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... before Gehenna was turned into an unpleasant, smoky landfill, it was something much, much worse. It was so much more heinous that the word became a euphemism for “Damn!” ...
Gehenna was not only physically disgusting, it was spiritually terrifying. Think of a haunted house. Think of Freddie Kruger and Hannibal Lekter rooming with Ted Bundy in that house and you are getting the picture. It was a place of horrific evil where the abominable demon-god Moloch was worshiped.
So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith (Galatians 6:10).And that includes enemies:
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you (Luke 6:27);But sooner or later people want more than empathy and aid—they want answers.
If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink (Romans 12:20).
He commands even winds and water, and they obey him (Luke 8:25);Earthquakes are ultimately from God. Nature does not have a will of its own. And God owes Satan no freedom. What havoc demons wreak, they wreak with God’s permission. And God has reasons for what he permits. His permissions are purposes. That's the point of Job 1-2 and Luke 22:31-32.
He sends forth His command to the earth. . . . He gives snow like wool; He scatters hoarfrost like ashes. He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs; who can stand before His cold? . . . He makes his wind blow and the waters flow (Psalm 147:15-18);
He looks on the earth and it trembles . . . touches the mountains and they smoke! (Psalm 104:32);
[He] shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble (Job 9:6).
He is wise and brings disaster (Isaiah 31:2);Therefore, God has a good and all-wise purpose for the heart-rending calamity in Japan on March 11, 2011 that appears to have cost tens of thousands of lives.
The Lord is good (Psalm 100:5);
All his works are right and his ways are just (Daniel 4:37).
How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! (Romans 11:33);Yet there are possible purposes revealed in the Bible that we may pray will come to pass:
The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us (Deuteronomy 29:29).
Let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe (Hebrews 12:28).(This post is adapted from what I wrote August 18, 1999, in response to the earthquake in Turkey that cost 17,000 lives.)
Love moves the heavens and the stars. Love created the universe and love will win in the end. Rob Bell did not say this—Dante did—and Dante believed in Hell. Dante also thought all of us, including himself, in danger of going there for all eternity.If you like to think, it's worth reading the rest ...
Dante believed in Hell, because of reason, reading the Bible, and because of love. If love is to win, then Hell must exist. Sadly, Rob Bell has chosen the culturally sterile, ethically bankrupt, and unloving position of denying love’s demand: hell exists and love built it.
They [liberal preachers] speak with disgust of those who believe ‘that the blood of our Lord, shed in a substitutionary death, placates an alienated Deity and makes possible welcome for the returning sinner.’ Against the doctrine of the Cross they use every weapon of caricature and vilification. Thus they pour out their scorn upon a thing so holy and so precious that in the presence of it the Christian heart melts in gratitude too deep for words. It never seems to occur to modern liberals that in deriding the Christian doctrine of the cross, they are trampling upon human hearts. (Christianity and Liberalism, 120 [pagination may differ])
It is not funny—not by a long shot. And the ironic truth of the matter is that the reality of an eternal Hell does the most honor to man as an image bearer of God. We are fearfully and wonderfully made and part of that fearfulness is freedom to will against God. The good news of the Gospel is that through Christ, God by His Spirit draws and enables us to choose for God. But He will not force the choice and strong arm a human being to do what he will not do. When the will has issued its resolute and final decision: “I will my will not yours!” The die is cast and, paraphrasing Lewis, God steps aside, withdraws all manifestation of His gracious love and says: “Well then, your will be done in Hell as it is on earth.”
That is why Hell is eternal.
That is why death will irrevocably seal our fate.
That is why none of this is something to laugh about.
I have to agree with several others that who have commented that Love Wins isn’t an outline of any kind of systematic theology. Some say he is telling a very artful story. That is partly true but part of his telling the story is deconstructing another story and replacing it with what he believes is the central story of scripture. In order to do that in a convincing fashion you have to prove that the “old story” missed the point but you also have to prove that it really was the story that people believed was “the story” before you can say that there really is relevance in trying to revitalize what the Gospel is all about and get it back to its original, non-hijacked, intention. The temptation is to build a straw man around the most extreme and most easily discredited branches of Christianity in order to create the tension that we really do have a problem here or that the majority of Christians really have missed the point and gone with all the wrong narrative threads in the Gospels to the neglect of the one big one Bell wants to highlight.
Now here is where the artistry comes into play. When you deconstruct something the questions you choose and don’t choose are of the utmost importance. It is important that you ask certain questions in a certain order to start teasing things apart. Bell must ask hundreds of questions in this book. His point is not to drive you crazy with questions. His point is not to get a logical and impartial answer on each and every one. His point is to get your mind moving in a certain direction to convince you of the point he is making. The problem is by default there are other perfectly good questions that don’t get asked. They don’t get asked because, while they are incredibly relevant, they don’t advance his point and so they are left out. I understand that no one is able to address every issue or examine every side of every issue. At the same time I keep getting the feeling that there are many key questions that are purposely left out of this book because it would put a flat tire on Bell’s main thesis.
How can Paul justify such language? And does this kind of language teach us anything about how to respond to false teaching? Or is it completely an apostolic privilege, off limits to us mere Christians?HT:PC
Let's step back and see what Paul is doing. Anyone familiar with Paul's letter to the Galatians knows it is punctuated with this kind of exclamatory language. The shepherd is perplexed and heartbroken over the Galatians' apparent departure from the gospel once established, and he is livid, indignant toward the Judaizers who are leading them astray. If this were written today, we would be very tempted to chastize Paul for his tone -- and indeed, some do reject Paul's teachings today for this reason, among others (like alleged misogyny, etc.)
Galatians 5:12 shows us that Paul is being both rational and angry. It is possible to be both. Paul has not lost his temper, as harsh as his call for the heretics to castrate themselves is. (And let's not say it just sounds harsh. It is harsh.)
Paul's harsh words here are rational because he's working from logic previously established: “If you accept circumcision, you must obey the whole law" (Gal. 5:3). Using that logic, then, he's asking, “Hey, if circumcision justifies you, why not just castrate yourself altogether?”
Paul is being rational, but not coolly rational. Having anathematized the false teachers, repeated several times that they bear the penalty, that they will be accursed, he is hot with the wrath of God owed to teachers of false gospels.
But isn't he coming across . . . mean? How can this be justified?
First of all, Paul didn't invent harsh language for false teaching. They stoned such people in the old covenant. Jesus in his mercy only verbally lacerated false teachers, calling them sons of hell, whitewashed tombs, etc.
The Bible never speaks kindly of false teachers. It suggests to restore those who fall into falsehood gently. But it never suggests treating offenders gently. Indeed, you can see throughout Paul's letter that he is pleading with the Galatians even while rhetorically punching the Judaizers. His tone when referring to the Judaizers is angry; his tone in referring to the Galatians' susceptibility is sadness. Galatians 4:8-20 is the most vivid example: you can practically hear his tears.
Here is the bottom line, assuming Galatians is a good test case, kept in the context of all the Scriptures show us about dealing with false teachers: Protecting the sheep from wolves often involves roughly handling wolves.
“Isn’t that unloving? Isn’t that hateful?”
No, in fact, it shows real love for the sheep. It shows real love for Jesus!
Real love stirs active affections, both positive and negative. Because I love my wife, for instance, I give her physical affection. Also, because I love my wife, I will do physical violence to anyone who attacks her.
Do you see how that works?
Because God loves justice he hates sin.
Because God loves the truth, he hates lies.
Because God loves his Son, he hates teaching that demeans his Son, and legalism does that.
Heresy does that.
Therefore, because God loves his children, he hates false teaching. And we ought to take the kid gloves off with false teachers, if our love for Christ and his church is real.
There is gospel to be found in this harsh language. Because God loves sinners, he does the harsh thing of sending Christ to suffer violence, to deal harshly with sin by being dealt harshly with by sin, and laying his life down for the sheep.
Christ was cut off, cursed, made sin, made heresy, that we might be brought into the truth. The cross is the ultimate harshness to sin. What a loving thing to do to conquer that sin and rescue sinners.
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There is something about sexual sin that ruins the minds of previously healthy people. Paul explains in Romans 1:18-32 that idolatry leads to sexual immorality, which swiftly degenerates into a laundry list of “greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip.” Such people are “backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning” (v. 29-30).
...
Sexual sin is the canary in the coal mine, the first sign that something has gone haywire in our walk with Christ.
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Paul said there is a way of life that is “in step with the truth of the gospel” (Galatians 2:14). There is a gospel walk. He said there is a “manner of life worthy of the gospel” (Philippians 1:27).And as any good teacher, the indicatives followed by the imperatives (as opposed to misleading unanswered questions):
The reason there is a way of life that fits the gospel is that what happened on the cross of Christ not only cancels the sin and completes the perfection that grounds our justification but, in doing that, also unleashes the power of our sanctification. And what I am most interested in today is how that power over my sins is experienced. And I want to illustrate that eventually from Philippians 2:12–13.
There are many ways that the New Testament shows how this works. I’ll mention three.
1) In the death of Christ we died.
2) In the death of Christ we were bought.
3) In the death of Christ we were forgiven.
And in each of these cases, a power is unleashed from the cross that expresses itself through my volitional attack on sin. In other words, in each of these three cases, the way the cross becomes effective in my conquering cancelled sin is by empowering my will to oppose sin in my life.
1. In the death of Christ we died.So how do we live?
“We have been united with him in a death like his” (Romans 6:5; see also Romans 7:4;Galatians 2:20; Colossians 3:3).
Therefore:
“You also must consider yourselves dead to sin” (Romans 6:11). “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body,” (Romans 6:12).
2. In the death of Christ we were bought.
“You are not your own, for you were bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20).
Therefore:
“Glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:20).
3. In the death of Christ we were forgiven.
“God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32).
Therefore:
“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another” (Ephesians 4:32).
So in every case, the decisive impulse for my holiness and my sin-killing is the death of Christ. Which means that the decisive power for our conquering sin is Christ’s canceling sin. That is, the only sin that we can defeat is a forgiven sin.
If we try to defeat an unforgiven sin—that is, if we try to conquer our sin before it is canceled—we become our own saviors; we nullify the justification of the ungodly (Romans 4:4–5), and we head straight for despair and suicide.
Which means that the link between the cross and my conquered sin is a Holy-Spirit empowered will. Listen to these texts that describe this reality:
- Romans 7:6—“We died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.” I serve in the newness of the Spirit.
- Romans 8:13—“By the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body.” I put sin to death, by the Spirit.
- Galatians 2:20—“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” The life I now live . . . Christ lives in me.”
- 1 Peter 4:11—“Whoever serves, let him do it as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.” Iserve, but in the strength that God supplies. And it is a blood-bought supply.
- 1 Corinthians 15:10—“By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” I worked. But it was the grace of God that was working in my working.
Lies My Pastor Told Me CH4 from Humble Beast Records on Vimeo.
So, here is Rob Bell: people who refuse a “vital connection with the living God” are given over to a “kind of life [that] is less and less connected with God” (Love Wins, 66). And this is no mere theoretical state of affairs, “because it is absolutely vital that we acknowledge that love, grace and humanity can be rejected” (my italics)—and if so, “God gives us what we want, and if that’s hell, we can have it” (72).To this Mouw adds his perspective.
And I certainly do believe that some folks choose that hell. The Hitler types. The man who kidnaps young girls and sells them into sexual slavery. They are well on their way to hell, to becoming inhuman monsters. To be sure, as the hymn rightly reminds us: “The vilest offender who truly believes/ that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.” But for those who persist in their wicked ways, eternal separation is the natural outcome of all the choices they have made along the way.I think this satirical piece speaks to the Hiltler question. Fundamentally, I think what Bell and Mouw have not addressed is the sinful nature of man. I think that even our righteousness is as filthy rags (Isa 64.6) and so yes, even Mother Teresa short of Christ would spend eternity in hell. I do not judge her. I did not know her nor her relationship with Jesus. And I reject that we can look at her works and know with certainty (Matt 7.21-23).
In a book I wrote several years ago defending the basics of a Calvinist perspective, I told about an elderly rabbi friend who struck me as a very godly person. He would often write to tell me that he was praying for me and my family. When he died, I said, I held out the hope that when he saw Jesus he would acknowledge that it was Him all along, and that Jesus would welcome him into the heavenly realm.
... A prominent evangelical had criticized those of us who have been in a sustained dialogue with Catholics for giving the impression that a person can be saved without having the right theology about justification by faith. My response to that: of course a person can be saved without having the right theology of justification by faith. A straightforward question: Did Mother Teresa go to hell? My guess is that she was a little confused about justification by faith alone. If you think that means she went to hell, I have only one response: shame on you.
It’s not clear whether Brian sees the afterlife as a series of chances to repent until everyone comes around or whether everyone immediately endures a fiery judgment which burns away their bad stuff and preserves whatever remains. Either way, what’s left of us is ultimately reconciled, or perhaps absorbed into God ...This error is not new. Christian Universalism has been around for a long time. The phase was popularize in the 1700's. Central beliefs setting Christian Universalism apart from mainstream Christianity is universal reconciliation (all will eventually be reconciled to God without exception, the penalty for sin is not everlasting, i.e. doctrines of everlasting damnation to hell and annihilationismare rejected) and theosis (all souls will ultimately be conformed to the image of divine perfection in Christ).
That basic scheme goes like this: God’s only attribute is love; his holiness, righteousness, and justice have to be adjusted to this central dogma. Human beings are not deserving of God’s wrath, but only of his encouragement and empowerment to improve. Jesus Christ is primarily a moral teacher, who invites us to share in his vision of creating “a kingdom of ethical righteousness” (Ritschl’s phrase, basically from Immanuel Kant). Since there is no divine justice to satisfy or wrath to propitiate, the cross cannot be represented as a vicarious substitution of “the Lamb of God” for sinners. Since there is no objective condemnation, there can be no objective justification. Since everyone is a child of God, there can be no adoption. The church is merely the community of volunteers for the kingdom-building enterprise. Heaven and hell are as subjective as sin and redemption: it all depends on what you make of your life right now. Yale’s H.Richard Niebuhr captured the essence of liberal religion in this fine description: “A God without wrath brought people without sin into a kingdom without judgment through a Christ without a cross.”
Unbelief is so deeply rooted in our hearts, and we are so inclined to it, that not without hard struggle is each one able to persuade himself of what all confess with the mouth: namely, that God is faithful.The key point here is that we want to struggle to experience what we confess, not that we relish in the doubt. We do not desire doubt, we wrestle (in a healthy way) against it.
While we teach that faith ought to be certain and assured, we cannot imagine any certainty that is not tinged with doubt, or any assurance that is not assailed by some anxiety. On the other hand, we say that believers are in perpetual conflict with their own unbelief. • Inst. III.ii.15, 17.
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Recently, there were news stories about some Christian churches offering their facilities to Muslims to hold their worship services. These churches, apparently, see it as a form of outreach and neighborliness, but I think it's very misguided to facilitate and encourage the practice of other religions. This isn't classical religious pluralism, but more like inclusivism. The message being communicated likely isn't just one of friendship, but of approval that their religion is just as valid as Christianity.
Christianity Today asked several Christian leaders "Should churches lend worship space to other religions?" I thought these two answers were most helpful in making the distinction between outreach and misguided accommodation of a false religion.
Dan Kimball, pastor of Vintage Faith Church - "Other faiths have used our church's coffeehouse for casual meetings, as that is public missional space. But we don't rent our space for formal meetings of other faiths in our sanctuary."
Ed Stetzer, president of Lifeway Research - "Christians need to be stalwart advocates for religious freedom while not succumbing to the temptation of religious pluralism. People should be free to worship according to their convictions, but it's necessary to recognize that Christianity is not the same as other religions."
"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:34-35) Love, then, is the mark of a disciple. In this passage, our Lord does not say that doctrine is the mark of a disciple, or that correctness is the mark of a disciple, or even that truth is the mark of a disciple. So love, some would say, clearly supplants concerns about correct doctrine.Then he smartly and rightly adds:
Not so fast. Why stop there? Jesus also does not say that monotheism is the mark of a disciple. He does not say that abstaining from murder, rape, or theft is the mark of a disciple. He does not say that wearing clothes or eating are marks of a disciple. He does not even say that believing in Him, in any sense, is the mark of a disciple.So perhaps Jesus said more about love or other distinguishing marks of his followers. Phillips continues ...
So what have we established? Only that Jesus didn't say what He didn't say in this passage. Which, hopefully, all are agreed upon. We had better hope He said other things, somewhere. Because if all we had were this passage, we would not even know what this passage meant! I mean, what is love? Warm feelings? Cheesy sentimentalism? Coddling? Indulging? Unconditional approval and enabling? Indifference towards damaging (or even damning) error? Treacly benevolence?
"Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and not do what I tell you?" Jesus asks (Luke 6:46). So right away, we know that Jesus expects obedience to His words to characterize His real followers. Nor do we see a hierarchy, as if one may obey some but disregard others. Jesus seems to think that He is our Lord, or He is not; and if He is, what He says should produce obedience in us.The God of the Bible does not speak of love separated from doctrine. When asked what were the two most important things, Jesus answered.
Whatever He means by "love" in John 13, then, it must be characterized and framed by obedience to His words — which, as we just saw, leads us to the rest of the New Testament, and back to the whole of the Old Testament as well.
In fact, Jesus Himself ties those ideas together, repeatedly:
"If you love me, you will keep my commandments." (John 14:15)
"Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. ... If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me" (John 14:21, 23-24)
"If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love" (John 15:10)
Jesus' concept of love walks hand in hand with His commandments, which in turn (as we've seen) point us back to the Old Testament (John 10:35) and the rest of the New (John 16:12-15) as well.
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:37-40)Clearly God does not separate love from obedience. As Phillips writes:
Love for God comes first. Then, and only then, is it followed by love of neighbor. And what, pray, is love for God? The concept is explained and given full color in the Old Testament, whence Jesus mined this gold. Let's just lift a snippet:
"You shall therefore love the LORD your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always" (Deuteronomy 11:1)
"If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, 'Let us go after other gods,' which you have not known, 'and let us serve them,' you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul" (Deuteronomy 13:1-3)
Do you see it yet again? Love for God walks hand in hand with wholehearted acceptance of the full authority of all of God's words. But what is more, plugging in Deuteronomy, it means doctrinal loyalty, it means clinging wholly to the true God — which is to say as well, to the doctrinal truth about God — in the face of all opposing doctrines. It is loyal devotion to God, as His doctrine is revealed in Scripture alone.
This standard of love calls for all of us, heart and mind and soul and strength. If that is our standard, then what hope have we? We have never put together two consecutive seconds of such pure, true, singleminded devotion of God.
That is why we must flee for refuge in that sheerly-doctrinal/historical reality, the penal substitutionary atoning death of Christ. For there and there alone do we meet fierce and undeniable love which crashes upon our lovelessness, dashes aside our objections and rebellion, and saves and converts and conquers us.
"... but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us: (Romans 5:8)
"In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10)
And only in the light of such doctrinally-communicated-and-defined love can we go on to John's next exhortation:
"Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another" (1 John 4:11)
"The people called United Methodists cannot recall who they are, if indeed most of our present members ever knew,” Hunter lamented. “They are no longer rooted in scripture or in any recognizable version of Methodism’s theological vision.”HT:TR
“Thousands of our churches are analogous to mules – which are creatures that are so genetically compromised that they are incapable of reproduction… Don’t expect much vitality, much less reproduction. There is not much vitality or reproduction anywhere the gospel is in absentia.”
Are you alive? Then see that you prove it by your actions. Be a consistent witness. Let your words, works, ways and tempers all tell the same story. Let not your life be a poor lethargic life, like that of a tortoise or a sloth—let it rather be an energetic stirring life, like that of a deer or bird. Let your graces shine forth from all the windows of your life, that those who live near you may see that the Spirit is abiding in your hearts. Let your light not be a dim, flickering, uncertain flame; let it burn steadily, like the eternal fire on the altar, and never become low. Let the savor of your religion, like Mary’s precious ointment, fill all the houses where you dwell. Be an epistle of Christ so clearly written, penned in such large bold characters—that he who runs may read it. Let your Christianity be so unmistakable, your eye so single, your heart so whole, your walk so straightforward that all who see you may have no doubt whose you are, and whom you serve.
If you are not actively investing in the lives of other believers within the Body of Christ, you will not have a full experience of joy.
Yesterday, I argued that Paul often speaks of joy in connection to relationships with other believers. My learned friend Jerry Wall pointed out in a comment that this is observed in Philemon 6 where Paul encourages Philemon, “I pray that you may be active in koinonia/invested partnerships /fellowship so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.”
Notice how John connects joy and koinonia / fellowship in 1 John 1:3-4. This is such a beautiful thought:
3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
Invest in others this week – - by serving and loving them – - and you will take a step towards more joy.
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The temptation is not new: silencing certain biblical texts in order to say that eventually everyone will be saved. In fact, we could just call it recycled liberalism.
Desiring God focused on this subject 21 years ago at the Conference for Pastors — "Universalism and the Reality of Eternal Punishment."
In his sermon that assesses the biblical and theological arguments for universalism, Sinclair Ferguson reminds us:
There is a mighty sermon in Gresham Machen’s book, God Transcendent, on the text in Matthew 10:28, “Do not fear those who can kill the body; fear Him who is able to cast soul and body into hell.” And the sermon begins by the repetition of the text and with these words: “These words were not spoken by Augustine, or by George Whitefield, or by Jonathan Edwards, but by Jesus of Nazareth."
It behooves us to listen to Jesus' testimony; both because this is the testimony of the Savior, and because this is the testimony of the One who names himself as the living and true witness—who is the One who has come back from the dead to tell men that it is so.
Ferguson's other messages from the conference include:
1) Universalism and the Reality of Eternal Punishment: Contemporary Preaching
2) Universalism and the Reality of Eternal Punishment: The Justice and Mercy of God
3) Universalism and the Reality of Eternal Punishment, Panel Discussion
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