Hey, I realize you would love it if I were to see the good news the way you do. And I know there have been more than a few over the years who can't understand why I don't (based upon the grace I have consistently preached). Know that I do love you for your desire toward me in this, for you are near my heart. :) I suspect, though, you must truly misunderstand why it is that I don't view things as you do. For though I do believe that God is summing up all things in Christ, my lack of saying it in a manner that conforms to the popular universalist position has nothing to do with trying to "sneak it in the back door". Many just assume I probably do believe it because of how I say what I do about the reality of Christ and his doing away with the old and establishing the new.

The truth is that I believe Christ has redeemed all - and will become all in all - I just can't force fit my belief to encompass the whole of what my flesh has defined as being "all". No, I don't mean shutting some out in favor of others I mean that we all keep harboring fleshly perceptions as to what is real and what is not real. And this is what we try so hard to fit together so that it all makes sense to those former perceptions. Just consider all the references to the world that is passing away by Jesus, Paul, John, Peter. There are far more comments made in that direction - even made AFTER the resurrection - than there are stating that the world is to be saved. If we're trying to find one definition and one all-encompassing answer to declare God's intent and judgment regarding "the world" we're going to have to cover over quite a bit in the process. And we're going to set ourselves up for a whole slew of obvious contradictions - that we either have to go running around making up new answers for or else ignore - because we're trying to find one simple and unifying answer to explain what it is that our eyes see and our ears hear and our minds understand. I think in too many ways we've all tried to pacify those former natural-minded perceptions we still hang onto by adopting answers that address what should simply be let go as having been done away.

Jim