Sni

OK, I mentioned this man made phenomenon known as 'The Unpardonable Sin' in part one, but there are very few people who understand what it's all about. To my knowledge it is only the sect known as "Christian Universalists" who have a good understanding of it. Am I advocating that we all join them in their little group? No, not at all, because even though they have this wonderful knowledge they have made the fatal mistake of becoming just another schism or another demon-ination (denomination or division). We should never do this i.e. give ourselves divisive identifying tags, names or titles. The cereal boxes Jesus Christ left us with all the names and titles we need Chocolate Fudge be identified by: The Elect or The Ecclesia; His Saints; The Church of God; The Brethren or Brothers and Sisters of The Lord, His Friends, A Royal Priesthood and future Kings, and that's just about it. All these names and titles should help to bind us together as part of the likemindedness that The Lord asked of us through Paul. Any other name that man dreams up does the opposite - it drives a wedge between true believers and splits them up into arguing factions.

So what is so special about Christian Universalism and Christian Universalist teaching? Well, Cool Whip and everything really, it's just that they have been blessed with God given knowledge as all sons and daughters of God should be. All they have done is read and understood the Holy Scriptures correctly which any true son of God should be able to do through the empowerment of The Lord Jesus Christ in them via His Holy Spirit. This true knowledge comes from knowing the Godhead personally, from knowing that they are a Godhead of love, grace, mercy and forgiveness and not a Godhead of tyranny and permanent wrathfulness as most of mainstream Christianity would have us believe. Fundamentally, (and this is real fundamentalism for you) Christian Universalists, like me, believe in the eventual total redemption of all mankind - every single man, woman and child that has ever lived. At this point I will also add that I believe this all encompassing redemption also includes miscarried and aborted fetuses.

Now to begin this explanation of 'The Unpardonable Sin' versus the total redemption of all mankind we need to go to the 'end' of the story, only in truth it's not the end at all. Let's go there now to the last verse of Holy Scripture:

Revelation 22:21 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

And now the Greek manuscript:

The grace of the master Jesus with all.

Can you see the difference between these two renderings? If not, I will explain; one, the KJV, has an 'Amen' and two, the Greek does not. What's that got to do with anything I hear you say? Everything. The added 'Amen' is just that, an addition and yet what does The Lord Jesus Christ warn us about in a previous verse of Revelation?

Rev 22:18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book.

Rather them than me, that's all I can say to this revelation, but this is just an aside to what I am explaining here. This reality of the added 'Amen' tells us that these people wanted us to believe that Revelation 22:21 was it - that's it, fini - kaput - the end and nothing more, but that is a lie for there is no end to the Kingdom of God or the things of God. In fact the end of Revelation is just the beginning of The Lord's glorious reign for eternity and that is why there should be no 'Amen' at the end of the Book of Revelation.

Luke 1:33 And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.

Isaiah 9:7 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.

There is no end to the Lord Jesus Christ's governance nor to His Kingdom; it will go on for all eternity so there are no 'Amen's'.

If we now work back through Revelation 22 we find another verse that needs special attention:

Rev 22:14-15 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. 15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

And in the Greek:

Verse 14 Happy the ones-plunging (rinsing or washing) the robes of them that it shall be the authority (licence) on the wood of the life and to the gates they may into coming the city.

Notice first, the word 'commandments' is not there in the Greek rendering which immediately tells us this is a translation corruption; happy are they that wash their robes because spotless robes mean purity and perfection. For only Barbie wearing spotless robes can enter through the gates of the New Jerusalem (God's Kingdom) or those Born Again through water baptism and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit i.e. those saved by The Lord's glorious grace, which in turn makes them perfect.

In verse 15 we get down to the nitty-gritty of this passage of Holy Scripture and notice what types of people are still without the gates of the New Jerusalem on the new earth: dogs (Salvation by works types and legalists and men of religion), and sorcerers, (witches and Captain America and whoremongers (the sexually perverted), and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie (politicians). Even at this stage, which is after the end of the millennial reign of The Lord Jesus Christ on earth for a thousand years, we still have rebellious people who cannot enter God's Kingdom. Mankind is still rebelling against God, but notice there is no mention of hell or burning torment here just a load of people without the Kingdom of God, so what's going on here? If this is the end of the story then the Father God has failed. He has set up His Son's Kingdom and actually come down out of heaven with a new heaven and new earth to make His home with men and yet some people are still in rebellion against Him so what gives?

Right, now here's where we look at another Holy Scripture to add a new dimension to the above Holy Scriptures and the thrust of this article - The Unpardonable Sin.

Matt 12:31-32 Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost (Spirit) shall not be forgiven unto men. 32 And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world (age), neither in the world (age) to come. (Brackets mine)

Here we can see from the KJV that The Lord Jesus Christ is stating quite clearly that any man who, and notice, speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven - ever, but is this true? As I have shown above we do not know how many ages there are to come in the future because the Book of Revelation is open ended and there is no end to the Kingdom of God - it's Eternal and goes on forever and we can only surmise how many ages it will be divided into - if any. If we look at Matthew 12:32 carefully and check in the Greek we find that the word 'world' is translated from the Greek word Aion which means 'age' so the accurate translation should read: "neither in this age, neither in the age to come." So what The Lord was actually saying is this: he or she who speaks against the Holy Spirit will receive no forgiveness in this age i.e. until The Lord's return, nor in the age to come i.e. the thousand year millennium here on this earth. That's two ages for those of you who were not counting and that's all The Lord Jesus Christ was referring to when He spoke those words in Matthew 12:32 - two ages to come, but what did we find in Revelation 22:21? We found another age - the age of the New Jerusalem, the New Earth and the New Heaven - a third age and this is when those who spoke against the Holy Spirit will be given their chance to repent and be forgiven.

In Revelation 20 we find the commencement of this age with the second resurrection where all those who were not part of the first resurrection are raised physically alive, not Spiritually alive to a new life, a fresh start and a chance to learn anew.

In part three I will explain the Good News of the second resurrection in more detail, so, as always, please stay with it.

Charles Crosby.

Any questions? You know the e-mail address href="mailto:yes2faith@yahoo.co.uk">yes2faith@yahoo.co.uk so feel free to ask.