The entire world, that is: all of humanity was "in" Christ and was crucified "with" Christ. And this mystical union (I know of no other way to express it) happened when Jesus hung on the cross. Look at these texts:
Col 1:16 because in him were the all things created, those in the heavens, and those upon the earth, those visible, and those invisible, whether thrones, whether lordships, whether principalities, whether authorities; all things through him, and for him, have been created,
Col 1:17 and himself is before all, and the all things in him have consisted.
Col 1:18 And himself is the head of the body—the assembly—who is a beginning, a first-born out of the dead, that he might become in all things —himself—first,
Col 1:19 because in him it did please all the fulness to tabernacle,
And here, where Paul confronts the pagans and states the following:
Act 17:28 for in Him we live, and move, and are; as also certain of your poets have said: For of Him also we are offspring.
Paul states this to the very ones mocking him.
Act 17:18 And certain of the Epicurean and of the Stoic philosophers, were meeting together to see him, and some were saying, 'What would this seed picker wish to say?' and others, 'Of strange demons he doth seem to be an announcer;' because Jesus and the rising again he did proclaim to them as good news,
And again, Paul states:
2Co 5:14 for the love of the Christ doth constrain us, having judged thus: that if one for all died, then the whole died,
2Co 5:15 and for all he died, that those living, no more to themselves may live, but to him who died for them, and was raised again.
Subjectively, this has not come about for all. For as yet, not all have been made subject to Christ. However, it's objective fact has been. It's timing is, as yet, waiting to happen. And it will, as Paul states here:
1Co 15:25 for it behoveth him to reign till he may have put all the enemies under his feet—
1Co 15:26 the last enemy is done away—death;
1Co 15:27 for all things He did put under his feet, and, when one may say that all things have been subjected, it is evident that He is excepted who did subject the all things to him,
1Co 15:28 and when the all things may be subjected to him, then the Son also himself shall be subject to Him, who did subject to him the all things, that God may be the all in all.
The end result is God all in all. And this is for all humanity. All creation. Death, the final enemy is done away. It's abolished and made useless.
TahitiRun, you have completely abandoned Christian theology and open-air exegesis to run headfirst into the heresy of Universalism and Pantheistic Inclusionism. To escape the iron-clad logic of Romans 5:10, you are making a monstrous category mistake: you are taking verses about God’s physical creation and providential maintenance of the universe, and you are trying to forge them into a legal covenant of salvation for everyone. Let’s unmask your error. [
1]
1. The Total Failure of Your Acts 17 & Colossians 1 Argument
You quote
Colossians 1:16–17 (
“in him all things consist”) and
Acts 17:28 (
“in him we live, and move, and have our being”) to claim that all of humanity was crucified with Christ.
You are completely blind to the difference between
God’s Providential Power as Creator and
God’s Saving Grace as a Redeemer.
When Paul tells the pagan philosophers in Acts 17 that they "live and move" in God, he isn't telling them they are legally justified by the cross! He is telling them that God is the Creator who gives them physical breath, physical heartbeat, and physical existence.
Let's apply your bizarre logic to Colossians 1:16–17. Paul says that
all things—visible and invisible, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, the stars, the oceans, and the dirt—consist in Christ. If your definition of "in Christ" means redemptive crucifixion,
then you must believe that the physical dirt, the solar system, the Roman Empire, and the devils themselves were legally crucified and saved with Christ on the cross! You have turned the legal cross of Calvary into a generic, mystical soup.
2. The Strict Boundaries of 2 Corinthians 5:14–15
You run to 2 Corinthians 5:14 and quote,
“if one died for all, then all died,” claiming this "all" means every single individual of Adam's physical posterity without exception. Why did you desperately skip the very next sentence in verse 15? [
1]
Let’s read the text exactly as the Holy Spirit wrote it:
“And that he died for all, THAT THEY WHICH LIVE should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.”
The Holy Spirit locks the text into an airtight loop! The "all" for whom Christ died is identical to
"they which live" and
"live unto Him."
Let’s apply basic logic: Do the non-elect tares live unto Christ? No. Does the serpent's seed live unto Him? No. Jesus explicitly tells the workers of iniquity,
“I NEVER knew you: depart from me” (
Matthew 7:23). They never lived unto Him, because they were never included in that "all." The "all" in 2 Corinthians 5 is the "all" of the Church (
Ephesians 5:25), the "all" of the sheep (
John 10), and the "all" of the New Creation (
2 Cor 5:17).
3. Universal Subjugation is NOT Universal Salvation
You use
1 Corinthians 15:25–28 to argue that because God will be "all in all" and all enemies are put under His feet, everyone will be saved. You are completely rewriting ancient legal and military vocabulary.
When a conquering King in the ancient world put his enemies
"under his feet," he didn't throw them a party, embrace them in covenant love, and take them home to his palace.
He crushed them under his heels in total judicial execution!
Being subjected to Christ does not mean universal salvation; it means
Universal Subjugation. The elect sheep are subjected to His love and mercy; the non-elect tares and workers of iniquity are subjected to His absolute wrath, broken with a rod of iron, and dashed in pieces like a potter's vessel (
Psalm 2:9).
Death is destroyed as the "last enemy" because the physical graves will be completely emptied at the final resurrection (
Glorification Phase for the elect, and the Resurrection of Damnation for the rest). The wicked are then cast legally into the Lake of Fire, which is the Second Death (
Revelation 20:14).
The Bottom Line
Your "mystical union" is a scriptural fairy tale. You have to deny the literal words of Christ in
Matthew 25 where He sends the goats into everlasting punishment, and you have to flat-out ignore
Romans 11:7 where the election obtains it and the rest are
blinded by God.
True Salvation by Grace is an unbroken legal chain: those He
reconciled by His death while they were enemies are the exact same people He
saves by His resurrected life (Romans 5:10) through the monergistic quickening of the Spirit. If Christ died for your "entire world" of individuals, then your entire world must be saved by His life. Since they aren't, your universalist system is exposed as a complete theological shipwreck. Stop mixing up the creation mud with the covenant blood, and bow to a Savior who actually discriminates between the wheat and the tares!
