The Book of Revelation is the ‘unveiling’ of the Glory of Jesus Christ and the release of the judgments that accompany it. They have both now been ‘revealed’, ‘unveiled’, and the ‘victors’ praise the Lord and His Anointed for this. It is wonderful to see and hear that these conquering martyrs do not sing about the manner in which they conquered the ‘beast’. They are just full of the almighty power, the righteousness and the glory of God. And they know all the nations will come and bow down in worship.
If you were to take such words out of their context, you could come to believe in the ‘universal salvation’ of the nations—a kind of ‘general atonement’. Christian Universalism is focused on the idea of ‘universal reconciliation’. Also known as ‘universal salvation’, it is a doctrine stating that every human soul will ultimately be reconciled to God because of divine love and mercy. But this is not what the Bible teaches. You could also come to this wrong conclusion by taking certain verses of Paul out of their context: “He purposed… to bring unity to all things in Heaven and on earth under Christ”;1 “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow”;2 “through Him to reconcile to Himself all things… by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross.”3 By selecting just these verses we might come to the conclusion that there is ‘universal redemption’ (‘universal salvation’, the idea that there is no such thing as eternal hell or annihilation), and that everything will turn out alright, for everyone. This belief has it that there’s a ‘happy end’ for every single person, whatever mischief they did—indeed, this could even be applied to the ‘devil’ and his ‘demons’ for, after all, God is love, they say. That is the reasoning behind this, and one can find it for instance the Christian Universalist Association. You never come this conclusion, however, if you take the whole Bible seriously and accept it as the ‘Word of God’. What does the Bible teach? That there will come a ‘Day’ when the Lord will reign on earth, surrounded only by those whose greatest joy is to worship Him. “All the nations You have made will come and worship before You, Lord; they will bring glory to Your Name.”4 “He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples…“Then He will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”5 All mankind (everyone who has survived following the judgement of Matthew 25:31–46) will come and bow down before Me, says the Lord.6 “My Name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets.”7 The Book of Revelation says that in the New City, the New Jerusalem, the nations will find healing and there will no longer be anything that is cursed.8 This is not ‘universal salvation’. This is a community of people drawn from all the nations, which surrenders gladly and devotes itself to the glorification and the worship of the Lord and His Anointed. God’s judgments will then have been meted out to the nations with the sheep nations spared, but the goat nations consigned to eternal punishment.9 Revelation 19:19-21 “Then I saw the ‘beast’ and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the Rider on the horse and his army. But the ‘beast’ was captured, and with it the ‘false prophet’ who had performed the signs on its behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the ‘beast’ and worshiped its image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulphur. The rest were killed with the sword coming out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh.” Revelation 20:13-14 “The ‘sea’ gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. Then ‘death and Hades’ were thrown into the lake of fire. The ‘lake of fire’ is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the ‘book of life’ was thrown into the lake of fire.” Babylon and the worshippers of the beast have been destroyed. The Lord has been angry. Yes, Lord God Almighty, true and just are Your judgments.10 The wrath of God upon the nations and their idols has been poured out.11 Everything that man, in his fallen sinful nature and natural pride – claiming to be divine and ‘just like God’ – has come under God’s judgment. All that sinful mankind under the leadership of the devil and his angels has been able to imagine, building his ‘towers of Babel/Babylon,12 has now been come to nothing.
• How the ‘remnant of Israel’ will rejoice and be glad when the nations who have massacred them for centuries will be judged when Jesus sits on the ‘throne of His father David’ in the midst of the ‘house of Jacob’ in Jerusalem.13 God will show the people of Israel miracles as in the days of the Exodus from Egypt.
• He will pass over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage—Israel—indeed, He will cast their sins into the depths of the sea.14 God is not ‘dead’, as some theologians said, but ‘alive and reigning’!
• How do you think you will escape the judgment of hell? This is what the Lord Jesus says to the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23:33 ““You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?” Compare this with ‘universal salvation’!
• This makes it very clear that there is no universal salvation!
Bible References:
1.Ephesians 1:10 NIV 2.Philippians 2:9–11 NIV 3.Colossians 1:20 NIV 4.Psalm 86:9 NIV 5.Isaiah 2:4; Matthew 25:31–46 NIV 6.Isaiah 66:22–24 7.Malachi 1:11 NIV 8.Revelation 22:3 9.Matthew 25:46 10.Revelation 16:7 11.Jeremiah 10:25 12.Genesis 11:6 13.Luke 1:32–33 14.Micah 7:15–20
