found, but the Bible also speaks of the moment when it will be said to the unrepentant human being: “you were not willing.”

Brief comment:

1. The misplaced, repeatedly recurring assumption in Sleijster’s account is that Universal Reconciliation would be realized apart from faith and acknowledgment of Jesus Christ. The opposite, however, is true! Universal Reconciliation means that all enmity will give way to peace and that every tongue will acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:9–11).
2. 1 Tim. 4:10 says that God is the Savior of all people. The Telos translation is quite transparent in adapting the text by translating here “Sustainer of all people” and then subsequently admitting in the footnote: “Elsewhere translated as Savior.”
   If God is the Savior of all people, then this means that He saves all people. Regardless of how and when. Certainly, a human being is saved exclusively by calling upon the Name of God, for “everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved.” The point, however, is this: Scripture foretells that everyone will call upon the Name.
3. Mark 9:47 speaks of Gehenna (= the valley of Hinnom) where the corpses will be thrown of those who rebel during the Kingdom of Peace. The fire at that place will not be quenched and the worms will not die as long as there are cadavers lying there. Whoever thinks that this concerns immortal, fire-resistant worms should read the original text in Isa. 66:24. It makes clear at once that this is not about the tormenting of the living, but about the decay of corpses.
4. John 3:36 speaks of the wrath of God that remains on the one who is disobedient to the Son. That is to say, as long as someone is disobedient to the Son. A moment will come when no one will be disobedient to the Son anymore.
5. Eternal means: having reference to one or more eons. In Greek the adjective aionios is derived from the noun aion. Eons in the Bible have both a beginning (“before the eons”) and an end (“the consummation of the eons”). The adjective aionios likewise refers to times with a beginning and an end. Consider, for example, the expression “before eonian times” (among others Rom. 16:25; see below).
6. “Eonian life” is the life of the coming eon (Luke 18:30). That eon will certainly pass, since Scripture speaks of “coming eons” (plural). Obviously the Life itself does not pass away; on the contrary: at “the consummation of the eons” death will precisely be annulled.
7. Just as the expression “eonian times” is rendered as “times of the eons,” so the expression “the eonian God” points to “the God of the eons.” Both parallel expressions are found in Rom. 16:25, 26.
8. I do not claim that people will be saved against their will. What I do claim is that since God grants faith, unbelief cannot be an obstacle for Him to save humanity. No human being has faith of himself. “The eye that sees, the ear that hears—both the LORD has made” (Prov. 20:12). Moreover, the Dutch Daily wrote: “On the one hand everything lies in His hand and it is He who grants faith.”
9. Sleijster: “The doctrine that faith in Christ ultimately does not matter for being saved can hardly make clear what the value of Christ’s suffering and death is.”
   Again the previously mentioned misunderstanding that faith in Christ would not matter for being saved. Here it is coupled with the peculiar logic that if all people were to be saved, the value of Christ’s suffering and death would be difficult to explain… Does it escape Sleijster that the value of Christ’s sacrifice actually becomes infinitely greater when everything and everyone benefits from it?
10. Not the unwillingness of humanity but the will of God has the final word. When it is said of Jerusalem: “… but you were not willing” (Matt. 23:37), God certainly does not leave it at that. God will heal Israel’s aversion (Hos. 14:5) and will ultimately have compassion on Jerusalem. Sleijster also knows this, and therefore the reference to Matt. 23 proves the opposite of what he intends.

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