Universalism is the belief that every single human being will be saved and will experience eternal life. Some universalists believe that religions other than Christianity are alternative paths to God, and that people do not need to believe in Jesus in order to be saved. This form of universalism is a heretical denial of the Christian Gospel, and must be rejected by Christians without question. Other universalists, though, are Christocentric universalists. They believe that, even though not everyone is saved during their earthly life, eventually, in the afterlife, all people will be saved and reconciled to God through Jesus. Christocentric universalism is not necessarily heretical.
Some universalists claim that a loving God would never send people to Hell. This is a shallow, superficial argument that fails to take into account the Holiness of God, the seriousness of sin, and the reality of God’s wrath. Other universalists, though, make a more sophisticated argument: if Christians are truly saved by God’s grace alone and not because of anything that makes us more deserving of salvation than other people, then how can we believe that other people will be damned and not saved by God’s grace?
This argument has some plausibility. And we would certainly all like to believe that everyone will eventually be saved. However, there are serious biblical and theological problems with universalism that should lead us to reject it.
The Biblical Problem
The Bible does not teach that every individual will eventually be saved. Instead, it clearly teaches that there will be a Final Judgment in which the wicked will be separated from the righteous and cast into Hell (Matt 25:31-46; Rev 20:11-15).
Universalists who care about the Authority of Scripture interpret passages of Scripture that speak about Hell as referring to a temporary, rather than an everlasting, punishment. On this view, biblical passages that seem to speak of Hell are actually speaking of a kind of Purgatory. The wicked will experience a period of suffering after death, but eventually all of them will repent and be saved, leaving “Hell” empty.
It is possible to interpret some passages of Scripture that seem to speak of Hell as actually referring to temporary punishment. For example, several times Jesus refers to the wicked who will be judged by God being cast into darkness or a blazing furnace, “where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” without clearly and explicitly saying that this punishment will be everlasting (Matt 8:12, 13:42, 13:50, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30; Luke 13:28). However, other passages of Scripture clearly refer to Hell as being “eternal” (Greek: aionios), of unending duration (Matt 18:8-9, 25:41-46, 2 Thess 1:9; Jud 7). There is no hint anywhere in Scripture that those condemned at the Final Judgment will afterwards repent, be forgiven, and be reconciled to God. Jesus taught that “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin” (Mk 3:29), which shows that at least some sinners will never be forgiven and be saved.
When Jesus was asked if only a few would be saved, He responded, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’ Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ “But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’” (Luke 13:23-27). If Jesus were a universalist, He would simply have responded, “No! Everyone will eventually be saved!” Instead, Jesus clearly taught that it is difficult to be saved and that, after a certain point, there will no longer be an opportunity for people to be saved, no matter how much they might want to.
On another occasion, Jesus exhorted his audience, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matt 7:13-14). There could not be a clearer contradiction to the universalist idea that eternal life is a given that will be experienced by all. Jesus clearly teaches that it takes great effort to find eternal life, and that only a “few” do so.
This kind of urgent exhortation to wholeheartedly pursue God because this is the only way to be saved and the time is short appears again and again in the teachings of Jesus and His apostles (Matt 5:29-30, 10:16-29, 24:9-13, 42-51, 25:1-13; Mark 13:9-13, 33-37; Luke 12:35-59, 21:34-36; 1 Cor 6:9-10; Gal 6:7-9; Eph 5:3-7; Heb 12:1-29). This urgent, repeated call to costly obedience and suffering with Christ because that is the only way to be saved makes absolutely no sense if Jesus and His apostles believed that everyone was going to be saved anyway. Thus, it is not the case, as universalists often argue, that belief in a final, permanent separation between the saved and the damned is based on a few scattered references to Hell in Scripture. Rather, this belief is based on the tenor and tone of the New Testament as a whole. The explicit references to Hell in Scripture just reinforce what is already clear from the message of moral and eschatological urgency that runs throughout the whole New Testament. If Jesus and His apostles wanted us to be universalists, they could not possibly have been more misleading.
The Theological Problem
Even if universalism were consistent with the teachings of Scripture, it should still be rejected by Christians, due to the serious theological problems with it.
According to the universalist view, God eternally offers an opportunity to repent to the damned in Hell/Purgatory, and, eventually, all of them will choose to repent, put faith in Jesus, and be saved. Now, the teachings of Jesus throw serious doubt on the idea that God does eternally offer an opportunity to repent to the souls of the damned, but, for argument’s sake, let us assume this is true. If human beings have free will, then there is no way that we can know that everyone will eventually choose to repent. We can hope that this will happen, but, if human beings really have free will, then it must be possible for someone to eternally choose to reject God’s offer of salvation. Belief in universal salvation and belief in human free will are logically incompatible.
Thus, the only logically consistent way to affirm universalism is to deny free will and to claim that God uses His irresistible grace to make everyone choose to repent. If we deny free will, though, this creates unsolvable problems related to the problem of evil. If God could force everyone at any time to repent and stop sinning, then Christians are left with no explanation for why a perfectly good God allows evil to continue to exist.
Thus, universalism is theologically deeply problematic. It is unreasonable to claim that everyone will eventually be saved. One can hope that everyone will eventually be saved. But, if human beings really have free will, then one simply cannot know what percentage of human beings will be saved in the end. And, given that Jesus indicates that only a few will be saved, we certainly have no good reason to think that that percentage will be 100.
Although the idea of universal salvation sounds nice, it is inconsistent with the teachings of God’s word, and with sound theological reasoning. It should therefore be rejected by Christians.