Scripture references are from the New King James Version of the Bible unless stated otherwise. Do you profess to be a Bible believing Christian? All Bible believing Christians fall into one of three categories of Christian beliefs, known as Calvinism, Arminianism and Universalism. These are the three distinct and separate schools of Christian theology. With regard to SALVATION, every professing Christian inevitably falls into one of them, whether he understands or is aware of these terms or not. So if you claim to be a Bible believing Christian, after you remove all of your denominational clothing, you are a Calvinist Christian, or an Arminian Christian or a Universalist Christian. Each belief system claims to be biblically based, and theologians have argued and debated the issues related to each of them for centuries. They have been unable to reconcile any of these groups because they are irreconcilable, and there is no middle ground between them with respect to salvation. Calvinism was the most dominant and widely held view of Protestant Christians from the time of the Reformation for hundreds of centuries up until the last century. Arminianism has now overtaken Calvinism by a long way, and currently most Christian churches are Arminian in their belief. There is sufficient historical evidence to show that Universalism was the most widely held view for the first five centuries following the death of Jesus Christ. However, this all changed when the Roman Catholic Church pronounced an anathema in 573 A.D. on anyone who believed in Universalism. Currently, Universalism is a very small minority view, perhaps no more than 2% of Bible believing Christians. There are five points in Calvinism, five points in Arminianism, and even five points in Universalism, which outline each of these belief systems. The purpose of this chapter is to highlight the core differences between these belief systems, without a detailed complicated theological analysis of each point. What is Calvinism? It is a system of theological belief promoted by a French man, John Calvin (1509-1564), and expressed in the document called Institutes of the Christian Religion. Calvinism laid the foundation for the Reformed Theology of the Reformation period. Calvinism is the basis for the doctrine of many Baptist, Presbyterian, Anglican and Reformed churches. According to Calvin, God predestined before the beginning of the world, to save a certain group of people called God's Elect. God's sovereign will for His Elect cannot be resisted or thwarted, as His irresistible grace ensures that all of them will willingly accept Jesus Christ at some point in their lives before they die. The Non-Elect cannot come to Christ because natural fallen man is totally sinful and depraved. Salvation is entirely the work of God from start to finish. All believers (the Elect) will go to heaven, but all unbelievers (the Non-Elect) will be judged and cast into the Lake of Fire (hell), where they will be tortured forever. Some Calvinist Christians believe in annihilism instead of endless torture. What is Arminianism? It is a system of theological belief promoted by a Dutch man, Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609). Arminius started out as a strict Calvinist, but later changed his views as stated in the document called, 'The Remonstrance'. Arminianism is the theological basis for Methodists, Wesleyans, Nazarenes, Pentecostals, Free Will Baptists, Holiness churches and many charismatic churches. Roman Catholicism is also basically Arminian in its belief. According to Arminius, Christ died for all people and God wills all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the Truth. However, God's will can be frustrated and thwarted by man and God's grace can be resisted by man's freewill. This is because ultimately it is left to each person to decide whether he wishes to be saved or not. Therefore, in order to go to heaven each person must choose to accept Jesus Christ before he dies. All those who die without choosing Christ will be judged and cast into the Lake of Fire (hell), where they will remain to be tortured forever. Some Arminian Christians believe in annihilism instead of endless torture. What is Biblical Universalism? Origen of Alexandria (185-254 A.D.) is the earliest Christian theologian known to have written about Universalism that eventually everyone will be saved. However, we do not believe that Origen had the full revelation of true Biblical Universal Salvation. According to the Bible, Jesus Christ died for the sins of the whole world. God wills all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the Truth. God is the Saviour of ALL people and He will save ALL people. He is working out His plan of salvation for all people in Ages, in His time and in His order. God first saves His Elect, whom He predestined from the foundation of the world, to believe in Jesus Christ during this life, before they die. They are the First Fruits who have a special salvation, and they will rise as the Bride of Christ in the First Resurrection. All people who die as unbelievers (the Non-Elect) will be resurrected in the Second Resurrection when they will be judged in the Lake of Fire, during the Great White Throne Judgement Age. This fiery yet loving judgement of God will lead to the fear of God, humbling of hearts and repentance. The Bride of Christ, who is the First Fruits, will play a vital role in helping unbelievers to repent and believe. Thus, the Bride of Christ united with Christ as His Wife will give birth to the Great Harvest of more fruits. Ultimately, everyone without exception will freely and thankfully accept and believe in Jesus Christ and be reconciled to Father God. Which God are you serving? The God of Calvinism sacrificed his son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for his Elect only, and he predestined only his Elect to be saved. This must also mean that he predestined, knowingly and willingly , to cast the vast majority of mankind (the Non-Elect) to be tortured in hell forever. This makes the God of Calvinism an evil god, infinitely and unimaginably more evil than Hitler could ever be. The God of Arminianism sacrificed his son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for all people, and he wills all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, but he has made himself helpless to save all by allowing man's freewill to override his will. Against his will, the God of Arminianism is forced to throw the majority of mankind into hell to be tortured forever because, for one reason or another, they failed to accept Jesus Christ in this life before they died. Even worse than that, the God of Arminianism knowingly and willingly created human beings, with his full foreknowledge that the vast majority of them would reject salvation and end up being tortured in hell forever. This makes the God of Arminianism both an evil god, as evil as the god of Calvinism, and a weak god who allows Satan and sinful men to override his will in salvation. The God of the Bible sacrificed His son Jesus Christ to die on the cross for all people and He wills all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. He has unlimited wisdom, power and love to save all people in His time and in His order. Therefore, ALL people will eventually freely and thankfully accept and receive the free gift of salvation in this life or the next life, and be reconciled to God through the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. This makes the God of the Bible an all-powerful, wise, merciful, loving, gracious and forgiving God. Calvinism and Arminianism are Unbiblical Beliefs Christians who hold to Calvinist and Arminian beliefs of salvation are sincere people but they are sincerely wrong. Traditional Christianity, because of its long established and entrenched belief in the doctrine of Eternal Torture in Hell, is unable to accept at face value, many clear scriptures in the Bible such as Colossians 1:15-20 and 1 Timothy 4:10, which uphold the truth of Universal Salvation. Please refer to Chapter 3 'Universal Reconciliation Scriptures' for a list and commentary on fourteen of many such scriptures. Calvinism and Arminianism give absurd reasoning in defence of their unbiblical beliefs. They argue that it is God’s justice which causes Him to throw multiple billions of people into a hell of Eternal Torture. If this were true, then it would be the strangest and cruelest type of justice one could ever imagine. What type of justice is it for an all-knowing, all-loving God who knows the end from the beginning, and foreknew that man would sin, then to create multiple billions of people in His own image, who would end up being punished by Him eternally for their sins committed in the few years of their very temporary existence in this life? Thankfully, the true God of the Bible is an absolutely just God, whose just plan will ensure that ultimately all people will be reconciled to Himself because of the loving sacrifice of Jesus Christ, whom He sent to die on the cross for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2) Calvinism and Arminianism further argue that Jesus Christ Himself preached more about hell than any other person in the Bible. What Jesus actually spoke about was gehenna, not hell. The Greek word gehenna has been mistranslated as hell in most but not all versions of the Bible. Jesus never spoke about a hell of endless torture. Our Lord and the Bible do not support the traditional Christian teaching of hell. For full details, please refer to Chapter 15 'Hell' in the Bible. Arminianism exalts man’s fallen sinful will above God’s sovereign will in salvation. It argues that God allows the majority of mankind, multiple billions of people, to reject His salvation and choose hell as God cannot violate man’s freewill. It falsely reasons that this has to be the case because God has not created us as robots, but as individuals with freewill. Arminianism fails to understand that God’s sovereign will for ALL in salvation does not make anybody a robot, but it enables the person to make the right choice. God's will liberates the person from slavery to sin, to real freedom in Christ, from being a child of Satan to being a child of God. (John 8:34-36) The problem with Arminianism is not that we humans do not have freewill, but that it exalts man’s limited freewill above God’s sovereign will. Our salvation is totally, one hundred percent, the work of God from start to finish. Nobody can come to Jesus Christ unless Father God first draws her or him to Christ, and when Father draws a person to Christ, she or he will respond and come to Christ. (John 6:37, 44) This is not a robotic response, but a thankful and grateful response, as the Holy Spirit works in the person’s heart and grants her or him repentance and the gift of faith to believe in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. God wills all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. (I Timothy 2:3-6) God is carrying out His will in His own time and order. (1 Corinthians 15: 22-23) God is the Saviour of all people, but especially of those who believe. (1 Timothy 4:10) God has a Plan to save all people. Let nobody think that God’s will in salvation for all can be frustrated or stopped by Satan or man’s freewill. Calvinism and Arminianism have not understood the fullness of God's Plan, which He is working out in biblical Ages, to ultimately save ALL people to inherit the Kingdom of God of the New Heaven and the New Earth. Conclusion Make no mistake about it, you are profoundly affected by how you understand these three belief systems. Your understanding of God's sovereignty, His love, His justice, His righteousness, His grace, His forgiveness, His character and above all the very gospel of Jesus Christ are all fundamentally governed and coloured by each belief system. People who believe that God will torture unbelievers in hell forever lack the spirit of forgiveness, which Jesus had when He prayed to the Father on the cross and asked Him to forgive His very murderers. Luke 23:34 Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do." Only people who believe in Biblical Universalism have the same spirit of forgiveness that Jesus had, as they believe that Father God will completely answer Jesus' prayer for the forgiveness of His murderers in God's time and His order. We welcome your input. Please CONTACT US if you would like to make any comments on this or any other chapter in our on-line book, 'God's Plan for All'     Copyright © 2005 All rights reserved GOD'S PLAN FOR ALL