Is God in earnest in telling us that He reconciles the world?
Does lie mean what He says, or does He only mean that He will try to reconcile. it, but will be baffled? This question often rises unbidden, as we read these statements of the Bible, and compare them with the popular creed, which turns “all” into “some, when salvation is promised to “all, ” and turns the “world,” when that is said to be saved, into a larger or smaller fraction of men.
The relevance of texts like this lies in the fact that they show the true meaning of God’s election, and are links in that great chain of promise of universal restoration – which S. PETER assures us God spoke by the mouth of all His holy prophets, and which he declares to mean the restitution of all things.
“THAT HE MIGHT GATHER TOGETHER IN ONE ALL THINGS (ta panta) IN CHRIST, BOTH WHICH ARE IN HEAVEN AND WHICH ARE ON EARTH.” Eph. i. 10.
The universe in all its extent – the sum total of all existence – is to be brought back to Christ as Head, in unity. loans in Lipscomb Such seems the view of the Apostle. It is the same process as the reconciliation of all things – Col i. 15-20- and the subjection of all things to Christ -1 Cor. xv. 27-28 – the homage and praise of all things rendered to Christ.- Phil. ii. 10-11. But if the universe and its contents are summed up in Christ, where is any possibility of an endless hell, or of a creation permanently divided? xiii. 9, as the law is summed up in one commandment, so is the universe to be summed up in Christ one day.
The original verb here is the same as that used of the subjection of Christ to the Father. – 1 Cor. xv. 28, and Phil. iii. 21. See note there.
That is fellow heirs with the Jews. But the promise to the Jews was that all Israel should be saved (see note Rom. xi. 26.), and because Jew and Gentile are made one Eph. ii. 14, – therefore all Gentiles seem to be included in the promise to all Israel. – Rom. xi. 26.
But if Christ is to fill all things – the universe – how can evil subsist eternally? This cannot be eluded by asking whether Christ, as God, has not always filled all things; for, to the Apostle, there is some further and special sense in which Christ is to fill all things (by the expulsion of evil), as a consequence of His completed work. Read More