In my recent readings of the Bible, one of the things which I have been keeping an eye out for are passages which support universalist doctrine, or that Christ came to free everybody regardless of whether or not you “believe” in him. I think this is an especially fun topic because the people it most upsets seem to be the more Fundamentalist of Christians who can’t conceive of how all their hard work and identity which they have constructed around being a “good Christian” doesn’t gain them a better hotel room in Heaven. It also seems to highlight perhaps an underlying elitist desire within mainstream Christianity.

Anyway, I am finding that the Gospel of John has the most universalist passages of any of the Four Gospels. This is from John 6. It’s not exactly blatant, and could probably be argued either way, but I think it’s an interesting passage nonetheless:

37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.

38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.

39 And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.

40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

In particular, I am looking at lines 38 and 39 here with a universalist eye, the parts where he says that he’s doing the will of the Father and that it is the father’s will that he should “lose nothing.” Which is of course then mitigated by the more common exclusionary doctrine that you have to “believeth on him” in order to be saved. So which is it? Or is there some way that the two can work together?

In doing a little reading today on Rosicrucian interpretation of the Bible, I found a passage which may highlight the source of tension in passages such as these. They are talking about the “Divine Law” which seems to be basically the necessary ordering principles which control the universe so that it is form instead of chaos. They are talking about how you need to align yourselves with the Divine Law, or else be destroyed - not because God is out to kick the asses of unbelievers, but simply because you can’t flout things like the Law of Gravity and expect to live as a human with a physical body. They write:

Will he or will he not follow the Divine Law? Once he learns to do so, he will, as promised, become like the gods, knowing good and evil. If he does not or, rather, will not, then he will of his own efforts and free will bring about his complete annihilation from all existence. This is the final result of his attempt to defy the Divine Law. This final result is not a form of punishment from a vengeful God or even the condemnation of church prelates, but only the natural and expected reaction under the Divine Law of his own willful destructive actions.

This is the great secret of all action and reaction in our world. No one sits in judgment on our actions; no one punishes us because we break some arbitrary rules set up by a jealous and vengeful God long ago. We create reactions only from the actions we take of our own free will. If these actions are in harmony with the functioning mechanism of our existence (the Divine Law), the reactions will be what we call good. If our actions are not in harmony with this functioning mechanism, they will be what we call bad or unpleasant.

This seems like it could be nicely amplified by two other sayings attributed to Jesus, one of which comes from Mark 4:25, “For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.” And another from the gnostic Gospel of Thomas, line 70: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you [will] kill you.”

On first glance, those two statements seem to be kind of unfair and out of sorts with other teachings of Jesus, such as his Sermon on the Mount, where he says things about how the meek will inherit the earth and so on. How does the whole thing about “blessed are the poor in spirit” possibly jive with him saying that if you don’t have anything, even that little bit is going to be taken away from you? Although elsewhere he says that in order to follow him, you have to sell all your possessions, give it to the poor and take up your cross.

It seems possible that what is going on in these many different overlapping teachings is simply that perhaps they are targeted to different people or different groups of people. The Rosicrucian document I am reading seems to dovetail with this interpretation:

Most religious teachings as they have been handed down to us were not meant for such independently thinking individuals. They were designed instead for those who are not so much interested in the order of things in Creation, but who rather are looking for a simple pattern of belief to bring some solace and peace to an otherwise difficult existence.

And the ordinary Bible also contains explicit mention of this same thing, especially in Mark 4:

10 When he was alone, those who were around him with the twelve asked him about the parables.

11 He said to them, “To you is given the mystery of the Kingdom of God, but to those who are outside, all things are done in parables,

12 that’seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest perhaps they should turn again, and their sins should be forgiven them.’”

[…]

33 With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it.

34 Without a parable he didn’t speak to them; but privately to his own disciples he explained everything.

I have rarely - if ever - seen this aspect of the canonical Gospels discussed openly by mainstream Christian sources. Mainly because, I am sure, the whole thing smacks of gnosticism: that there are certain secret interpretations of the Bible and of Jesus’ teachings which may have been preserved separately (or lost entirely) from the Bible as it now stands.

And yet, it only makes sense that if you are a teacher that you are going to tailor your message to the listener. Simply because everyone is at a different level of understanding. You couldn’t teach a graduate level class on microeconomics to kindergartners and expect them to understand. But you could give these children simple lessons on counting money, and role-playing related to decision-making and relative value of objects.

So I guess for my own purposes, the question of “was Jesus a universalist?” becomes kind of lost when viewed this way. It seems that for some people, his teachings may well have come off that way, while for others, they may have seemd to say something else entirely on the surface. While meanwhile, they all pointed to the same things underneath: that you have got some hard work to do if you want to “saved” at all.