by George Sidney Hurd
“For we are not as many, adulterating the word of God: but with sincerity: but as from God, before God, in Christ we speak.”
(2Corinthians 2:17 DRB)
The following is an excerpt from the book, The Triumph of Mercy.
Since I came to understand the glorious gospel of universal reconciliation, I have struggled to find an apt title to describe it. The Early Church Fathers referred to it as the Apocatastasis (ἀποκατάστασις ), taken from Acts 3:21. I thought that “full gospel” would have been a good term if it were not for the fact that that expression has already acquired its own unique connotations. The term “full gospel” was coined upon rediscovering the reality that the gospel not only includes our salvation from sin but also physical healing – a reversal of the consequences of sin in our physical bodies. The redemptive work on the cross not only made it possible for God to be just and at the same time show mercy, justifying the ungodly (Rom 3:25-26). It also made it possible for a just and holy God to reverse His own declared consequences for Adam’s sin - healing the sick and even raising the dead. God cannot be just and at the same time simply overlook sin or arbitrarily reverse the curse of death in consequence of sin. Only His redemptive work on the cross made it possible for Him to be just and at the same time show mercy towards the unjust and the guilty.
All forgiveness on the part of God towards men and all divine healing against the declared curse of death - both under the Old and New Testament, are only possible because of the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ on the cross. God was only able to be merciful and at the same time just, healing the children of Israel in the desert and foregoing pronounced judgment, in light of the cross.
The healing revival and the rediscovered truth of the “full gospel” of divine healing, enabled many to begin to appropriate by faith - not only forgiveness of sin, but also physical healing. Prior to that time many suffered physical infirmities unnecessarily, not knowing that the gospel was also inclusive of physical healing. The discovery that divine healing could be appropriated by faith in the same way as spiritual salvation (by grace through faith), added a whole new dimension to the gospel which had been lost since the Church entered into the Dark Ages.
For some time, I was frustrated because I now knew that the “full gospel” was really much more “full” than what many in the healing revival were able to comprehend. I wanted to be able to use the term “full gospel” to refer to universal salvation, but I knew I couldn’t because the expression was already limited by its association with the healing gospel.
Then, one day while I was pondering this, I felt that the Lord unveiled to me an even more apt expression: “The Unadulterated Gospel” or “The Pure Gospel.” From the very beginnings of the Church, the first and foremost focus of Satan has been to dilute and veil the glory of the gospel so that mankind cannot discover and experience it’s saving, transforming power:
“But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.” (2Cor 4:3-4)
In the cross, we discover the wisdom of God and the power of God unto salvation. The wise of this age regard it as foolishness; the strong see it as unnecessary; the legalists have leavened it with the works of the flesh; entrepreneurs have exploited it for personal gain; libertines have adapted it to their licentious lifestyles. It has been diluted, banned, mocked, modified, reduced to an image, used as an ornament and trampled upon. But it still continues to be the wisdom of God and the power of God to all who see and embrace it in all its purity.
The pure gospel has always been under assault since the day that the Great Commission was commended to the Church. Much space in the New Testament epistles is dedicated to the defense of the gospel in its purity. Paul declared to the Galatians:
“I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, 7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.” (Gal 1:6-9)
Paul’s missionary journeys to the Gentiles were usually followed up by a group of Judaizers. The Judaizers were Jews who professed faith in Jesus the Messiah but, at the same time, insisted upon following in the law and the tradition of the Pharisees. Jesus warned his disciples against the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees, referring to the doctrine of the Pharisees and the doctrine of the Sadducees (Matt 16:6,12). Both the exclusivism and legalism of the Pharisees, as well as the unbelief and rationalism of the Sadducees, continue adulterating the gospel and denying its power to save, until this very day.
Paul, in Galatians 1:8,9, pronounced a double curse upon anyone who preaches another gospel. He says that if anyone preaches another gospel other than the pure gospel of justification by grace through faith, apart from works of the law which he preached, then it wasn’t the gospel at all. There is no other gospel or “good news” other than the glorious good news of a universal reconciliation, which will eventually be received by all, by grace through faith in the blood of His cross.
The elitist doctrine of the Judaizers, who followed in the tradition of the Pharisees, taught salvation by faith in Jesus plus the works of the law, rather than justification by grace through faith apart from works. Paul taught that Christ is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe, and he proclaimed the ultimate reconciliation of all through Christ (1Tim 4:10; Col 1:20). The Pharisees, on the other hand, taught that the final destiny of all mankind, except for the best of the best and the strongest of the strong, is eternal torment in a never-ending lake of fire. Paul emphasizes that that is not the gospel; no matter what they may call it.
The Leaven of the Pharisees - The Good News, Bad News Gospel
Sadly, some variation of the “good news, bad news gospel” of the Judaizers, is what many still proclaim even to this day. But Paul said it isn’t really good news at all, but rather “bad news” being passed off as the gospel. Many missionaries have been unsuccessful in selling their “good news, bad news gospel” to the unreached and for good reason. Let me illustrate. Imagine a missionary’s first encounter with a member of a remote tribe in the heart of the jungle who has never heard of Jesus. Traditional missionaries usually start out essentially in the following manner:
Missionary: “I have good news for you but first I must tell you the bad news. The bad news is that you are a sinner and are headed for hell.”
The tribesman interrupts: “What is hell?”
Missionary: “Hell is a place of never-ending fiery torment.” “Everyone who does not believe the good news before dying will spend eternity burning in hell.”
The tribesman: “Now that is bad news! A foreigner visited our village a couple of months back and many of us fell sick from a virus he brought with him. I lost my dear wife and two children. Does that mean that they are now burning in this fiery hell and that they will be there forever and ever?”
Missionary: “I hate to be the one to have to break the bad news to you but, yes. Unless one believes the good news before dying, they will spend eternity in hell.”
The tribesman: “Then pray tell, what is the good news?”
Missionary: “The good news is that God loves you so much that He sent His Son so that you may have eternal life.”
Tribesman: “That is a whole lot to take in all at once. Let me think about it. Tomorrow, I will let you know what I have decided.”
Missionary: “Now is the day of decision. If you wait until tomorrow, you could die in your sleep. Then God’s eternal wrath will be poured out upon you, together with your wife and two children. You need to believe the good news today because there may never be a tomorrow.”
Although most traditional Christians would be a little more tactful in their presentation of the “good news, bad news gospel,” and although there are various differing versions of this “good news, bad news gospel,” they always fall far short of the pure undiluted gospel of the ultimate salvation of all through the redemptive work of the cross. Another version often presented is as follows:
Missionary: “I have good news for you but first I must tell you the bad news. The bad news is that you are a sinner and are headed for hell”
The tribesman interrupts: “What is hell?”
Missionary: “Hell is a place of never-ending fiery torment.” “You must believe the good news before dying or you will spend eternity burning in hell.”
The tribesman: “Now that is bad news! A foreigner visited our village a couple of months back and many of us fell sick from a virus he brought with him. I lost my dear wife and two children. Does that mean that they are now burning in this fiery hell and that they will be there forever and ever?”
Missionary: “I believe that they will be in heaven, since they didn’t have an opportunity to hear the good news before dying. But now you have heard the gospel, so there will be no second opportunity for you.”
The tribesman: “You mean to tell me that all who died in our village without hearing the good news will go to heaven, but that from now on all of us must believe the good news before we die or we will go to an eternal hell?”
Missionary: “That’s it exactly.”
Tribesman: “Then, why in heaven’s name did you come here in the first place? I, for my part, will believe so I don’t go to this hell, but I don’t know what decision the rest of my tribe will make. We would have all gone to heaven if you just hadn’t come here. Now many of us will probably go to this never-ending hell!”
So, we see that no matter what form one chooses to present the “good news, bad news gospel,” it always ends up being bad news for the great majority. That is why Paul said that any other gospel, other than the pure unadulterated gospel which he preached, is not really another gospel at all. It is simply “bad news” covered in a “good news” wrapping. The unadulterated gospel of Jesus Christ is good tidings of great joy which will be to all people (Luke 2:10). Anything less is another gospel which Paul says is really not a gospel at all. A missionary who is an ambassador of reconciliation to all of God’s creation has the privilege of proclaiming an unadulterated gospel. It would be in somewhat the following manner:
Missionary: “I have good news for you. We were all created in the image of God to enjoy communion with Him. Our first parents disobeyed God and all of us since that time have lived in disobedience to Him – all of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God and His good purposes for our lives. God’s kingdom is a kingdom of love, light and truth. When man does not walk with God who is light, we become lost in darkness, separated from our Creator. We have all erred from the truth in this way, falling into hatred, envy and strife. Separated from our God, we have brought upon ourselves suffering and death. Separated from our Father God, we live as spiritual orphans. In our emptiness man has become enslaved to many self-destructive vices.
(Note that this is not part of the gospel. It is simply a description of the plight of mankind apart from God, in the far country.)
“But the good news is that God did not leave us in our lost condition. In the fullness of time God sent His Son to live as one of us. In contrast with our first father, Adam, who disobeyed God, He lived a life of perfect obedience to the Father but offered himself up to die in our place, taking the guilt for all our disobedience. On the third day after His crucifiction God raised Him up from the dead. His resurrection demonstrated that the sacrifice of His innocent blood for us as our substitute was sufficient to satisfy the justice of God for all our sinful, disobedient acts put together. Even as in our first parent, Adam, all of us stood guilty and condemned before the Most Holy God; now in the Last Adam - Christ, all are justified through faith in Him, being born-again into the New Creation which God began in Him.
“God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reconciled all of fallen sinful creation to Himself through the blood of His cross and He entreats you through us to now become reconciled to Him in your hearts. Even as in our father, Adam, all of us die, in the last Adam, Christ Jesus, all will be made alive, but each in his own order. Now is the best time to bow the knee to Him in loving surrender. Christ is the Savior of all but especially of those who believe now.
“Receive Christ as your Savior now and let Him come into your life and transform you, making you into a new creation, of which He is the prototype. God’s kingdom is a kingdom of pure light, love and righteousness. Without the holiness that comes from walking in union with Christ no one will be able to enter into His kingdom or even bear to look upon Him in all His glorious splendor.
“Surrender your life to Him now so that He may transform you into His own image in this life. Then when He comes for you, you will be found to be like Him. If you are found in Him when He comes for you, you will be taken into His very presence and you will become one with Him as a wife becomes one with her husband. If you are not found in Him when He comes for you – if you haven’t yet died out to your old way of living as a child of Adam, then you will have to be set aside for judgment and submitted to fiery afflictions, being hurt by the second death which you were unwilling to undergo in this life. Receive Him into your life now, allowing Him to transform you into His image so that it will not be necessary for God to separate you for judgment and fiery correction in that day, while the sons of the kingdom are rejoicing in the presence of the Lord.
The tribesman: “Now I understand that all our suffering is because we have turned, every one of us, to our own way. Now I repent and receive Christ into my heart that He may transform me into a new person. I want to abide in Him so that when He comes for me, I will look just like Him and will not be ashamed in His presence.”
The truth of the pure unadulterated, everlasting gospel is the grace of God leading us to repentance and a vital faith in Christ. It is not bad news wrapped in good news wrappings. It is universal in its scope, being good tidings of great joy for all people (Lu 2:10). It declares without apology that ultimately all in heaven, on earth and under the earth will confess Jesus as Lord and bow their knee in humble, willful submission. This is the gospel that we must defend and proclaim.
The Leaven of the Sadducees
As we have seen, the leaven of the Pharisees converts the good news into bad news. Jesus accused the scribes and Pharisees of making the kingdom of heaven unattainable for those who desired to enter in, and without realizing it they excluded themselves as well (Matt 23:13). The Judaizers bad news gospel tried to combine two incompatible elements: grace and works, making any assurance of salvation impossible (Rom 11:6). Combining this bad news gospel with the doctrine of eternal torments, they only managed to leave their proselytes feeling more hopeless than ever, going back into the world two times worse than before receiving their leaven (Matt 23:15).
While the leaven of the Pharisees converted the gospel into bad news by adding works to grace and by adding the word eternal to punishment, the leaven of the Sadducees manifests in the form of unbelief concerning the essential elements of the gospel, rendering it powerless to save.
This form of leaven has sought to undermine the substance and foundation of the pure gospel of Jesus Christ. This began to rise in the earliest forms of Gnosticism which denied that Jesus was the Christ. They maintained that the “Christ Spirit” simply came upon the man Jesus at His baptism and ascended before he died. In other words, they denied that Jesus was Himself the Christ; the Son of God born of a virgin. According to these Gnostics, when Jesus died on the cross it was only the perfect man Jesus, and not the God-man, Jesus Christ, who gave His life for mankind.
The implications of this doctrine should be obvious: One perfect man can only act as substitute for one other individual, at best. If He had not been God, in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself on the cross, then His blood shed as a propitiatory sacrifice could not have been of sufficient worth to expiate for our sins, not to mention the sins of the whole world (cf. 1Jn 2:2). That is why John so sternly warns: “Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son” (1Jn 2:22-23). This is why Paul adamantly warns against any argument that would in any way undermine the full divinity of Jesus Christ:
“Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; 10 and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.” (Col 2:8-10)
If Jesus Christ was merely a man and not the God-man, in whom dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, then those who have placed their hope of salvation in Him alone are of all the most to be pitied. We are yet in our sins because the substitutionary sacrifice of a mere man – however perfect, would not have been of sufficient worth to save all of mankind.
The leaven of the Sadducees laces the pure gospel with rationalistic humanism which manifests a condescending distain for those who hold fast to the biblical teaching of the substitutionary, propitiatory value of Christ’s death on the cross. They would reduce His life and even His death to nothing more than an example for us to follow. However, the entire Old Testament sacrificial system was designed to foreshadow His expiatory sacrifice of Himself as our substitute on the Cross. Christ’s substitutionary death through His blood, shed in the place of ours, is a recurring theme throughout the entirety of the Scriptures. The following are just a few key examples:
“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” (Isa 53:6)
“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2Cor 5:21)
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” (Rom 3:23-26)
“Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” (Heb 2:17)
“And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.” (1Jn 2:2)
“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1Jn 4:10)
In spite of these passages and many more like them, they insist that justice does not permit any individual to pay the debt of another. They insist that each must pay his own debt. Nevertheless, we see that God made provision in the law, giving one the right to pay the redemptive price for another’s freedom from slavery. The only stipulation was that the redeemer must be one of his brothers:
“Now if a sojourner or stranger close to you becomes rich, and one of your brethren who dwells by him becomes poor, and sells himself to the stranger or sojourner close to you, or to a member of the stranger's family, 48 after he is sold he may be redeemed again. One of his brothers may redeem him.” (Lev 25:47-48)
According to the law of God, if one were to become a slave, then a brother or kinsman of the slave had the right to redeem him (buy his freedom). That is why it was necessary for Jesus Christ to be made in all things like His brethren. Only in this manner could God the Son qualify as our kinsman Redeemer or “Brother Redeemer.” The entirety of Adam’s race has been slaves to the foreigner; Satan. The Son of God had to take the form of human flesh, similar to ours, in order to qualify as our Brother Redeemer. God, having foreseen the redemptive work of Christ on the cross, established the law of the “kinsman redeemer” to be a shadow of our Great Kinsman Redeemer Jesus Christ, who would become like unto His brethren and redeem us with His own blood. Peter warns us of those who would deny the redemptive value of the sacrifice of Christ’s blood for us:
“But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.” (2 Peter 2:1)
Many Universalists, (as well as Traditionalists, who still believe in eternal punishment or conditional mortality), preach a false humanistic gospel, having been contaminated with the leaven of the Sadducees. They deny that the only way to God is through the substitutionary death and resurrection of Jesus Christ the Son of God. Many of them even deny the divinity of Jesus Christ as the Son of God.
I must emphasize that not all who have broken with tradition in favor of Universalism are biblical Universalists who would insist that the only way to God is through faith in the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Universalism is just as appealing to the modern Libertines today who use the grace of God as a cloak for their immoral lifestyles, as it was in the days of the apostles (Rom 3:8; 6:15). Jude says:
“For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Jude 4)
The apostles, however, did not modify the pure gospel of the grace of God in order to protect it against being misused by those who would abuse it. Because of their insistence upon the pure unadulterated gospel of grace they were falsely accused by the Pharisaic Judaizers:
“And why not say, ‘Let us do evil that good may come’? — as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say. Their condemnation is just.” (Rom 3:8)
The fact that some would pervert the gospel of universal reconciliation, diluting it to fulfill their own selfish ends, does not justify us restricting it or amending it. When I began to discover the biblical doctrine of universal reconciliation, I read everything I could find on the subject – both for it and against it. Nevertheless, those that I could recommend, which were entirely faithful to the Scriptures, I could count on my fingers.
Unbiblical forms of Universalism abound. Many today espouse a syncretistic version of Universalism which is inclusive of all religions. Beginning with Modernism in the 19th Century with its Liberal theology, the leaven of the Sadducees has now shifted into high-gear, morphing into Post-Modernism and Progressivism. Many within today’s Emerging Church Movement have drifted from the Faith once and for all delivered to the saints to a subjective relativism (Jude 4). Anyone making a claim to absolute truths based upon biblical doctrine is now considered by many as being arrogant and small-minded. There is a rapid departure from faith in the objective Word of God to a relativism conducive to a syncretistic conglomerate One-World Church, now being referred to by other more palatable names, such as the “Emergent Church.” The brand of Universalism presented by some within that movement is inclusive of all faiths and is overtly antagonistic to the pure unadulterated gospel. They like to selectively quote some of the sayings of Jesus but not such declarations as, “It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by EVERY word that proceeds from the mouth of God,” or “I am THE way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (Matt 4:4, Jn 14:6).
It is my conviction that we must return the pure, unadulterated gospel of the reconciliation of all through the blood of the cross of Jesus Christ. The Church Fathers in the times of Augustine adulterated the gospel, amending it to include the Pharisee’s doctrine of eternal punishment in order to protect it from being taken lightly by the unregenerate who were joining the ranks of the Church. That only introduced the Church into the Dark Ages, during which time the glorious gospel was replaced with the “good news, bad news gospel.” We, more than any other generation. must insist upon the pure gospel preached by the Apostles and the early Church. We must take to heart the words of Paul:
“But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.” (Gal 1:8-9)
