You have probably had a conversation with someone who believed that there are many ways of salvation and that there are many religious roads to heaven. I have had discussions with people who have strongly expressed this view. I was eating out with three members of my extended family and discussing this very subject. They described me as arrogant for believing that only my religion out of all the religions in the world today is the only correct way to heaven.
Tim Keller wrote a book defending the faith entitled The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. Keller addresses seven objections, that skeptics fire at Christianity. His first objection in chapter one is “There Can’t Be Just One True Religion.” Keller quoted Blair, a twenty-four-year-old woman living in Manhattan, who holds to this view: “How could there be just one true faith? It’s arrogant to say your religion is superior and try to convert everyone else to it. Surely all the religions are equally good and valid for meeting the needs of their particular followers.”[1]
Many young adults reject what they call “organized religion” according to Dan Kimball in They Like Jesus but Not the Church. One reason young adults reject the institution of the church is in chapter nine: “The church arrogantly claims all other religions are wrong.” In one of those conversations with young adults, Duggan shared with Kimball:
When I was a teenager, my dad gave me several books to read — the Bible, the Koran, the I Ching, and some Buddhist writings — so I could be open-minded and discover a spiritual path for myself and understand God more fully. Christians don’t seem to appreciate the beauty in other faiths. They seem so closed-minded and even look at other religions as enemies.[2]
In Not All Roads Lead to Heaven, Robert Jeffress wrote “The single greatest stumbling block for nonbelievers coming to faith in Christ is the issue of exclusivity.”[3] He wrote a book to address this stumbling block that is so prevalent today. How prevalent is this inclusive view about the way to heaven? The Pew Research Center (click to open) found that “Among all Americans, about four-in-ten (39%) say that people who do not believe in God can go to heaven, while roughly a third (32%) say that nonbelievers cannot enter heaven. Evangelical Protestants are especially likely to view access to heaven as exclusive in this regard, with 71% saying that only those who believe in God can go to heaven, compared with 21% who say nonbelievers can gain entry.[4]
Tim Keller in The Reason for God addresses seven objections, that skeptics argue to refute Christianity. The first objection that he addresses is the name of chapter one: “There can’t just be one true religion.” Keller quoted objections to Christ being the only way to heaven:
“All major religions are equally valid and basically teach the same thing.”
“Each religion sees part of spiritual truth, but none can see the whole truth.”
“Religious belief is too culturally and historically conditioned to be ‘truth.'”
“It is arrogant to insist your religion is right and to convert others to it.”[5]
Have you heard any of these objections? To help people work through these objections let’s consider the several versions of this denial of Jesus Christ as the only way to salvation. I am going to move theologically from the left to the right i.e., from the most liberal to the most biblical view concerning salvation. I start on the left with Restorationism and move to Universalism, Annihilationism, Pluralism, Inclusism to Exclusionism.
Restorationism advocates the salvation of all people including the Devil and his demons.
Universalism contends that all people will eventually be saved (not the Devil and his demons).
Annihilationism promotes the idea that unbelievers will be punished but not eternally.
Pluralism holds to the belief that all religious people will go to heaven.
Inclusivism teaches that all believers will go to heaven but also those who never heard the gospel.
Exclusionism champions the biblical view that only those who have received Christ as Savior will be permitted to enter God’s presence.
Restorationism or Apocatastasis
Apocatastasis (from the Greek word apokatastasis) is the belief that everyone and everything will experience an ultimate restitution. The word apocatastasis is a transliteration of a Greek word that means “restoration.” Apocatastasis involves a belief in universal salvation, but it goes beyond that to include a total reconciliation of all the universe to God. Some forms of apocatastasis even embrace the “salvation” of Satan, believing he will be restored to his original, pre-fall position (God Questions) (click to open). The word is found in Acts 3:21: “For he must remain in heaven until the time for the final restoration [apocatastasis] of all things, as God promised long ago through his holy prophets.” The verb form of the the noun “restoration” [apocatastasis] is found in Acts 1:6 which was a question concerning “the kingdom of Israel.” Peter Acts 3:21 promises a future restoration of Israel not the restoration or salvation of all people including Satan and and demons, as Origin advocated. One of the texts on which Origen based his view of apocatastasis was 1 Corinthians 15:26-28.
Origen explains that the "destruction of the last enemy" (1 Cor 15:26) does not mean the "annihilation of his God-given substance" but the "destruction of his rebellious will." Thus the devil is destroyed "not so that in the future he might not exist, but that in the future he will no longer be "enemy" and "death."[6] .
Michael Horton notes the conflicting views of Karl Barth on universal restoration. In one place in Barth’s Church Dogmatics, he writes “There is no one who does not participate in Christ in this turning to God .... There is no one who is not raised and exalted with him to true humanity.” But for them, Barth insists, “The Church ought not to preach Apokatastasis.”[7]
A contemporary defense of Apokatastasis can be found at MERCYUPONALL.org. in an article: John Milbank: “Christianity has to now embrace apokatastasis as the orthodoxy it has always been.” (click to open).
The refutation of the restoration of Satan and his demons is found in Revelation 19-20. At the Second Coming of Christ, the antichrist and the false prophet will be cast into the Lake of Fire (Rev 19:20). One thousand years later following the millennium, “the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the antichrist and the false prophet are, shall be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Rev 20:10). There are two important truths relevant to our study. The Antichrist and False Prophet are still in the lake of fire after one thousand years. They were not annihilated. Next, the Devil is cast into the Lake of Fire where the text says he “shall be tormented day and night forever and ever.” Not only is the devil not saved but he will be eternally punished.
Universalism
Universalism contends that all people eventually go to heaven, not the devil and his demons. Rob Bell popularized this view in 2011 with his book Love Wins. He wrote, “No one can resist God’s pursuit forever because God’s love will eventually melt even the hardest hearts.”[8]
Universalism denies so many Scriptures. Jesus for example talked about a broadway or road that leads to destruction in Matthew 7:13-14 and a narrow way that leads to eternal life. There are not many religious roads leading to one destination according to Jesus. There are only two ways open to all people. One way, the narrow way, traveled by fewer leads to eternal life. The other way, the board way, traveled by the majority, leads to destruction not to God. Next, Jesus exposed false prophets who in our day promote the board road to hell (7:15). Finally, Jesus described the future destruction that the “broad way” leads to when at the final Great White Throne judgment in 7:21-23 Jesus pronounces “I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity.”
Charles Ryrie mentions verses that universalists use. Ryrie also gives a refutation: Verses that universalists appeal to are John 12:32, “will draw all men to Myself;” 1 Corinthians 15:22, “in Christ all shall be made alive;” Philippians 2:11, “every tongue should confess;” and 1 Timothy 2:4, “who desires all men to be saved.” But these verses do not teach that all people will ultimately be saved. John 12:32 says that the Cross of Christ makes possible the salvation of both Jews and Gentiles. Notice that the Lord in the same passage warned of judgment on rejecters (v. 48). First Corinthians 15:22 states that all who are in Christ will be raised, not that everybody will. Philippians 2:10–11 assures us that someday all people will acknowledge Jesus as Lord, but not necessarily as Savior.[9]
Annihilationism
Annihilationists contend that not all people are going to heaven as do the universalists, but that the unsaved will be annihilated and not suffer in eternity. Wayne Grudem writes “The idea that there will be eternal conscious punishment of unbelievers has been denied recently even by some evangelical theologians.” He then lists some of these evangelicals in a footnote: “See Philip E. Hughes, The True Image: The Origin and Destiny of Man in Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), pp. 405-407; David L. Edwards and John R. W. Stott, Essentials: A Liberal-Evangelical Dialogue (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1988, pp. 275-76; Clark Pinnock, “The Destruction of the Finally Impenitent,” CthRev 4 (Spring 1990), pp. 243-59).[10]
In addition to the argument made earlier concerning the punishment of the Antichrist and the False Prophet, Jesus’ statement in Matthew 25:46 disproves annihilationism: “And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” The same Greek word aionios for eternal is used to describe both eternal punishment and eternal life. The annihilationists cannot have an eternal heaven without an eternal lake of fire.
Ryrie writes: Concerning the parallelism between eternal punishment and eternal life in Matthew 25:41 and 46, one conditionalist [Edward William Fudge] says that “we must be careful in pressing the parallel between ‘eternal’ life and ‘eternal’ punishment that we do not fall into any spirit of vindictiveness or ungodly joy at the fate of the wicked.”[11] Ryrie adds, “No further exegesis of that passage is offered. The same author states that there is ‘no clear exegetical basis in Luke 16 [concerning the rich man in hell] for any conclusion concerning the end of the wicked.’ This sample shows the kind of artificial exegesis conditionalists [annihilationists] must resort to in order to substantiate their position.[12]
In Part two, we will discuss Pluralism, Inclusivism, and Exclusivism.
[1] Tim Keller, The Reason for God (Penguin Books, 2008), 3.
[2] Dan Kimball, They Like Jesus but Not the Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007), 163.
[3] Robert Jeffress, Not All Roads Lead to Heaven (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2016), 14.
[4] The Pew Research Center, November 23, 2021.
[5] Tim Keller, The Reason for God (Penguin Books, 2008), 11.
[6] Origen, In DePrinc.ΠΙ6.5 (GCS 22.286.12 ff.; 22.287.2 f).
[7] Karl Barth. Church Dogmatics, vol 4. 2, (New York: The Tower Building, 2010), 27.
[8] Rob Bell, Love Wins (New York: HarperOne, 2011), 108.
[9] Charles Ryrie, Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth, Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition, 607-608.
[10] Wayne Grudem. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994) 1148.
[11] Ryrie quotes Edward William Fudge, The Fire That Consumes (Houston: Providential Press, 1983), 195 on page 610 in Basic Theology.
[12] Charles Ryre, in Basic Theology, 610.