This often comes as a surprise when I bring it up to many members of the body of Christ, as well as to other Universalists, but no, Jesus did not preach the salvation of all humanity during His earthly ministry. That’s not to say He didn’t teach the salvation of all at a later time, but He only did this directly to one person (the apostle Paul), after He’d already ascended to heaven (please note that teaching one person is not the same thing as publicly preaching to a crowd, in case the title of this article sounded confusing). In fact, the salvation of all can only be found within Paul’s epistles. This means that any references to salvation in any of the Circumcision writings (referring to the books of the Bible that weren’t signed by the apostle Paul) — even those that sound like they’re talking about the salvation of all — are about an entirely different type of salvation altogether and don’t apply to all humanity at all.
Now, I have touched on this before (in my article titled The necessity of two Gospels), and Aaron Welch has written an even better article on this topic as well, which everyone in the body of Christ who is evangelizing or teaching about the salvation of all really needs to read (you can find it here: Did John reveal the truth of the salvation of all mankind in his writings?, and make sure to read both Part One and Part Two), but I wanted to touch on an aspect of it from a related but slightly different perspective than most have considered, at least in my experience.
I should say, I am writing this article primarily to members of the body of Christ, and not so much to Christians, so I’m assuming that nearly everyone reading this is already familiar the difference between the five eons/ages, the two Gospels, and the different types of salvation referred to in Scripture, but Christian Universalists reading this might also find it useful, so just to give a quick breakdown:
- We’re currently living in the third eon (or age, as some refer to it as) which began at the time of Noah’s Flood, while the thousand-year reign of Christ (also known as the Millennium) will be the fourth eon/age, and the fifth and final eon/age — prior to the consummation of the eons, or end of the ages, since all eons/ages, by definition, have to eventually end — will begin with the creation of the New Earth after the Millennium concludes.
- The Gospel that Jesus and His disciples preached while He walked the earth is known as “the Gospel of the Kingdom,” also known as “the Gospel of the Circumcision.” And while Paul did preach and teach about this Gospel on occasion too — especially when preaching to Israelites — the glorified Christ gave him a new Gospel meant primarily for the nations, known as “the Gospel of the Uncircumcision” (among other names, including “Paul’s Gospel”).
- While all of the following types of salvation include atonement and forgiveness of sins, among various other spiritual aspects, the type of salvation Jesus preached about during His earthly ministry was to be experienced in the kingdom of heaven during the fourth eon (meaning Israel during the Millennium), although those relative few who get to enjoy this type of salvation will also miss out on the second death in the lake of fire, so they’ll also get to enjoy life on the New Earth during the fifth eon, and it’s important to note that this type of salvation does not necessarily include immortality (only those raised from the dead at the resurrection of the just will be quickened, or vivified — meaning made immortal — when experiencing this type of salvation, while everyone else who is saved at the beginning of the Millennium will remain alive by consuming the fruit of the tree of life (or log of life, depending on your Bible translation) on a monthly basis. Paul, on the other hand, at least when he wasn’t discussing the same time of salvation with Israelites that Jesus preached, taught about two different — albeit extremely connected — types of salvation, known as general salvation (aka the salvation of all humanity) and the special salvation (aka eonian life, also referred to figuratively as “eternal life,” or as “everlasting life,” in less literal Bible translations such as the KJV). General salvation consists of being made immortal (and hence sinless), which will happen by the consummation of the eons to every human who will have ever lived, while the special salvation he also taught about includes experiencing general salvation (immortality and sinlessness) earlier than everyone else, as well as gaining membership in the body of Christ and enjoying eonian life (and, like the type of salvation that Israelites will experience, only a relative few humans will get to enjoy this special salvation as well).
I don’t have the space to go into any more detail on those three points than that, if the above isn’t something you’re already familiar with, but I went into a lot of detail on all this in the first four chapters of my free eBook, so you can read that if you’re interested in learning the scriptural basis for all of the above (and I also highly recommend the book titled God’s Eonian Purpose by Adlai Loudy if you want to learn more about the eons/ages as well, although keep in mind that he made a distinction between “ages” and “eons” in his book which most others don’t, but it’s still a very worthwhile read). As for everyone else who is already familiar with the above, let’s get to my main point, which, again, is that the salvation of all can only be found within the epistles signed by the apostle Paul (and even then, only in passages that are referring to general salvation, such as 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 for example, since the passages where he talks about the special salvation, such as 1 Corinthians 15:1-2 for example, are only about the salvation of those elected for membership in the body of Christ).
The problem is, most who teach the doctrine of the salvation of all (including many within the body of Christ) like to use passages quoting Jesus — especially verses from the book of John such as John 1:29, such as John 4:42, and such as John 12:32, for example — to try to prove that the Bible teaches the salvation of all, but none of these passages can actually mean what most people quoting them for this purpose assume they do (as you already know if you read Aaron’s article that I linked to above).
You see, what these people are overlooking is that the salvation Jesus was teaching about only takes place within the kingdom of heaven during the fourth eon (Israel during the Millennium), as I already pointed out. So if Jesus was saying that everyone will get saved in those passages, it would mean that everyone on earth will get to live in Israel during the Millennium, and that He wouldn’t say to anyone, “depart from me, ye that work iniquity,” as the Bible tells us He’s going to say to some at that time. Not to mention, no “goats” will be exiled from Israel to experience eonian/“everlasting” punishment in the parts of the world that aren’t Israel at that time either, if He was referring to the salvation of all there. And perhaps most importantly, this would also mean there are two “salvations of all” — one to be experienced during the Millennium, which is when the salvation Jesus taught about during His earthly ministry will take place, and one at the end of the eons/ages, which is when the salvation of all that Paul taught about will take place — and I trust everyone can see how ridiculous an idea that is.
And so, outside, perhaps, of a possible secondary fulfillment of these passages in the Circumcision writings (and even if I do find it unlikely, I’ll concede that it’s possible these passages do have a secondary fulfillment, but it still means that there would then be a primary fulfillment of each of these passages which has nothing to do with the salvation of all), these passages need to be interpreted and taught in the context that they were originally spoken or written (meaning concerning Israel during the fourth eon, not concerning all humanity at the end of the fifth eon), and so I would like to urge everyone who is evangelizing and arguing for the salvation of all humanity to stop using Circumcision writings to do so, and to begin only using the relevant passages from Paul’s epistles to prove this scriptural point.
And, again, please read Aaron Welch’s article on the topic if you haven’t already.