Part 2: N. T. Wright on Pauline universalist texts
The same is true, finally, of the various Johannine passages (John 10:16, 12:32, 1 John 2:2, etc.) sometimes quoted as universalistic. In many the context indicates that the meaning is similar to Paul’s: the gospel is not for Jews only, but for Gentiles also (cf., eg., 12:32 in the context of 12:20ff.). In addition, some of the starkest of the Johannine judgment-sayings are found, as we saw earlier, right beside the richest promises of salvation for those who believe (John 3:14–17, 18–21). Again the position is quite clear: God in His great love has made one way of salvation for all men without exception. Those who refuse this way have no alternative left to them. And accepting the way of salvation, for John as for Paul, is bound up with faith in Jesus Christ.
I agree with Wright that John 10:16 isn’t universalist on its own; nor, for that matter, are John 12:32 and 1 John 2:2. They must be taken in the larger context of John’s writings. John says that God desires every person to be saved through belief in Jesus (John 1:7, 9; 17:2-3), and that he’ll persist until this is fulfilled (6:37-40, 44-45). God desires to save, and Jesus died on behalf of, the entire kosmos, “world” (John 1:29; 3:16-17; 4:42; 6:33, 51; 8:12; 12:46-47; 17:21-25; 1 John 2:2; 4:14), which always refers to the stubbornly unbelieving mass (John 1:10; 3:19; 7:7; 8:23; 9:39; 12:31; 14:17, 19, 27, 30-31; 15:18-19; 16:8-11, 20, 33; 17:6-18, 25; 18:36; 1 John 2:15-17; 3:1, 13, 17; 4:4-5; 5:4-5, 19).
Those who don’t have faith in Jesus are now under the condemnation of “darkness” and “death”; judgment isn’t merely relegated to the future (John 3:18-21, 36; 5:22-24; 12:25, 31; 1 John 2:9-11; 3:14). This isn’t hopeless, because we were once under the same judgment! (John 5:24; 12:46; 1 John 2:9; 3:14) Indeed, the purpose of God’s judgment is that all people give him and his Son honor, and all are drawn to Jesus (John 5:22-23; 12:31-32). To give an example: the Pharisees will die by their sins, but will one day recognize that Jesus is who he claimed to be (John 8:24, 28). There will be a future judgment on “the last day,” when everyone is raised (John 6:39-40, 44; 11:24), but the result of this judgment will be “life of the Age” for those who now reject Jesus (12:46-50; cf. 17:2-3).
If Revelation was written by the same John, this too shows restoration after judgment. The “rulers of the land”, who stubbornly resisted Jesus’ rule even unto death at his hands (Rev. 1:5; 6:15; 17:2; 18:3, 9; 19:19-21), are afterward seen entering New Jerusalem, where salvation is available to those outside (21:24; 22:2, 14-15). Indeed, the depiction of judgment and (eventual) restoration in John’s writings is wholly universalist. If Wright stopped assuming that any reference to God’s judgment must be hopeless, he would see this too.
Before moving on to a positive conclusion, we need a short excursus. There are some passages in the New Testament—I think particularly of Acts 10:2, 4, 27, 30–35 and (on some interpretations) Romans 2:12–16—which seem to allow for the fact that some people are saved without actually hearing and confessing the name of Jesus Christ, since in this life they had, as it were, possessed a Christ-shaped faith. They had been genuinely dissatisfied with their surrounding religion and humbly seeking to serve God in prayer and good works as best they knew how. As I have argued elsewhere, I believe that Scripture leaves this possibility open while giving us no encouragement to think that the category of people involved will be large. There are no promises of salvation for those who neither believe nor are baptized.
Perhaps surprisingly, I’m more strict than Wright on this issue. Justification (membership in the covenant community) only belongs to those with faith in Jesus the Messiah; that much is clear all throughout Paul’s writings. In Acts 10, the holy spirit only falls on Cornelius and his household after they hear and believe the word about Jesus. Romans 2:12-16 must be read in the whole context of Paul’s argument in Rom. 1-3, which is to establish the guilt of every person and the one way of salvation, faith in and of Jesus. I’m unsure what a ‘Messiah- shaped faith’ without knowledge of the Messiah, Jesus, would look like.
This might seem harsh, even arbitrary — what about people who never even heard the name of Jesus, or people who die too young to grasp the message about him? If we remove the assumption that those who die in unbelief are punished hopelessly, then this no longer seems so harsh. It’s somewhat ironic that Wright, despite his warnings against the pluralists’ rejection of one way of salvation, ends up positing another way of salvation in order to make his view of punishment seem more palatable.
I want now to conclude by pointing up another, and more biblical, ‘universalism’. This is the doctrine, which is in fact totally opposed to the usual ‘universalism’, that there is one God and one way of salvation for all, Jesus Christ. This is, of course, assumed and referred to all through the NT. Acts 4:12 (‘no other name … in which we must be saved’) is perhaps its classic expression: compare John 10:10, 14:6, Romans 10:12–13, and many other passages.
Of course, I have no quarrel with this, other than Wright’s claim that the idea of one God and one Messiah is somehow opposed to universal salvation. He can’t totally be faulted for this, since this article was written before ‘biblical universalism’ really grew in popularity. It’s a shame that he hasn’t published any updated arguments against universalism, which might better address my own beliefs.
We may trace the different biblical elements of this ‘universalism’ as follows. It begins with God’s promise to Abraham, that in him all the nations of the earth would be blessed. God has chosen to save the world through Abraham’s family, and supremely (of course) in the true seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ (see Galatians 3 and Romans 4). For Paul, the cardinal sin of the Jews was that national pride and ‘boasting’ which turned the vocation of being a light to the Gentiles into a racial privilege. This universal promise is based on the fact that God is one, as was (and is) confessed daily by the pious Jew in the ‘Shema’ (Rom. 3:29–30: cf. Deut. 6:4ff.). Thus, any suggestion that there is more than one way of salvation is not merely an attack on the uniqueness of Jesus Christ (as we see, for example, in the work of John Hick), but also contains the implication that there is more than one God.
I agree wholeheartedly.
The universal promise is fulfilled, not in Israel according to the flesh (because of her national pride and consequent failure to accept her suffering Messiah) but in her anointed representative, Jesus. In His death and resurrection He put to death ‘fleshly’ Israel and brought her to life again as a worldwide community. This is why the resurrection and the Gentile mission are so intimately connected. Over against the Jewish exclusivism attacked in Romans 2:17ff, stands the Christian assurance of Romans 5:1–11: we (the worldwide, believing, missionary church) boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the reconciliation.
Amen, and thanks be to God!
Biblical ‘universalism’, therefore, consists in this, that in Christ God has revealed the one way of salvation for all men alike, irrespective of race, sex, colour or status. This biblical ‘universalism’ (unlike the other sort) gives the strongest motives for evangelism, namely, the love of God and of men. (This itself is evidence that we are thinking biblically here.) This view specifically excludes the other sort of ‘universalism’, because scripture and experience alike tell us that many do miss the one way of salvation which God has provided. This is a sad fact, and the present writer in no ways enjoys recording it, any more than Paul in Romans 9–11 looked with pleasure on his kinsmen’s fate. Yet it cannot be ignored if we wish either to remain true to scripture or really to love our fellow men. If the house is on fire, the most loving thing to do is to raise the alarm.
‘Biblical universalism’ consists in the fact, not only that God has provided a single way of salvation for everybody, but that this salvation will ultimately be effective for all people. The motive for evangelism is that, as John says, those who separate themselves from the Light and the Life condemn themselves to darkness and death; this is a state that we should want everyone to escape as soon as possible. No threat of hopeless punishment is necessary for evangelism, despite what some non-universalists claim.
Wright brings up an interesting point with Romans 9-11, though not what he intended. At the beginning of this passage, Paul is in deep despair over his brethren’s refusal to have faith in their Messiah (9:1-5); at the end, he praises God, “to whom are all things”, for his wisdom (11:33-36), and he quotes Isaiah 40, a passage that originally dealt with the restoration of punished, rebel Israel. What could’ve caused this change of heart? Maybe he recognized that “all Israel will be saved” (Rom. 11:26)?
I frequently meet people who tell me that they are ‘universalists’ in the usual sense while in no way thinking the Bible supports their view. This position is perfectly clear: I simply disagree with its view of scripture, of God and of Christ. What is not even clear is the position of the person who maintains that universalism finds support in the Bible. It might be more comfortable if it did: but we are in this business to discover truth.
Like Wright, I strongly disagree with the basic assumptions of pluralistic universalists — that the Scriptures don’t form a coherent story, and that there’s more than one possible way of salvation. But the position of ‘biblical universalists’ is absolutely clear: God will never abandon trying to save certain people, but he’ll persist until all people are restored through the one way of salvation (Jesus the Messiah) that he’s provided. Wright may disagree with this, but he hasn’t provided any good reasons to do so; none of the passages he’s appealed to say anything about hopeless punishment, because the Bible itself says nothing about hopeless punishment! To the contrary, the eschatology of the apostles is absolutely triumphant: not that God will hopelessly destroy his enemies, thus ensuring that they never submit to him, but that he’ll persist until every enemy truly submits to him and is restored!
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