"A Wideness in God's Mercy: Universalism inn the Bible"
This posting is a version of my essay “A Wideness in God’s Mercy: Universalism in the Bible,” Universal Salvation? The Current Debate. Edited by R. A. Parry and C. H. Partridge ( Carlisle , UK : Paternoster Press, 2003), pp. 77-102. Excerpted with permission of Paternoster Press. This essay was reprinted in a book of the same title published in the U.S. by William B. Eerdmans, Publishers, Grand Rapids , MI. Readers are encouraged to buy and read the whole book, which features lead essays by Thomas Talbott, and especially the essay by I. Howard Marshall, which takes a point of view contrastive with mine. Universalism in the Bible Thomas F. Johnson I. Introduction A. Definitions and understandings The Bible teaches the universal saving and sovereign grace of God, who, out of love for all people and all creation, has provided ultimate reconciliation and restoration for all. While the Bible affirms the awful possibility that some may reject God’s love and be lost, it also allows us t