Given that the doctrine of God's sovereign choice is so well documented in scripture one might wonder why it is so controversial. My position is that there are 2 primary reasons.
1) When combined with the doctrine of eternal hell, the doctrine of God's sovereign choice makes God look like a sadistic monster who created the VAST MAJORITY of mankind to be fried alive for all eternity without hope of changing that fate. (True Christianity has never been a majority religion in this world).
2) When combined with the so called Calvinist doctrine of limited atonement, it contradicts scripture:
He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2 NIV)
This, and a number of other Biblical texts, clearly point to a Jesus who died for all men without exception (All never means minority. And Christianity has never been the majority religion of mankind). Interestingly John Calvin himself never taught limited atonement.
The problem however is not the doctrine of God's sovereign choice. The problem is what it is combined with, specifically limited atonement or eternal hell. As we shall see, there is no text anywhere in scripture that unambiguously teaches eternal hell. That doctrine is entirely dependent on the arbitrary translation of words and reading what men want to see, into ambiguous metaphors and apocalyptic passages.
I am sure that the immediate reaction of most at this point is to say that obviously Hell is eternal. Look at all the Bible texts which say so. My response is that by all means one should look closely at those texts. But he must also look closely at ALL of the relevant texts including the ones that explicitly say that God's intent is to save all men without exception.
Many say that they want to believe the universalist position, that all men will ultimately be saved. If that is your sincere wish then I ask that you spend a little more time examining this issue. It can't be done in a single paragraph or 2, but with a little time I am confident I can make your wish come true without violating any principle of sound biblical interpretation. In fact my position is that the universalist position is more faithful to the principles of sound biblical interpretation then either the Arminian (free will) or Calvinist approaches.
Again looking at the arguments of the three competing views:
The Arminian (free will) camp says that the atonement of Jesus was unlimited, that He died for all men without exception thereby demonstrating His desire that all men be saved. Therefore if all men aren't saved, then some factor outside of God's desire must be operative to decide who is saved and who isn't. The only fair way for God to let that decision be made is to allow the individual to FREELY choose his destiny. In short, man is sovereign when it comes to his personal salvation. And as we have seen previously that makes mankind collectively sovereign over it's own history.
The Calvinist (predestination) position says that since God is sovereign and not all men are saved, it would be unjust for Jesus to die for the sins of those who will never be part of the elect. Therefore the atonement is limited.
The problem with both of these views is that the end of each case clearly contradicts scripture, which plainly teach that God is sovereign and the atonement is unlimited.
The universalist position holds that the atonement was indeed unlimited as the free will advocates teach, and that God sovereignly chooses who will be saved, as the Calvinists teach, therefore Hell can't be eternal. All men ultimately will be saved either from Hell completely or out of it eventually.
But Given the eternal hell texts found in the Bible we have a Bible difficulty.
The English translation of the Bible plainly teaches that:
1) The atonement is unlimited and God desires to save ALL men.
2) God is sovereign, not man, in determining who will be saved and who won't.
3) Hell is eternal.
The problem is that one of those 3 propositions HAS to be wrong. The Calvinists and Arminians spend endless hours debating between 1 and 2 confident that 3 must be true. In fact 3 is the weakest of the three propositions. Nowhere in the Greek or Hebrew Bible is there any text that says Hell is eternal.
What I am saying is that the Bible is mistranslated on this point. Now if you are like me, when someone says mistranslation, alarm bells go off. That is good and I am not asking anyone to take my word for anything.
But I would offer a simple demonstration to show that there is a translation difficulty here.
Get a concordance for the King James Version of the Bible and look up the word "Hell" in the Old Testament. It appears 31 times. Now get a concordance for a more modern translation such as the NIV and look up the word "Hell" in the Old Testament. The word doesn't appear at all in the Old Testament! The problem is that the underlying Hebrew word "sheol" literally means "grave" and is translated consistently that way in the more modern popular translations. In short the Hebrew word "sheol" is ambiguous. It might mean hell and it might mean grave. It's a matter of opinion as to which it means.
The same is true for the Hebrew word "owlam" which is sometimes translated as eternity but can also mean a long time, but not eternal. Here are 2 translations of Lev 16:34 first from the King James Version and secondly from the New International Version with the word translated from owlam in [[ ]].
Here is the KJV:
And this shall be an [[everlasting]] statute unto you, to make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year. And he did as the LORD commanded Moses. (KJV)
Here is the NIV:
This is to be a [[lasting]] ordinance for you: Atonement is to be made once a year for all the sins of the Israelites." And it was done, as the LORD commanded Moses. (NIV)
Why the change from everlasting to lasting? The book of Hebrews tells us that the sacrifice of Jesus made the ordinances of the old temple obsolete. They were lasting ordinances, a type of the finished work of the Lord, but only a type. The ordinances were not really everlasting. They did pass away. The ordinances were lasting but not everlasting. In this case the NIV is the more theologically correct translation.
The general point is this; the underlying Greek and Hebrew words that get translated as Eternal and Hell are ambiguous. The translators are forced to rely on their opinions and theological biases to come up with an English translation. When you read the term "eternal hell" in your English Bible you are reading an opinion of translators, not a perfect rendering of the Hebrew language into English. The same problem exists with the Greek language where there is ambiguity in the words translated as "eternal" and "hell."
That this is true can be seen most clearly in a consistent literal translation of the Bible such as the Young's Literal Translation (the YLT.) The YLT is a public domain document. It was done by Robert Young who is probably most famous for the concordance that goes by his name. The YLT is often available as part of computer bible packages. Don't take my word for it. Get a copy of the YLT and see for yourself. I sincerely mean that. Don't rely on the opinions of men. Verify all things for yourself.
As a digression here, everybody with a computer should have a computer Bible package. They allow one to compare translations and do word studies in the original languages almost instantaneously. There are many such packages available, some free or almost free. If you don't have one and want to try out a free package check out the Online Bible Site.
This much is clear from even a simple comparison of the KJV and the NIV. The words for eternal and hell are ambiguous. The Greek and Hebrew texts from which the Bible is translated nowhere explicitly teach the doctrine of Eternal Hell.
So why should we question the translators opinions on eternal hell? The fact is that something has to give. One of the following doctrines is wrong: unlimited atonement, God's sovereign choice, or eternal hell.
It is an objective fact that a Bible difficulty exists here. Something has to give. In a later sections we will explore why the doctrine of "eternal hell" is the weakest doctrine of the three alternatives and examine a rational, biblically based, alternative to that doctrine.
But next we need to consider the positive case for the salvation of all men. That case is presented in the next section.
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