There are several passages of Scripture which those who believe that
all men will ultimately repent and be brought to accept Christ and thus
saved, urge against what seems to be the plain teaching of the passages
we have been studying.
1. The first of these is 1 Peter 3:18-20: +"Because Christ also
suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he
might bring us to God; being put to death in the flesh, but made alive
in the spirit; in which also he went and preached unto the spirits in
prison, that aforetime were disobedient, when the longsuffering of God
waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few,
that is, eight souls, were saved through water."+ It is urged that
as Christ went and preached to the spirits in prison there will be
another chance after men have died. But this the passage in question
does not assert or imply in any way.
(1) First of all there is no proof that "the spirits in prison" refers
to the departed spirits of men who once lived here on earth. In the
Bible departed spirits of men are not spoken of in this way. These
words are used of other spirits, but not of human spirits disembodied,
and there is every reason for supposing that these "spirits in prison"
were not the sinful men that were on earth when the ark was preparing,
but the angels who sinned at that time, just as we are told in Gen.
6:1, 2 that they did sin (cf. Jude 6, 7).
(2) Furthermore, even if "the spirits in prison" here spoken of were
the spirits of men who were disobedient in the time of Noah, there is
not a hint in the passage that they were saved through the preaching of
Christ to them, or that they had another chance. There are two words
commonly used in the New Testament for preaching, one is _kerusso_
and the other is _euaggelizo_. The first of these means _to herald_,
as to herald a king, or to herald the kingdom. It may, however, be
used of preaching a message, the gospel message or some other message.
The second word _euaggelizo_, means to preach _the gospel_. In the
passage that we are studying it is the first word that is used, and
there is not a hint that Christ preached _the gospel_ to these spirits
in prison. He simply heralded the triumph of the kingdom. It was not
a saving message. So there is nothing in this passage to put up even
inferentially against the plain, direct statements regarding the
destiny of the wicked found in the passages we have been studying.
2. The second passage that is appealed to by those who deny the
endlessness of future punishment is Phil. 2:9-11: +"Wherefore also
God highly exalted Him, and gave unto Him the name which is above
every name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things
in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and that
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory
of God the Father."+ Here it is said, we are told, that all those
"under the earth" as well as in heaven and on earth should bow the
knee in the name of Jesus and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and
that this implies that they are saved. But it does not imply that they
are saved. Every knee of lost men and of the devil and his angels too
will be forced some day to bow in the name of Jesus and every tongue
forced to confess that He is Lord. If any one does that in the present
life of his own free choice, he will be saved, but otherwise he will
do it by compulsion in the age to come and every one has his choice
between doing it now willingly and gladly and being saved, or doing it
by compulsion hereafter and being lost. There is absolutely nothing
in this passage to teach universal salvation or to militate even
inferentially against the plain statements we have been studying.
3. The third passage that is appealed to is Acts 3:19-21: +"Repent
ye therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that
so there may come seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord;
and that He may send the Christ who hath been appointed for you, even
Jesus: Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restoration of
all things whereof God spake by the mouth of His holy prophets that
have been from of old."+ Here we are told of a coming "restoration
_of all things_" and those who contend for the doctrine of universal
salvation hold that this means the restoration to righteousness of all
persons. But that is not what it says, and that is not what it refers
to. We are taught in Old Testament prophecy and also in the book of
Romans, that in connection with the return of our Lord Jesus there is
to be a _restoration of all nature_, of the whole physical universe,
from its fallen state. For example, in Rom. 8:19-21 we read: +"For
the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of
the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of
its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope that the
creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption
into the liberty of the glory of the children of God."+ And in Isa.
55:13 we read: +"Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree;
and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle-tree: and it shall
be to Jehovah for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be
cut off."+ And in Isa. 65:25 we are told: +"The wolf and the lamb
shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and dust
shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my
holy mountain, saith Jehovah,"+ and in Isa. 32:15, we are told that
+"until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness
become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be esteemed as a
forest."+ It is to this restoration of the physical universe, here
plainly predicted in Rom. 8:19-21 and these Old Testament prophecies,
that the "restoration of all things" spoken of in Acts 3:21 refers.
There is not a hint, not the slightest suggestion, of a restoration of
impenitent sinners.
4. Still another passage that is urged is Eph. 1:9, 10, where we read:
+"Having made known unto us the mystery of His will according to
His good pleasure which He purposed in Him unto a dispensation of
the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things
in the heavens, and the things upon the earth."+ Here it is urged
that things in heaven and things in earth are to be summed up in
Christ. This is true, but it should be noticed that the Holy Spirit
has specifically omitted here the phrase that is found in Phil. 2:10,
the "_things under the earth_," that is the abode of the lost, so this
passage, so far from suggesting that the lost ones in hell will be
restored, suggests exactly the opposite thing. There is then certainly
nothing in this passage to militate even inferentially against the
plain statements we have been studying.
5. One more passage that is urged against the doctrine we have been
studying remains to be considered, that is 1 Cor. 15:22. Here we read,
+"For as in Adam all died, so also in Christ shall all be made
alive."+ It is urged in connection with this passage that we are
distinctly told here that all who die in Adam, that is every human
being, shall be made alive in Christ, and that "made alive" means
"obtain eternal life," or "be saved." For years I thought that this
was the true interpretation of this passage, and for that reason in
part, I held and preached at that time that all men ultimately, some
time, somewhere, somehow, would be brought to accept Jesus Christ and
be saved; but when I came to study the passage more carefully I saw
that this was a misinterpretation of the passage. Every passage in
the Bible, or in any other book, must be interpreted in its context.
The whole subject that Paul is talking about in this chapter is not
eternal life, not the immortality of the soul, but _the resurrection of
the body_, and all this passage declares is that as all lose physical
life in Adam, so also all will obtain a resurrection of the body in
Christ. Whether that resurrection of the body is a resurrection to
everlasting life or a resurrection to shame and everlasting contempt
(Dan. 12:2) depends entirely upon what men do with the Christ in whom
they get it. There is absolutely nothing here to teach universal
salvation. It only teaches a universal resurrection, resurrection of
the wicked as well as of the righteous.
To sum up the teaching of all these passages that are so often urged to
prove universal salvation, there is nothing in any one of the passages,
nor in all of them together, to teach that all men will ultimately be
saved, and there is nothing in them to in any way conflict with what
we have seen to be the honest meaning of the passages studied above,
namely, that the future punishment of sin is absolutely endless. There
is not a passage to be found in the Bible that teaches universal
salvation, or that all men will ultimately come to repentance and be
saved. I wish that there were, but there is not. I have been searching
diligently for such a passage for nearly forty years and I have not
found it, and it cannot be found.