Will God's Grace Reach All?
?God's Great Scheme, All Creation for Christ, Christian Holism,? authored by Leonard Martini, Th.D, addresses the subject of the Complete Restoration of all of God's Creation including every man and woman and child through Christ. I have just completed reading this book for the second time. Dr. Martini is a student of scripture so prepare yourself for some interesting new perspectives. These are not new to students of early church history but very new to those of us who grew up in the Fundamentalist or Evangelical Tradition. I am still absorbing what I have read but he does address a number of questions that have troubled me as a minister and Bible student for years. These questions include: Why does a loving god seem to take pleasure in sending the vast majority of his creation to hell to burn forever because of their refusal of the plan of salvation even if they have never heard it or seen it lived out in the lives of those who profess it? God is supposed to be the epitome of The Loving Father. I have 5 children and I could not imagine punishing them by holding their hands over a flame of fire even for a few seconds. The authorities would be notified and I would be arrested for child abuse. Yet my heavenly father as I was taught had no problem tossing me into the Lake of Fire to burn eternally if I did not accept Christ as my Savior. I wonder how many of us made a profession of faith out of fear just to escape hell and not because of Christ's great love in dying on the cross for us? I also grew up being taught and sadly teaching others that he was judging my every action and I was risking early death or horrible sickness if I stepped out of line. Again what loving earthly father would discipline his children this way? If you will take note I purposely did not capitalize the name god or pronouns for god as I now realize the god I grew up believing that would do such things is not the God of the Bible. It took me many years to find Him who is the God of Love and Grace. He was waiting for me to recognize Him all of those years loving me through each struggle. I have fully embraced Him as my Loving Heavenly Father.
I was often puzzled by the statement in I Corinthians 15:22: ?For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.? I reasoned if by the first (all) if Adam's sin brought death on (all) (every man, woman and child), then why did not Christ have the power by his death and resurrection to make (all) alive? Since we did nothing to bring about our first death why did we have to worry about saying exactly the right prayer or doing a certain deed to be made alive? I came to the conclusion that if the first ALL was true then the second ALL had to be true also.
You will be amazed at the answers to this and other questions that Dr. Martini presents from the scriptures. He is also a great story teller and uses several personal events in his own life to illustrate how these concepts became real to him.
Professor Martini does not ask you to throw away your Bible in order to find out the truth of God's Great Scheme to restore all of His creation. He does this by a careful study of what the Bible really says and doesn't say. So many of us grew up being spoon fed in church and seminary what we were supposed to believe. Talk about a cultish way of teaching! We were afraid to truly question anything for fear of being thought heretics and being shunned by our church and family. What a shock it was to me to start studying the scripture for myself without any preconceived notions and then reading what the early church and its most prominent theologians believed about ?Will God save all?? What does the Bible teach is the meaning of being ?saved so as by fire?? Does the scripture teach that Hell is eternal or much like the Sheol of the Old Testament? I have been researching these questions on my own for several years but have now found a gifted author who addresses these questions and many more. I would plead with you if you desire to get the truth about what happens to a friend or a loved one who died without a public profession of faith in Christ, you owe it to yourself and your family to research this truth that has been in the Bible all along.
Just reading the Dedication that Dr. Martini wrote for ?God's Great Scheme? made me want to read this book and I hope it will you also. Dedicated to Those who seek a unified theology, Consistent in God's purpose, Without contradiction or compromise, to God's judgment, With justice and love, For all creation.
I highly recommend ?God's Great Scheme? by Leonard J. Martini Th.D. His challenge is to get you to study scripture and the historical record for yourself and to lay aside any preconceived concepts. You may not reach all of the conclusions that he does but I guarantee this study will be a breath of fresh air regarding God's Amazing Grace.