Simmons' Response to Simmons
Is Universalism a Logical
Corollary of Full Preterism?
In a recent article posted on
Preterism-Eschatology Brian Simmons tells the
story of his journey from partial Preterist, to full Preterist, to
Universalist. The thrust of Brian’s article is that Universalism is a necessary
and logical implication of full Preterism. I feel this is error, and therefore
respond. It is not full Preterism that leads to
Universalism, but a lack of sufficient grounding in basic Bible instruction
regarding issues of sin and salvation (soteriology)
that lead to belief in this pernicious doctrine.
Wrong Premises lead to Wrong Conclusions
At the
outset, it should be noted that Brian has been a full
Preterist for less than two years. It was not until the summer of 2005 that he
began his inquiry into full Preterism, and not until November of that year that he embraced fulfilled eschatology. This is more
than passing significant, because it shows that Brian does not bring the voice
of experience or maturity to his conclusions, but those of a mere neophyte. His
is not the voice of one who has wrestled with these issues over long years only
to surrender at last, but someone who, in the space of little more than a year,
rashly followed his own mistaken premises to wrong conclusions. I have been a
full Preterist for over 27 years, and have never become a Universalist, and
never will. It is difficult to imagine anything more biblically indefensible
than the irresponsible notion of “universal salvation.” On the other hand,
there are few things more biblically sound or easily defended than full
Preterism. Far from one leading logically to the other, they are like water and
oil that will not mix. It is only by perversion of the gospel and Preterism that
one can fall into Universalism. Whatever led Brian to Universalism was not the
full Preterism embraced tens of thousands of sound and faithful believers, but
errors peculiar to Brian and those sharing his views. If there is anything we
can learn from Brian’s example, it is that one should be well
grounded in first principles before embarking upon a study of “last
things.” Brian was not well grounded and therefore wandered into error.
Mistaken Premise No. 1: Reversal of
“Original Sin”
Brian
indicates that approximately one year after embracing full Preterism, he became
aware of certain logical conclusions he felt flowed out of J. Stuart Russell’s
Parousia. Says Brian: “As I traced Russell's system to
its obvious conclusions, I began to feel that he was correct. Yet the full
doctrinal implications of his teaching had yet to dawn on me. It would take
almost a year before I realized one major truth: If death was destroyed in
A.D. 70, why would anyone be under condemnation today?”
There is a
logical fallacy here: Brian assumes that the “death” destroyed at the eschaton was juridical death, which he believes was imputed
to all mankind based upon Adam’s transgression. That
this is Brian’s meaning is clear from what he says
later: “In time, however, the same questions kept recurring. If death was abolished, it could only have been abolished in a
universal sense. This would release all men from the condemnation of Adam's
transgression, thus imputing righteousness to all.” (Emphasis added.)
Thus,
Brian believes in universal, imputed condemnation, including apparently
infants (if it is not imputed at birth, when is it?), based upon Adam’s
transgression. This is nothing but the Catholic doctrine of “original sin,”
carried over into some Protestant churches by early reformers, but by no means
unanimously embraced among Christians. Indeed, it is probably a minority
position among evangelical churches.
The
doctrine of original sin is based on Paul’s statement
in Romans 5:19 that “by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners.”
However, this passage can be interpreted several ways.
The Catholic interpretation is that God imposes legal condemnation to all mankind based upon the transgression of Adam, requiring
even infants to be baptized to be saved. The Catholic church
recently softened this view, and now allows the possibility that unbaptized infants may escape damnation. But
the basic teaching remains that God condemns mankind vicariously in Adam. How
this squares with the notion of a just God I will leave those embracing that
view to work out for themselves. I personally find it
irreconcilable with the Bible and the justice I see exercised by God
throughout. This leads to the second way of interpreting the
passage, and the one that I would urge is correct; that is, that mankind was
made the heir of Adam’s fallen condition, not his legal condemnation; that
mankind inherited Adam’s fallenness, but that no man
is condemned before God based upon that fallenness
until he personally acts upon it, having attained to an age of accountability.
Sin
implies moral culpability and this, in turn, implies possession of moral
faculties beyond those of infants and small children. It also means that legal
blame is not transferred or imputed from one man to another,
but that every man is answerable only for his own sins. Ezekiel clearly
establishes this point for all that will objectively consider the prophet’s
words: “The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son
shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither
shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the
righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon
him.” (Ezek. 18:20) This passage expresses God’s system of equity and justice
and his decree that one man shall not be visited with
the sins of another. We do not speak here of the unavoidable consequences of
the child growing up in the home an alcoholic parent, or similar situation, for
in this case the sins of the fathers are plainly and unavoidably visited upon
the children. But this is due to the nature of things,
and not to the specific judgment of God. (Incidentally, this is why all mankind suffers from Adam’s fall, without the imputation
of his guilt; viz., because we inherit his fallen nature as the offspring of
his loins.) Rather, we speak to the established principles upon which God
exercises his office as judge of the world, and either saves or condemns
individual men. God’s righteous judgment is the model for man’s righteous
judgment; as men expect justice by earthly sovereigns
in government, so they expect justice in God. Appeal to “sovereignty” is not a
license to arbitrary and unjust judgment in God any more than it is men. The
notion that God condemns the whole race based upon Adam’s transgression cannot
be reconciled with a just and righteous God.
Issues of
man’s free moral agency enter into the equation. Luther denied free will in
man: “Free will is really a fiction and a label without reality, because it is
in no man’s power to plan any evil or good…Everything takes place by absolute
necessity.” In another place, Luther said that “free
will is a downright lie.” However, as Erasmus ably pointed out, “Wherever there
is pure and perpetual necessity, there can be neither guilt nor virtue.” “’I
have set before you life and death. Choose the good and follow me.’ Could it be stated any more plainly? God shows what is good
and what is evil. He offers as recompense death or life. He relinquishes to man the freedom of choice. It would be ridiculous to command
one to make a choice, if he were incapable of turning in either direction.” It
is probably an easier step logically for those that deny free will and embrace
doctrines like “predestination” and the “impossibility of apostasy” to make the
transition into the error of Universalism than for those that deny them, for
they take responsibility away from man and assign everything to the will of
God. “Did God condemn all men based upon the act of a single man? What of it? God now justifies all men based upon the
sacrifice of Christ.” Man is simply a passive instrument in the hands of God;
human volition does not enter in.
It is
clear that Brian’s understanding of Rom. 5:19 and
belief in “original sin” (by whatever name) are leading factors causing him to
embrace Universalism. Conversely, rejection of the doctrine of original sin has
kept tens of thousand of other full Preterists like
me from falling into Brian’s error. Indeed, Universal justification is not a
logical corollary of full Preterism at all! One can fall into the error of Universalism,
irrespective of his view of eschatology, for the basic premise of Universalism
is not fulfilled eschatology, but the universal affect of the cross. It is true
that some have fallen into the error of Universalism after embracing full
Preterism, but typically, as with Brian, this has more to do with the
unsoundness of doctrines they embraced when they became full Preterists, than
full Preterism itself. Full Preterism does not teach original sin; that is an error Brain brought with him; full Preterism
merely provided the catalyst for him to think his errors through and logically
apply them; it did not create them. The better policy would have been to reject
original sin, not embrace Universalism!
Townely, who also went from full Preterist to Universalist
(and back again) followed the same trail as Brian. As may be plainly seen, the
culprit is not Preterism, but erroneous notions about imputed sin:
In this
state or constitution all the family of God, who were of the existing
generation, were interested, independent of their knowledge. For instance, the Philipian jailor, as he was judged
in the first Adam head, so he was justified in the resurrection of the second
Adam head. Did his ignorance of these facts, prior to Paul’s
preaching, absolve him from the judgment any more than it precluded him from
the justification? By no means. As he had been in the
state of condemnation by the first Adam, so was he then in the state of
justification by the second. He was reconciled to Go by the death of the Son,
and not by the knowledge of that death.
Notice
that Townely here preaches Universalism without being
aware of it (he actually argues against Universalism in one of the articles
appended to his book). Hence, it is not Preterism that
brought him to Universalism, but his own imperfect understanding of sin and
salvation. It may be that his imperfect understanding of sin and
salvation when viewed through the prism of Preterism caused him to see the
Universalism that had always been a latent part of his system of belief, but
Preterism itself did not put those beliefs there. Like Brain, they were Townely’s long before he became a Preterist.
Mistaken Premise No. 2: Death
Universally Destroyed
Brian
argues: “The premise is incontrovertible. If death has been
nullified, it can only be nullified completely. This means eternal life
is imputed to all men, regardless of faith.” Contrary to what Brian alleges,
the premise is not “incontrovertible.” Indeed, it is completely false and easily refuted. It is only in the city,
the new Jerusalem (the church), that death is
destroyed. (Rev. 21:4) Outside the city are “dogs, and sorcerers, and
whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.” (Rev.
22:15) John, who wrote the Revelation, says no murderer has eternal life
abiding in him. (I Jno. 3:15) Does John
contradict himself? Does he say in one place that murders do not share in
salvation, but in another that they do? Not at all.
Those who enter into the city are acquitted for their
sins; those that are without the city remain dead in sin. Death has not been completely or universally destroyed, as Brian
maintains. Brain gratuitously reads that into the Bible, but it is not there.
When Paul says that “in Christ all shall be made alive” (I Cor. 15:22),
he limits the application of grace to those who have obeyed the gospel. Being
“in Christ” is the same as being in the new Jerusalem,
the church. The Bible teaches only one way for a man to get “into Christ,” and
that is by repentance and baptism.
“Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Christ were
baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with
him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by
the glory of the father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death,
we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” Rom. 6:3-5
Few things
could be plainer: by baptism man is made a partaker of
Christ’s death. Jesus said “he that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved.” (Mk. 16:15) Peter said
“baptism doth also now save us.” (I Pet. 3:21) In baptism man receives the
remission of sins (Acts 2:38) and his sins are washed away: “And now, why tarriest thou? Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy
sins, calling upon the name of the Lord.” (Acts 22:16) By baptism we are added
to Christ's church (not a man-made denomination): “Then they that gladly
received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them
about three thousand souls…and the Lord added to the church daily such as
should be saved.” (Acts 2:41, 47)
Some
people’s paradigm of how we are made partakers of
Christ causes them to reject these verses, as if acknowledging their plain
meaning somehow entails preaching a gospel of “works.” But
deny them as they will, the truth remains the same: we get into Christ by
repentance and baptism in Jesus’ name, or not at all. And
this is the teaching of virtually all the reformers, to say nothing of the
church fathers, and the Nicene Creed, recited almost everywhere in Christendom.
I will quote Calvin as representative of them all:
"Ananias,
therefore, only intended to say to Paul, 'That thou mayest be assured that thy sins are forgiven, be baptized;
for in baptism the Lord promises remission of sins; receive this and be
secure." (Calvin, Institutes, Vol. 2, p. 487)
"By
baptism, God promises remission of sins, and will certainly fulfill to all
believers: that promise was offered to us in baptism; let us, therefore,
embrace it by faith; it was long dormant by reason of our unbelief; now, then,
let us receive it by faith." (Calvin, Institutes, Vol. 2. p. 488)
The idea
that death has been destroyed for those out of Christ
(those that obey not the gospel) is alien to the scriptures. Brian’s premise
that death was destroyed for all men is wrong. It was
his own mistaken premise that led to his wrong conclusions, not full Preterism.
Brian quotes statements by Russell that he feels hold latent seeds of Universalism,
and may even have been disguised to conceal his views.
But this is wrong. Russell quotes Jesus when he says “I will draw all men unto myself” and Paul when he
states that “grace did much more abound.” These are not affirmations of
Universalism. They simply show that God invites all men to be
saved, not that he thrusts salvation upon them. It is Brian, not
Russell, who is wresting the scriptures.
Mistaken Premise No. 3: Source of
Sin & Death was the Mosaic Law
Another
error common to those who wander out of the way and into Universalism is the
idea that the source of sin and death was the Old Testament. Brian indicates
that this was his view: “I tended to see everything in the New Testament canon
as applying to the Old Covenant only. In a statement I made at the time, I
said: ‘On the day of Pentecost the Old Covenant was made spiritual, and it
ended in A.D. 70.’" In other words, Brian came to see man’s salvation
exclusively in terms of his redemption from the Old Law. This meant that the
Bible had little relevance for today, speaking only to circumstances applicable
to other men: “The epistles were just old letters written to dead people who
were under a totally different covenant. Thank heaven we were out of that
business now, and under a different set of terms and privileges. Since sin has been abolished through the nullification of death, a
mass murderer such as Henry Lee Lucas cannot be any less righteous than a man
like Billy Graham. Neither Graham nor Lucas can fulfill the law... right? Then how can Graham be more righteous than Lucas? They both must rely on the finished work of Christ.
And that work was ‘finished in A.D. 70.’"
This is a
common mistake. Townely said “”sin, Satan, death, and
hell have their true and scriptural meaning in
reference only to the two covenants.” He states moreover, that death was a
dispensational matter done away in A.D. 70. “Death and time are dispensation
matters in scripture: we hold that at the close of the dispensations, in the
fall of Jerusalem, there was time no longer; so, in like manner, we maintain
that at the same close there was no more death.” Max King, who also has
wandered out of the way into Universalism (“comprehensive grace”), makes the
same error, affirming that the sole source of sin and death was the old law:
“One must look to the Jewish system as the state and power of death to be
destroyed by the reign of Christ.” “Paul is conscious that death’s defeat
hinges upon sin’s defeat, and that the defeat of sin is tied to the annulment
of the old aeon of law…For Paul, death is abolished
when the state of sin and the law are abolished.” “When the ‘ministration of
death written in tables of stone’ was finally destroyed, death was swallowed up
in victory.”
It is easy
to see the seeds of Universalism in all of these statements: If sin and death
existed only in the Mosaic law, removal of that law
can only equate with universal justification. Notice again King’s statement:
“the state of sin and the law are abolished.” Thus, the logical implication of
King’s soteriology is the complete abolition of the
state of sin and death for all mankind; viz.,
universalism!
However,
be it noted: This mistake is completely unrelated to full Preterism! Preterism
may have been the vehicle for bringing to the surface the flaws in these men’s soteriology, for bringing them into light, but it did not
create them. The source of death is not the Mosaic law;
the source of death is the law of sin and death. (Rom. 7:23; 8:2) This law
existed in the garden; it was the penalty attached to transgression of God’s
moral law by disobedience to his commandments. “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die.” (Gen. 2:17) The law of sin and death has existed in every age and
generation; it existed in the garden; it existed under the law
of Moses; and it exists even now. “For him that knoweth
to do good and doeth it not for him it is sin.” (Jam. 4:17) “Whatsoever is not
of faith is sin.” (Rom. 14:23) Brian states that “sin has been abolished by the
nullification of death” but this is reverse of the truth. It
is death that is abolished by the nullification of sin. The sting of
death is sin and the strength of sin is the law. (I Cor. 15:56) Christ
satisfied the law by his cross; for those that obey the gospel his death takes
the place of their own. Those who refuse to believe and obey remain in sin.
“For if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.” (Jno. 8:24) “There is a sin unto death.” (I Jno. 5:16) Indeed, Brian states that both Graham and Lucas
must “rely on the finished work of Christ.” But does
Lucas rely upon that work? That is the issue. For those that rely upon
Christ by obeying the gospel, repenting of their sins, and being
baptized, Christ is indeed Savior. But for
those that refuse the offer of grace, he is their judge and will say “depart
from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his
angels.” (Matt. 25:41) “But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the
truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath; tribulation and wrath upon
every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first,
and also the Gentile.” (Rom. 2:8, 9)
Conclusion
Universalism
is not a logical corollary of full Preterism. Tens of thousands of full
Preterists reject Universalism with no logical inconsistency in their system of
beliefs. Those that fall into the error of Universalism do so based upon
erroneous conclusions about soteriology, not
eschatology or Preterism.
Kurt Simmons -
www.preteristcentral.com
as of 6-2007