Hi Steve,
Happy to answer your questions.
What, exactly, causes you such agitation about the universal reconciliation view whenever it is brought up (and often when you yourself bring it into a discussion about unrelated things)?
I think it is false teaching that will inevitably cause souls to be lost because it depreciates Jesus' warnings. There is no way the universalist can show from the scriptures that it will take more than a moment for the lost to repent when they are face to face with Christ. It is natural for them to think they will take their chances, after all they are unregenerate.
And a question for you. Why do you defend universalism so enthusiastically if you do not believe it? Makes me think you are a closet universalist. Nothing seems to get you so fired up except Calvinism and I think even Calvinism falls behind.
as if you are not at all happy about the possibility of Jesus actually saving everyone, as He desires to do, and for which end He shed His own blood.
I'm always filled with joy when sinners repent, even to the point of tears.
Yet the suggestion that He might actually get what he wants seems to drive you to distraction.
Nope. If universalism is true I will say "praise God".
You sometimes have tipped your hand a bit in your past references to wicked people, who surely do not deserve to be saved (e.g., Hugh Hefner, whom you have brought up repeatedly).
Wrong again. Perhaps you have forgotten that I have pointed out that Hefner is just a handy icon? Wicked is a biblical term, a contrast.
I do not believe I have ever said that there is anyone who does not deserve to be saved. I challenge you to show me where. That is a slur. Certainly I do not deserve to be saved. I believe Ted Bundy died a saved man if what I have heard is true, and I rejoiced when I heard it.
You give the very distinct impression that it would grieve you immensely were God to give such people additional postmortem opportunities to repent.
Wrong again.
Maybe you would even object to Hefner's being forgiven if he were to repent before death? I honestly can't tell.
And again; bordering on slander there.
Your arguments often make me wonder: How much do you think you deserved to be saved? Were your sins also black, or only off-white? It is a pertinent and sincere question, since its answer alone can shed light on why you would oppose the salvation of the most undeserving wretches. It sounds very much as if you do not count yourself among their number.
"God, be merciful to me, the sinner"! I deserve nothing. That's my view.
But why the acrimony toward the doctrine which seems like one of the most cheering and God-honoring doctrines that I have ever encountered?
Because it strikes me as the same old lie "you shall not surely die".
That's enough response to your very public character assassination disguised as a "pastoral" letter. You wrote:
This is a very good example of the limitations in an analogy. Real tares never do become wheat, yet "children of the evil one" really do become "children of the kingdom" (e.g., 1 Corinthians 6:11; Ephesians 2:1-6; 1 Peter 4:2-3; etc.). You make my point very well: Not everything in a parable bears the exact analogy to the things signified in it.
I was a bit careless in my statement. I should have said "burned up tares never become wheat". Jesus story is a very simple one, easy to grasp. Please tell me how you think the kingdom of heaven is like the wheat gathered to the barn and the tares destroyed in the fire. Its Jesus' story, twice repeated, He must have thought it an important illustration. What do you learn from it?