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[The following report is from the "Digging in the Walls" section of O Timothy magazine, Volume 6, Issue 8, 1989. David W. Cloud, Editor. O Timothy is a monthly magazine. Annual subscription is US$20 FOR THE UNITED STATES. Send to Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org (e-mail). FOR CANADA the subscription is $20 Canadian.]

CHRISTIAN CONFERENCE OF ASIA PROMOTES UNIVERSALISM

The last general meeting of the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA), which meets every two years, was held January, 1988, in Chiang Mai, Thailand. This was immediately after the CCA was kicked out of Singapore on charges that it was infiltrated by communists and had used Singapore as a base for political activities prejudicial to Singapore's interests.

There is no doubt that the CCA is a radical organization. It is basically the Asian arm of the World Council of Churches and is almost totally given over to liberation theology, the goals of which are on the same track as Marxism. Its magazine, the CCA News, is a carbon copy of the World Council's monthly magazine, One World, and is filled with articles about liberation and revolution--women against men, youth against elders, the poor against the wealthy, workers against owners, the landless against the landowners. This is why an anti-communist secular government could easily view the CCA as a communist front.

Even more serious than the CCA's radical politics, though, is its radical theology. Radical politics can cause physical death, but radical theology is far more dangerous because it leads to eternal death. An example of such radical theology was given in the report of the CCA general meeting in Chiang Mai. Consider the following quote from the CCA News:

"Later during the week, David Wells [American missionary to Thailand] expounded his thoughts on Christianity in rural Thailand...

"Mr. Wells said one's religion was not the measure of one's goodness or value as a creature of God. `We all have fallen into sin, into the brokenness of life, every religion and every person. People who say the way to salvation is Jesus Christ alone have to think about it carefully.'

"Cautiously Mr. Wells said he believed God was bigger than our concept through one religion. He knew God was revealed through Jesus Christ but that did not necessarily mean `we have it and they don't.'

"`People who believe in Jesus Christ are still in the midst of brokenness,' he said, adding that he believed God was working through Buddhism..." (CCA News, January/February, 1988, pages 18-19; Christian Conference of Asia)

The CCA included this in its report of the meeting and gave no indication that there was any problem with David Wells' theology. Obviously there is room for every sort of false teaching within the ecumenical movement, including the false teaching of universalism.

David Wells and many other ecumenists believe there is salvation within heathen religions. They confuse God's universal love for mankind, expressed in John 3:16, with universal salvation, which is denied by John 3:16. God loves the world and that is why the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross, but it is only those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ who receive eternal life and escape hell fire. The Bible repeats this truth so frequently that only those willfully blind could fail to see and understand it. The theme of the Gospel of John is faith, and again and again and again the Holy Spirit hammers home the essential truth that men must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved. Consider what the Lord Jesus Christ says in John 8:24--

"I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins." But what about those who have not heard, those who are following other religions, those who are believing in other gurus, other gods? This is what the Son of God said about that--

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber... Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture" (John 10:1,8,9).

The Lord Jesus Christ made a sharp distinction between His people and the people of the world. Consider His prayer in John 17--

"And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent... I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world... For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me... I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world... Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word" (John 17:3,6,8,14,20).

The Lord Jesus Christ tells us in this passage how people are saved--through hearing and believing the Word of God. There is simply no other way to be saved. It matters not how much we might think it unfair. It matters not what man thinks about the subject. It is God and not man who makes the decisions about life and death, heaven and hell. It is man's part to accept the Truth as God gives it in Holy Scripture. And the truth about salvation is this: All men are lost sinners because of Adam's rebellion, and only those who hear and believe the Gospel will be saved. The endless philosophying, fretting and questioning of the ecumenists will not change these solemn truths. Their questioning is a clever subterfuge to hide the stubbornness and unbelief of their hearts.

The wickedness of universalistic thinking is this: It lulls men into thinking people can be saved without being born again through faith in Christ. It hinders the bold, confrontational preaching of the Gospel which is the very instrumentality of conversion. "... it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe" (1 Corinthians 1:21).

Of all the errors of the ecumenical movement, none is more wicked, none more dangerous than universalism. Beware of those who question the fact that those who are following heathen religions--or no religion--have any possibility of being accepted by God unless they hear and believe the Gospel and are converted. The Bible's teaching is very narrow. Only through Jesus Christ can men approach God; only born again Christians will be saved. ("Digging in the Walls," O Timothy, Volume 6, Issue 8, 1989. O Timothy is a monthly magazine which is available by subscription from Way of Life Literature, 1701 Harns Road, Oak Harbor, Washington 98277. Subscription $20/yr.)