It was not without reason that the Antioch School refused to canonize the books of II Peter, II and III John, Jude and Revelation. The doctrine of the Universal Salvation could be easily refuted by these five books which contained so many verses on eternal judgment as to render them irrepressible:I'm a proponent of Universal Salvation who is not at all afraid of these books. The very verses from Jude they go on to cite are cited by me to prove "Eternal Fire" can't mean endless torment in both KJV Universal Salvation and Words Translated Eternal, because it's used of the fire that destroyed Sodom and in Ezekiel 16 Yahuah promises Sodom will be restored. And I recently wrote a blog post on how Revelation points to Universal Salvation, and addressed The Lake of Fire in my posts on Gehenna and the Baptism of Fire.
As far as second Peter goes, they cited two verses referring to Judgment on Sinners, none inherently saying it'll be endless or even Aionion. God's punishments are for Correction (Habakkuk 1:12 and Proverbs 3:11) and not endless (Matthew 5:26, Luke 12:59 and Matthew 18:34). And again one of them was about Sodom and Gomorrah, which again we know will be restored because of Ezekiel 16. 2 Peter 3:9 is one of my favorite Universal Salvation proof texts, he says God is "not willing" that any should perish.
They didn't even cite anything from II or III John, those short books deal with Believers behaving badly which makes them attractive to those who say Salvation can be lost or that we need to be on guard for fake believers. But nothing in those books refers to endless torment or annihilation as being their Punishment. In III John it's clear the bad Christian we're to be concerned about is the one trying to kick others out.
This came up later in an article mainly opposing the Semitic New Testament theory, since the Aramaic Peshita lacks exactly the books listed above, and the Church of the East emerged largely from the Antiochene School. I mostly agree with them that the original Language of most of The New Testament was Greek, I'm going to be doing a post on that in the near future.
They accuse Universal Salvation of being Gnostic by associating it with Clement, Origen and Diodore. But they left out Gregory of Nyssa. The Predestination doctrine of Augustine is what was condemned as Gnostic Hersey by the Pre-Nicene fathers, both Origen and Methodius of Olympus (who on many other issues disagreed with Origen) wrote books on the subject.
This website decided to just accept the worst slanders against Nesotrius and Theodore of Mopsuestia uncritically. Theodore did NOT teach a from of Adoptionism, he wrote whole books on the Incarnation.
At any rate dispute on some of these books existed already before Nicaea, it used to be opponents of Pre-Millenial Eschatology just rejected Revelation altogether, like Eusebius of Caesarea, it was Augustine who enabled them to allegorize it away.
The Muratorian Fragment fails to mentions Either of Peter's Epistles or James or Hebrews and apparently includes only two of John's. But it did include Jude. And it adds the Apocalypse of Peter which affirms Universal Salvation.
I doubt this website approves of the Book of Enoch being added to the Canon, which I mention because the ancient arguments against Jude's inclusion were because it seemingly quotes Enoch. So no, it being a problem for Universal Salvation was not the reason.
I do support the 27 Book New Testament as preserved by the Textus Receptus. I just pointed out these facts to provide some context showing that Universal Salvation could not have been the issue.
Some of my allies give Enoch part of the blame for the development of the Endless Torment doctrine. But while I definitely don't consider Enoch Canon, I do consider what it says about the fate of Azazel and his armies consistent with how I interpret the nature of the Lake of Fire.
And he said unto me, “These are being prepared for the armies of Azazel, in order that they may take them and cast them into the abyss of complete condemnation, and as the Lord of the Spirits has commanded it, they shall cover their jaws with rocky stones. Then Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, and Phanuel themselves shall seize them on that great day of judgment and cast them into the furnace (of fire) that is burning that day, so that the Lord of the Spirits may take vengeance on them on account of their oppressive deeds which (they performed) as messengers of Satan, leading astray those who dwell upon the earth.”It said "on account of their deeds" meaning the Punishment will fit the Crime. Meanwhile the first 8 verses of the Book sound pretty Universalist.
In Richard Laurence's Translation "for ever" must be a bad translation (or the Ethiopic was a poor translation). Chapter 10 Verse 8 describes a condition as "for ever" that the very next verse says will one day end. And then verse 15 says "till the judgment that will last forever be completed"???????. Repeatedly the imprisonment of the Angels is said to be "for ever" even though it's also defined as 70 Generations.
Enoch 22:13-14 is what most seemingly opposes Universal Salvation in the book. But it is also a big problem for those who want to make it Canon, it explicitly says the Souls of Sinners won't rise from where they currently are on the day of judgment, this is explicitly contradicted by Revelation 20, 1 Corinthians 15, John 5 and Daniel 12. It might be possible to argue all Jude was even vaguely endorsing was the first part of the book and not this later proto-Dante's Inferno. Or this could be another textual corruption or translation issue and that verse meant to say their souls won't be destroyed or released from their prison until the Day of Judgment.
Origen was pretty fine with Enoch even though we know he supported a form of Universal Salvation.
No comments:
Post a Comment