Featured Univeralism?

No. Can't you read? I was addressing @Alan Gross, not you.

 

No. God is just. He doesn't punish innocents.

 

I told you already. God is just. He doesn't punish innocents.

 

5 but after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up for thyself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;
6 who will render to every man according to his works: Ro 2

A baby has no 'works'.

 

Sheesh. Go talk to yourself.

 

I might answer "Yes, but ..." to the "..condemned already..." of John 3:18. However, that "but" is something beyond my knowing, something I cannot explain.
When this type of question comes up, I look to 2 Samuel and the baby that resulted from David's adulterous relationship with Bathsheba. The lad became very ill and David prayed and fasted for days. When the baby died, David's aides feared what David might do then. However, he ceased praying, got up and broke his fast.
When he was asked why the total change of attitude, he replied, "While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live?. But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." (2 Samuel 12: 22,23. emphasis mine)
Where did David, "A man after God's heart", go when he died?

 

The issue with this particular statement is that it runs afoul of Romans 5:12-14. Paul's argument is that the universality of what we call "original sin" is demonstrated in that people without the Law (ie. people in total ignorance) still die. Why do they die when "sin is not counted where there is no law?" Because of Adam's sin ("Original Sin"). So, it seems problematic to me that people die in the same way even after Jesus' death and resurrection. For example: There are people today in "unreached people groups" who are legitimately ignorant of God's law. If Paul is stating a principle (which he is) that sin is not counted where there is no Law, why do the people in those unreached groups die if Jesus' atonement "did away with Adam's transgression passing down..." If people are born innocent after Jesus atonement, why do people "suppress the truth in unrighteousness as Paul says they do in Romans 1?

The idea of infant baptism came to be understood as almost exactly what you're saying, but it was given out to new-borns so that they would be free from Adam's sin. This is why the Catholic Church, for example, would argue that an unbaptized baby would indeed go to hell--because the baptism (or Christening) would not have removed Adam's sin from them.

So, I understand the need to argue that concept, but I'm not sure it fits.

Blessings,

The Archangel

 

No one is "born innocent". That is Pelagian false teaching like I was raised in in the Church of Christ.

Psalm 58:3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.

 

He bought the whole field, but He particularly bought the treasure hidden in that field (that's why I prefer 'Particular Atonement' over 'Limited Atonement'). "The Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe."

 

What I am positing magnifies the Atonement, not man.

 

I understand what you're saying here, and I've heard it before. I'm not sure it answers the questions I asked earlier, though.

Blessings,

The Archangel

 

Paul was alive and unaware of his exceeding sinfulness, which the Lord used by His Word as a schoolmaster, to convict him of his sinfulness, and to give him the realization that he had broken the commandments and his cognisance of sin was revived in him and his sense of being alive the way that he had been without the law came to an end and he died of that notion.

God hates sin.

What question? I don't see Van's stuff.

Like KenH said;

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." Psalm 51:5.

I see that as Paul saying that he was developed in his mother's womb in a state of sinful iniquity, beginning at conception, from the moment his mother conceived him.

Then, when he was born he came forth from his mother's womb already lying, because he was born a liar, without needing to be taught.

Lost people will be judged as to their various works in this life regarding the intensity of their punishment in the Lake of Fire, but that doesn't say they have to have works to be judged, or that babies don't have works, when they are kicking their mother's stomach as if they want out, when they are not ready and it is a lie for example.

Then, in order to appreciate what is said below, you or others reading this may want to see the resurrection as the context from the previous verse and several others surrounding it.

The Resurrection of the Dead.

I Corinthians 15:

12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?

13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:

14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.

15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.

16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:

17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.

18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.

19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.

24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.


Now, see if any that Gill says speaks to you;

"even so in Christ shall all be made alive:

"not made spiritually alive, for Christ quickens whom he will; not all in this sense, some die in their sins;

"nor are all entitled to an eternal life; for though Christ has a power to give it, yet only to those whom the Father has given to him;

"it is true indeed, that all that are in Christ, chosen in him and united to him, are made alive by him, and have the gift of eternal life through him; but the apostle is not speaking of such a life, but of a corporeal one: to be quickened or made alive, is with the Jews, and other eastern nations, a phrase of the same signification with being raised from the dead, and as the context here shows;

"and not to be understood of the resurrection of all men, for though there will be a resurrection of the just and unjust, yet the one will be the resurrection of life, and the other the resurrection of damnation;

"now it is of the former the apostle here speaks, and expresses by being made alive: and the sense is, that as all that were in Adam, all that belonged to him, all his natural seed and posterity, all to whom he was a federal head, died in him, became mortal, and subject to death through him;

"so all that are in Christ, that belong to him, who are his spiritual seed and offspring, to whom he is a covenant head, and representative, shall be raised to an immortal life by him;

"or as all the elect of God died in Adam, so shall they all be quickened, or raised to life in and by Christ."

Meaning "all" of the Elect.

 

...and loves justice. He'll send no babies to the eternal flame, He's not Molech. It's no wonder Calvinists are depicted as mean and cold and cruel because of severity such as yours.