# Hope beyond hell by Gerry Beauchemin



## Mayflower (Jun 26, 2009)

Is anyone familiar with the next auther and book:

Hope beyond hell by Gerry Beauchemin
http://www.hopebeyondhell.net/

If you read the reviews on that site and also amazon, than this book has become the "standard" book on defense on universelism.
Many orthodox christians have turned from the orthodox view on eternal damnation to universalism by reading this book.

The auther has been missonary for many years, he describes himself with the follow words:

"....Let me be specific about my faith. I accept God’s love as most believers do, and God’s power and sovereignty as any staunch Calvinist. Jesus came in the flesh, lived and died for our sins, was resurrected, and is coming again. He is the only begotten Son of God, the only way of salvation. Christ and the Father are one. All things have been made by Him, for Him, and through Him. I worship Christ as I do the Father. In fact, I magnify His deity more than most, as I believe He fully destroys the devil’s works and accomplishes all His will for mankind! (Do you?) Only almighty God could do that. His blood is the only power in all the universe that cleanses from sin. Jesus Christ is Lord!..."

I could not find any critical reviews from reformed theologions or any orthodox christian which deals specifik with this book.

-----Added 6/26/2009 at 02:58:17 EST-----

Qoute:

"...God loves all people everywhere, without distinction or exception, with an unfailing love. There are no restrictions to His love. Christ died for all people - each and every person that ever lived. If you truly believe His love to be unlimited and unfailing, then choose your own term to describe it. It’s not about religious labels, it’s about God..."

One thing is clear for me, namely that Gerry Beauchemin gives a right understanding concerning unlimited atonement, namely that the blood has been effecting everybody. If you believe as 5 piont calvinst in limited atonement (like me) than the blood has also been effective but only towards Gods elected.


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## JonathanHunt (Jun 26, 2009)

Yes I am familiar with him. A friend tried to persuade me by asking me to read his book.

It is garbage.

Here is something by a greek scholar (a friend) who helped me out on the subject:



> Mr Beauchemin starts the section of his book 'pillars' with the word Aion. He focuses on Matthew 25.46. He admits that if it means what it says, his entire thesis is dead. However, he propounds the view that the entire Christian world since the year dot has been wrong and that all the greek scholars who translated the Bible were also wrong.
> 
> Of course, the word used in Matt 25.46 is not Aion (which indeed means fixed age) but Aionos. This adjective means 'eternal', whatever the book claims. Second, you don't get the meaning of a word by doing a word study of some other word in some other language that sometimes gets translated by your word. That's absurd. Third, many of the examples he gives of olam are verses where aionos is not used to translate olam in the LXX. Jonah 1:17, for example. Fourth, meaning is derived from context. Clearly, in context, the punishment of the wicked lasts as long as the righteous have life since the adjective aionos is the same for both. If we did have the option of translating the verse "And these will go away into punishment of limited duration, but the righteous into a life of limited duration," which translation would make the most sense in context?
> 
> ...



Being charitable, I would say that for this man, the traumatic experience of missions work, facing a situation where he was unable to comfort a person whose relative was likely in hell, has driven his diversion from the truth. neccessity is the mother of invention.


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## Jimmy the Greek (Jun 26, 2009)

I've never heard of him. He's not a theologian. Maybe his book is not seen as deserving a scholarly Reformed response. His supposed "Christian" universalism is nothing new, nor, I would suppose, are his arguments.

However, if he has some unique arguments and his book indeed becomes popular, then I would hope to see some Reformed answers come out.


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