Study Bibles?

Greetings Friends!

Back quite a few years ago, before I became a convinced universalist, I amassed quite a number of Bibles. I would say it was somewhat of an addiction.  This included the Study Bibles.  I picked up everything from the Harper-Collins Study Bible to the MacArthur Study Bible and just about everything in between!  I joke, although it's pretty accurate, that when I want to find out what I do not believe on a particular issue, I reach for my MacArthur Study Bible!  But what to do with it? - I'm sure not going to give that thing away to anyone with it consigning everyone to eternal conscious torment for infinity! 

A quick side note on MacArthur:  one fellow at my former church who opposed me when I was raising questions at a Bible Study on some pretty clear universalist-supporting passages loaned me a MacArthur book.  I couldn't even finish it; the thing was just filled with venom!  It was downright mean.  This same fellow at church would also show Rob Bell videos at the Mens' Breakfasts.  I hope now he reads Love Wins because I suspect deep down he was troubled by what he was essentially brainwashed into believing since he was a small boy.  He needs someone he really looks up to like Rob Bell to help free him from the likes of MacArthur.  In spite of some criticisms of Bell's book, I thought it was very welcome coming from someone with the following that Rob has.

But back to the Study Bibles, I just had to have that Cambridge NIV Study Bible in the goatskin leather.  It felt good in the hands, smelled good, holy even!  This is allegedly the most widely selling Study Bible and I had yet to really examine it.  What I found was shocking.  The Bible goes out of its way to say that verses (and there are a lot of them!) don't say what they fairly clearly say!  Just a couple examples.

1 Timothy 4:10 (NIV) states: "...we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe."   (those who believe have a wonderful, albeit subjective hope, unlike those who do not believe; this may explain the word "especially," but the point here is God is "the Savior of all men," whether they know it or have this hope currently or not.)

Here's the NIV Study Bible's note:  "Obviously this does not mean that God saves every person from eternal punishment, for such universalism would contradict the clear testimony of Scripture.  God is, however, the Savior of all in that he offers salvation to all and saves all who come to him."

WOW.  They have the "clear testimony of Scripture" right in front of their face and contradict it.  That passage does not say "exclusively" no matter how much they wish it did!  It says "especially" or "specially" in the King James. 

One more:  1 John 2:2 (NIV) states of Christ: "He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world."  Debates on the atonement, how it operated and so forth aside, the verse seems pretty clear in that it includes the sins of the whole world!  That is wonderful news! And now for our helpful study note to rain on the parade! -

NIV Study Bible note:  "...In this way the Father's wrath is satisfied....Forgiveness through Christ's atoning sacrifice is not limited to one particular group only; it has worldwide application....It must, however, be received by faith....Thus this verse does not teach universalism (that all people ultimately will be saved), but that God is an impartial God."

The Father's wrath was satisfied in this way?  Well, that's a train-wreck of a statement right there.  It portrays a cruel God satisfying his bloodthirstiness on Jesus.  I, for one, totally understand people who want nothing to do with such a God.  But even if we give them that, if the Father's wrath was satisfied, where do they find that people must DO something ("receive") in this lifetime necessarily, in order to avoid eternal conscious torment?  The study note teaches substitutionary atonement, but if the penalty for sin is eternal conscious torment, and Jesus needed to bear this to satisfy "justice," or "wrath," then by their reasoning, Jesus would still need to be in hell, suffering eternal conscious torment to "satisfy" God.  What a miserable, wretched misunderstanding of the grace and love of God.  There are no strings attached in this verse that warrant this disgraceful study note. 

Let us reject this portrait of a sadistic cosmic dictator with all of our being, and pray that the truly good news that this verse and many others (specific texts abound, but we should look to Jesus to see what God is really like! -- healing, forgiving, blessing, and loving his creatures, all of them with special attention to the outcasts) teach will resonate in the hearts and minds of people everywhere so they may be freed from fear, "religion," hatred, and other evils that abound in the notes in some of these Study Bibles and churches today. 

I think we need another Study Bible.  Perhaps another translation even.  But more important than all this is that we strive to be like Christ, that we follow him in blessing poor people, comforting people in pain and just being a friend/loving the outcasts among us today.  We are told not to judge others, or we will reap judgment ourselves.  We all fall short!  God knows this and looks at the heart; it's how we treat others that really matters! - It's absurd to think that God is waiting up there (very, very mad still) with a pencil (and an eraser) in one hand and an eternal hot poker in the other just in case people don't say the sinner's prayer in this lifetime.

Imagine that, Jesus with a hot poker, tormenting someone who never heard of him or for some reason or another didn't "receive"  him in this lifetime, over and over again forever without mercy.  Unthinkable!!  The holocaust is over!  Prolonging the torment for infinity to satisfy retributive wrath??  God forbid!  Of course, this is what many churches today actually, in effect, are propagating about our merciful God!  They have made God into a monster!  I would go so far as to call this doctrine of eternal conscious torture "satanic." 

Let's pray that God motivate more people to get together, stand up and demonstrate, write about, preach and teach what God is really like and bring glory to his name, instead of the shame and, frankly, evil that is being attributed to him so widely today.  And then let us live out what we know to be true to the best of our abilities, with God's help!  Let's strive to have mercy and be kind towards all God's children.

God bless,
David