John 1:3 refutes Arianism regardless of John 1:1

Even if you can justify an "a god" translation of John 1:1, John 1:3 says The Word created everything that was created, therefore The Word can't be a created being.

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

That's the KJV translation.

I've been looking into the Coptic texts of the Gospel attributed to John for various reasons.  And I've found JWs will use Coptic Texts of John 1:1 to support their translation of that verse.  But the same Coptic texts have this same implication in John 1:3.

Everything came into being through him, and without him nothing came into being. That which came into being

https://depts.washington.edu/cartah/text_archive/coptic/coptjohn.shtml

Even the JWs own translation doesn't solve this implication of John 1:3.

 All things came into existence through him, and apart from him not even one thing came into existence.

https://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/nwt/books/john/1/

When discussing the Nicene Creed it's often made out as if in that Creed only the word Homousias makes Arianism incompatible with it.  (Of course that word only conflicts with Arianism in an Ancient Greek Platonic conception of what Divine Substance meant, to us every Son is made of the Substance of their parents.)  In fact full Proper Arianism is incompatible with the Creed simply from saying "begotten, not made", Arius and JWs see Jesus as a Created Being.

Now Semi-Arianism may accept the "begotten, not made" part, but some Semi-Arians were fine with Homousias as well.

Basil of Caesarea and Universal Salvation

The first link to come up on a google search for "St Basil Universal Salvation" is unfortunately this link.
http://classicalchristianity.com/2011/06/16/st-basil-on-universalism/

You see the writing of Basil quoted here is one often viewed as inauthentic, or if authentic in origin one that has been highly altered.  Here is the quote in question.

St. Basil of Caesarea ca. 330-379
In one place the Lord declares that “these shall go to eternal punishment” (Mt. 25:46), and in another place He sends some “to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mt. 25:41); and speaks elsewhere of the fire of gehenna, specifying that it is a place “where their worm dies not, and the fire is not extinguished” (Mk. 9:44-49) and even of old and through the Prophet it was foretold of some that “their worm will not die, nor will their fire be extinguished” (Isa. 66:24). Although these and the like declarations are to be found in numerous places of divinely inspired Scripture, it is one of the artifices of the devil, that many forgetting these and other such statements and utterances of the Lord, ascribe an end to punishment, so that they can sin the more boldly. If, however, there were going to be and end of eternal punishment, there would likewise be and end to eternal life. If we cannot conceive of an end to that life, how are we to suppose there will be and end to eternal punishment? The qualification of “eternal” is ascribed equally to both of them. “For these are going,” He says, “into eternal punishment; the just, however, into eternal life.” (Mt. 25:46) If we profess these things we must recognize that the “he shall be flogged with many stripes” and the “he shall be flogged with few stripes” refer not to an end but to a distinction of punishment. (Rules Briefly Treated 267)

The inconsistency between this very quote and what Basil generally taught is addressed by this link.
https://www.scribd.com/document/281876746/Basil-and-Apokatastasis
Starting on page 132. Though it was much earlier in the PDF that it first went into detail on how Basil defined Aionios ("Eternal" in the above cited passages from Matthew).  This source offers a meaning for Aionios I hadn't heard yet, "World to Come" though I would render it "Age to come".

I don't care what the "Early Church Fathers" said as much as most of my allies on Universal Salvation do.  But I also care about correcting misinformation.

What was the error of the Nicolaitans?

They were not named after a man called Nicolas.  The Nicolas of Acts 6 is mentioned in a positive context.  We don't need to go outside scripture to determine what this doctrine was, it's deduced from the etymology of the name.

Nico-, combinatory form of nīke, means "victory" in Greek, and laos means "people", or more specifically, "the laity"; hence, the word may be taken to mean "lay conquerors" or "conquerors of the lay people".

The fact that this error is mentioned in only two messages doesn't necessarily mean it's relevant to only those two.  Only Ephesus is specifically commended for rejecting it and only Pergamos is specifically criticized for having some who fully hold it.  It might be possible others Churches had a more in-between version of it.  It also seems like it may not have originated in either of these cities.

That's been my position in the past, but I'm prepared to change my mind if new information comes to my attention.

A lot of confusion about this issue comes from thinking it's the same thing as the doctrine of Balaam also mentioned in the message to Pergamos.  In the message to Pergamos Jesus talks about them following the error of Balaam (Pornea/Whoredom and eating food sacrificed to Idols), then says they also have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolatians.

This is why the opinions of the "Early Church Fathers" are not very credible on this issue, because right from the first of them to bring up the subject, Ireneaus, they are being treated as if they're the same.  This is a mistake I myself have made talking about the issue in the past, so it's understandable.

It's not till the Seventh Century people start saying the Nicolatians' error was that Nicolas let other men lay with his wife.  When Clement of Alexandria mentions this story he's referring to it as a positive.

However what if there is a third Church in Revelation directly relevant to this issue?

The second through sixth Churches in Revelation 2&3 are addressed as "The Church in _____".  But the first is addressed as the "Church of Ephesus" and the last as the "Church of the Laodiceans".

The city of Laodicea was named after a Seleucid queen Laodice.  The Greek roots of the name are Laos (people or laity) and Dike meaning either Justice or Vengeance depending on who you ask.  Notice how if you replace only one letter you get the same roots as Nicolatians.  That could support this name carrying a similar meaning, or maybe you could interpret it has having an opposite meaning.

Early Church Tradition says the first two Bishops of Laodicea were people named in Colossians 4:15-17, (one of them being a woman, Nympha, interesting), they could well have been before the major problems Revelation deals with emerged.  The third known Bishop of Laodicea was Diotrephes, a man refereed to very very negatively in the Epistle known as Third John, in fact he's been interpreted as being the first Monarchical Church Bishop.

And thus this all further backs up the premise of my Heresies of Asia Minor post, as well as The Gospel of The Beloved Disciple.

However the "victory over the people" meaning could also apply to Legalists, people who's issue was the polar opposite of the error of Balaam.  Which could justify equating them with Cerinthus or the Ebonites.

The Incarnation of The Logos and Divine Impassibility.

There are a number of disputes within Christianity where I take what can be labeled the "Compromise" position.  There is a natural tendency to think the "Compromise" is least likely to be true, and maybe that's the case when it comes to Political and Economic policies.  But when it comes to debating The Bible I've come to feel many major ongoing disputes within Christianity are based on both sides agreeing on something that is actually wrong, that wrong assumption creates contradictions where there are none, and so they fight over how to reconcile that.

For example my taking what can be considered a "Mid-Trib" position on The Rapture.  You see Post-Tribers and Pre-Tribbers actually agree that Revelation 19 depicts the Parusia (Second Coming) while I have observed that chapter 19 has nothing in common with any description of the Parusia.  Post-Tribbers will see The Parusia in the same passages of Revelation I do, and then will garble it's chronology to make them happen at the same time as Revelation 19.  While Pre-Tribbers will separate the Rapture from the Second Coming thus defining it badly and refusing to see it in Revelation at all.

Arminians and Calvansits both agree that not everyone will be saved, and so they both take opposing routes to reconcile that with how God can be both All Powerful and All Loving.

Hebrew Roots people and "YHWH is Satan" people both agree that if The Law was a curse that must say something bad about the God who wrote it.  So one side denies that Paul said The Law is a Curse, and the other says an Evil God wrote it.  I however simply conclude that The Law was a "Curse" that served a purpose.

I've been trying to decide what side to take in the Chalcedonian v Miaphysite v Nestorian dispute about the Nature of the Incarnation of Jesus.  All three agree with the Nicene view of The Trinity, and that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine.

Nestorius and Cyril were the opposites here, but the Council of Chalcedon happened after Cyril died so Calcedonian denominations consider Cyril a saint and deny that his theology was more Miaphysite even though Miaphysites defined their position entirely on what Cyril taught.

Cyril taught that Jesus had One Nature that was both Divine and Human somehow.  Nestorius taught that Jesus had two Natures that were entirely separate.  And the position agreed on at Chalcedon was that Jesus has two Natures that are mixed.

I lean towards that third position, but to a certain extent consider it all semantics that is certainly not essential to understanding The Gospel.  And I know that both Nestorians and Miaphysites have had their position misrepresented a lot by those who disagree with them, so I want to be careful talking about them.

The position taken at Chalcedon seems like a middle ground reached once Cyril and Nestorius were both no longer around.  So the question I asked was, is there a wrong assumption that Cyril and Nestorius both shared?  For awhile I couldn't think of one, but then I read this article about Cyril.
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/henrykarlson/2017/10/jesus-christ-god-son-without-human-person/

St. Cyril consistently discussed the differences between Jesus’ divinity and humanity, affirming those differences as continuing after the incarnation, so he would be able to say the one Lord Jesus Christ, God, died on the cross, suffering only in relation to his humanity while being impassible in his divinity.

The sentiment that it was only the Humanity and not the Divinity that Suffered was also expressed by the Nestorians that I'd read a few times before this and was always uncomfortable with, the main thing really that kept me from embracing the Nesotrian position since I have a lot of sympathy for them looking at what happened at Ephesus and during Jusitnian's Reign.

And I'm not the first person to note that Cyril and Nestorius agreed on this, calling it Divine Impassibility.
http://www.drurywriting.com/john/GodTastedDeath.pdf

It seemed intuitively obvious to all parties involved that if God suffered, then God would cease to be God.

I feel inclined to consider this wrong, I believe the Incarnation was partly about God becoming Man and experiencing what we experience.  That's what I feel Hebrews is actually saying.  Revelation 5 has The Lion of Judah at the Right Hand of The Father in the form of "A Lamb as it had been slain".

It can be interesting to compare this dispute to the one I mentioned earlier, because Calvanists love to identify themselves with Augustine and Arminains somewhat more reluctantly identify with Pelegius.  Allies of Pelegius joined forces with Nestorius while Cyril had ties to Augustine.
https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/orthodoxyandheterodoxy/2013/09/05/original-sin-and-ephesus-carthages-influence-on-the-east/

The concept of Impassibility comes from Plato and Artistole's views of God, YHWH in the Hebrew Bible is a very emotional God.

But I should again stress that most people called Nestorians do not necessarily believe the fullness of what Nestorius taught, and Nestorius own views were often misrepresented.  In fact a Patriarch of the "Nestorian" Church during the reign of Justinian accepted Theotokos as a title of Mary.

Update April 2019:

I should stress that I'm aware of arguments that Cyril's Christology wasn't really Miaphysite and perfectly compatible with the later Chalcedonian Confession.  Even if that's true Miaphysite Christology still emerged as an extreme reaction to Nestorianism that had it's roots in extreme rhetoric Cyril used in opposing Nestorius.  And while both sides of the Chlacedonian Schism claim Cyril, the Miaphysites are clearly way more invested in Cyril.

I know that most Christians we call Nesotrian are not really all that interested in the peculiar Christology of Nestorius but simply a Communion of Churches that split off from Imperial Christianity at Ephesus (and perhaps to same extent people who split off a the Fifth Council later joined them) because they didn't agree with condemning Nestorius as a Heretic.

I wonder how much the same is true of Miaphysite Churches, particularly the Coptic, Nubian and Eritrean Churches in Africa which may have nominally become Miaphysite simply because it was through Egypt they entered Communion with Roman Christianity.

The Great Commission

When I see people object to Universal Salvation by asking "What about the great commission? what's the point of spreading the Gospel then?" I feel like asking in return "Do you want to boast?".

Cause that's what a lot of modern Soul Winning is, I know someone who worked at a local Christian Book Store in my town who said one Church she went to treated it as a competition, everyone kept score of how many people they "got saved".  That terminology about "getting someone saved" is to me just a semantic way to get around that they're clamming credit for that person's Salvation.

There is no Door to Door soul winning in Acts, nor is there Street Preaching.  Paul preached The Gospel at places where you were expected to be talking about religion.  Now today Christianity isn't a sect of Judaism anymore so trying to bring up Jesus in a Synagogue isn't appropriate anymore, the equivalent of that today is in Church, where nominally everyone believes in Jesus already but they may not have the same Gospel you do.  Paul was never pushing his religion on people who don't want to hear it.

The Great Commission is to "be a witness", we should try to be good credible people so that maybe others will actually want to know what our views on God are.  Our mission is to deliver the Good News, not a threat or an ultimatum.

The thing I feel people miss about the Riot of Ephesus in Acts 18 is that the Christians weren't doing what they were accused of.  I feel too many modern culture warriors skim over the chapter and go "we're supposed to be making the Pagans mad".  But at first the only people upset were the people making less money because less people were buying idols, they didn't actually care about respecting Artemis at all.  They then got people riled up by convincing people simply not standing for her flag was an attack on her.  You see the sad irony is today American Christians act like the Pagans of Ephesus not the Christians of Ephesus.

Also the Book Burning of Ephesus was just new Christians burning books they already had from before their conversion.  It was not making a public show of it, or obtaining books just to burn them, and certainly no attempt to ban anything.  It's no more comparable to a Nazi book burning then Linkara burning his copy of Holy Terror is.

I do want to increase the Church's numbers, I want people to know the Good News that I know.  And I believe there are potential benefits and rewards for being a Believer in this life which I'd like the current non-believers I care about to share in some day.  But I also know that being aggressive about it is counter productive to achieving that, and I understood that even before I believed in Universal Salvation, but it was difficult to reconcile that with the urgency that the traditional Western view of Hell instills in us.

Now that I understand the True Gospel I can relax.

The Free Gift of Grace

Grace is a Free Gift by definition.  Many Protestants and Evangelicals are good at correctly pointing out that it isn't "Free" if you have to earn it or can lose it.  Yet they've taken on a mistaken notion that it's not a "Gift" if it can't be rejected, that you have to willingly "receive" it.

If a doctor finds a man beaten, bleeding and unconscious on the road and then chooses to heal him without charging a medical bill, is that not a Free Gift that that the man did not have to take any part in receiving?  That is in fact how Jesus presents Mankind's predicament.

The phrase "Free Gift" appears in the King James Bible only in Romans 5 verses 15-18, not once is any notion of someone needing to "receive" it mentioned.  Quite the contrary it says the Free Gift came upon All, no exceptions.

Paul reiterated repeatedly that Grace is entirely about Jesus with no assistance from us lest we should boast.  Even saying we have to "receive" it undermines that Gospel.

As many have argued before, when Ephesians 2 says we are saved by Grace through Faith, the Faith being refereed to there is of Jesus not our Faith.  In Paul's writings our Faith Justifies us but doesn't Save us, those are different things.  Justification is necessary to receive Citizenship in New Jerusalem and potentially Rewards.

It is actually only Jesus who ever refers to people being saved by their faith (Luke 7:50 and 18:42), and those contexts were in more immediate senses, they do not make Faith necessary for ultimate Salvation.

I affirm Free Will, but my understanding of Free Will is neither a Calvinist or Arminian one.
https://solascripturachristianliberty.blogspot.com/2018/08/free-will-is-not-argument-agaisnt.html

Limited Atonement vs Arminian Atonement, who is the Most Illogical.

When I cite 1 Timothy 4:10 as evidence of Universal Salvation "we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe". the response I get is something like "Jesus is the Savior of all because He Died for All but that doesn't mean everyone will be saved".

They are arguing that Jesus is the Savior of people who are not Saved, and think I'm the one using twisted tortured logic.  I don't believe failure is possible for Jesus, He is your Savior, therefore you will be Saved.

So why then are believers "especially" saved if no one suffers endless torment or annihilation?  First and foremost because we're aware of our Salvation, we are currently in Light and they are in Darkness, which is what it means to be "lost".  Now I could also elaborate about the issues of Rewards and Citizenship in New Jerusalem, but I actually think believers can lose those things if we fall away or screw up too badly.

John Calvin himself never addressed the issue of Limited Atonement, he went further then Martin Luthor in developing Augustin's Predestination heresy by saying God does choose not to save some people, but Limited Atonement was developed later, chiefly at the Synod of Dort in 1618.

Wikipedia says there were two things both sides of the Arminian v Calvinism debate agree one.

"It is particularly associated with the Reformed tradition and is one of the five points of Calvinism. The doctrine states that though the death of Jesus Christ is sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world,^[1] it was the intention of God the Father that the atonement of Christ's death would work itself out in the elect only, thereby leading them without fail to salvation."-"Both sides of the controversy agreed that this efficacy was limited to the elect."

I think many disputes in Mainstream Christianity are resolved by realizing both sides actually agree on something that is wrong, and that error thus creates apparent contradictions in Scripture where there are none.  In this case what both sides agree on are logically inconsistent with each other, at least they are if God is Omnipotent, Omnipresent and Omniscient.

As an analogy for what both Arminians and Calvinists agree on, let's say I'm someone living in the Pokemon world.  Some shop is selling all 802 Pokemon, I paid enough money to buy all of them, but by the time I get home I only have 153.  The Calvinist would say those were always the only ones I wanted, I just over paid for them to show off that I could.  An Arminian would say the others ran away because they didn't like me.  One option makes me very wasteful, the other makes me a very bad trainer.

Calvinists take the route they feel respects God's Sovereignty, while Arminians tried to take the route that respects God's Love and Mercy.

Calvinists have to agree that Jesus Atonement was sufficient to Save everyone to get around the verses that contradict Limited Atonement.

Mostly I think of Calvinists as being the most wrong sect of Christianity.  But there are two things on which Calvinists are correct. 1. God is Sovereign, He will get what He Wants.  2. It is Illogical to say Jesus died for Everyone and yet there will still be some who aren't Saved.

The problem in what they agree on is that the word "Elect" (Chosen) is used in many senses.  Some verses are about those who currently Believe in their Mortal Life.  But Paul in Romans 11:22 is clear that unbelieving Jews are still Elect, and Jesus included Judas when He said that He had Chosen the 12, and yet Judas was a Devil.  Ultimately all Humans were Chosen by God to be made in the Image and Likeness of God and have dominion over the Earth in Genesis 1 and Psalm 8.

Both verses that refer to few being chosen, Matthew 20:16 and 22:14, also say many are called.  The second occurrence I believe is meant to help explain the random occurrence earlier, and on that occasion it ends the parable of the Wedding Feast, where the Many Called is indeed everyone, but only one person is Chosen and that's the one cast out into Outer Darkness.  In Isaiah 42:1 The Elect is The Servant who in chapter 53 is bruised for our iniquities.  I have argued that Gehenna could be the site of the Crucifixion.  1 Peter 2:6 also calls the Stone that is Jesus Elect.  We are Elect because we are The Body of Christ.

Many verses contradict Limited Atonement by implication, including ones mentioned in this post already, like at the start.  But there are two passages that directly render that notion impossible.

1 John 2:1-2, "propitiation" in the KJV is the Greek word for Atonement.

1 Timothy 2:4-6, which also demonstrates that God's Will is to Save everyone along with Matthew 18:14.