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[TreesTrees]

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[PinSeeker]

As Christians, not all of us are the Israelites under Moses, so we are not under Mosaic laws, Leviticus 26:46 These are the decrees, the laws and the regulations that the Lord established at Mount Sinai between himself and the Israelites through Moses. We are under the Law of Love, of Christ, the fulfillment of the law. To love the Lord and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

My name is PinSeeker, and I approve this message. :)

I was also an atheist before, nihilistic. In the past, I rejected Christianity, no loving God would torture people forever.

Responding to this quickly... Sorry to hear about your past and glad you have been brought from it. Praise and glory to God for that. God does not torture. But he does, Harold, give people what they desire and deserve, according to His own glory and His perfect justice; He administers His perfect justice perfectly. But that does NOT mean He "tortures people" for any length of time, much less forever. One can be tortured in the sense that he/she is enduring a mental anguish for one reason or another... as in two people can have a torturous conversation, where, though they continue to argue or exchange ideas, they never reach resolution or agreement and lose all hope for such resolution or agreement. This is consistent with what we are taught about hell in the Bible. Jesus speaks in Mark 9 about "their worm that will not die," which is to say, basically, their anguish will not subside. And in His parable in Luke 16, the rich man is told by Abraham that he is in anguish, both because he could have avoided it by believing and repenting during his life on earth, and because he cannot pass from where he is to where Abraham is... no longer has any hope of doing so. It is a torturous existence, but he is not literally being tortured by anyone, much less God Himself. You see?

When I learned (and believed) Christian Universalism...

You fell in with a heresy that has been around for a long time...

...God is love...

Yes, He is, and everything He does is out of that love, even placing judgment according to His perfect justice, hard as it may be to understand. On a much lesser level, if and when I place a judgment on my son and even punish him, it is not out of anything other than my uncompromising love for him.

...all people will be believers in Him and thus everyone gets into Heaven.

All of His Elect, yes. Paul is very clear about that in Romans 9 through 11. As he says in Romans 10:13, quoting from Joel 2:32, "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." And if you go back and read that passage in Joel, Joel clearly says that their calling on the name of the Lord depends on God's mercy and compassion and His call ~ which is what Paul is saying in Romans 9. God will have mercy on whom He has mercy, compassion on whom He has compassion (Paul, Romans 9:14-18, referencing Moses's quote of God Himself in Exodus 33:19).

Universalism is clearly a heresy. Far be it from me or anyone to call you a heretic, Harold; no one is doing that. But, nevertheless, universalism is a heresy ~ it is antithetical to God's Word.

Grace and peace to you!