The Biblical Universalism series

Welcome to the Biblical Universalism series. This series of articles is my (Drew Costen’s) free Biblical Universalism eBook in HTML format, just laid out in a slightly different arrangement from the way the chapters in the book are. And while I’d recommend reading the eBook rather than the articles (since it’s more up to date than the articles are), they are still available for those who prefer to read articles on a website to an eBook in the PDF or ePUB formats that the book itself is available in.

Before you do read the articles, however, there are some instructions that you need to be aware of, so please read them carefully first:

  1. Read the articles yourself. If I, or someone else, sent you a link to this series of articles, please make sure that you’re the one who actually reads them. I’ve spoken with people who were too lazy to actually read what’s written on this site and who embarrassed themselves by asking so-called “AI” services for a summary of what they were sent the link to instead, and as one might expect, the so-called “Artificial Intelligence” inevitably gave them an incredibly bad summary, making it obvious that they hadn’t taken the time to study for themselves, based on the fact that they were still entirely unaware of what we Biblical Universalists actually believe the Bible teaches about whatever the topic happened to be, not to mention why we believe it teaches what we believe it does about the topic, which was made obvious by the fact that all they could do was reference the same so-called “proof texts” that everyone gives and that I’d already explained our interpretations of — not to mention repeat the same bad arguments that I’d already refuted — in whatever it was they were sent, without being able to tell me what our interpretations of their “proof texts” even are after I followed up with them (and they eventually had to admit to using “AI” rather than doing the work themselves). So if that’s something you’re tempted to do, please don’t be lazy, but rather go “study to shew thyself approved” instead.
  2. Don’t be impatient and simply skim through the articles quickly, or just search for passages you’re curious to learn our interpretations of (by “our,” I mean not only my own interpretations, but the common interpretations of Scripture that the other Biblical Universalists I originally learned the doctrines that I laid out in this series from as well). If you read the whole series carefully from beginning to end, and if God permits it, you’ll come to understand what it is that we believe about the topics covered in this series and why we do. But if you get impatient and search for passages you want to know our interpretations of, you’ll almost certainly miss some of the crucial information required to properly understand what the interpretations we hold to are and why, and what you find probably won’t make sense anyway if you do so.
  3. Don’t stop partway into the series to try to argue with me, or to complain about a point you disagree with, as many have tried to do when reading previous editions of these articles (and I likely will test you to confirm that you have indeed read the whole series before responding to what you have to say if you do try to tell me we’re wrong without reading it through to the end, including, but not necessarily limited to, requiring you to give your answers to the various questions I ask the reader throughout the series of articles, which are questions that you’d need to give strong answers to in order to be able to say you refuted the scriptural interpretations and arguments I made in the articles anyway; and if you do reach the end of the series and still disagree with the conclusions in it, you’ll still need to have good answers to those questions before it can be said that you have truly considered said interpretations and arguments, so please be sure to record all your answers to each question in the articles as you read them if you do still think we’re wrong as you get to each one of them). Outside of evangelism, at this point I generally won’t discuss much about theology at all with someone who isn’t already familiar with all of our interpretations of Scripture related to the topics covered in this series of articles, since I just don’t have the time or energy to waste arguing with people who aren’t actually serious about understanding why it is that the people they disagree with believe what they do, and experience has taught me that anyone who won’t carefully read this whole series isn’t actually serious about learning what our interpretations of Scripture really are at all, but rather they simply want to say that we’re wrong (and I see no reason to waste any time on them), so please be sure to follow these instructions — again, meaning read this entire series of articles carefully, starting at the beginning and reading all the way through to the end, and write down your answers to the questions I ask throughout this series if you disagree with me about something — before even considering discussing anything related to the topics I covered in it with me; because if you don’t, I’ll probably just refer you right back to the articles. One of the reasons I originally wrote the eBook these articles are based on in the first place was so I wouldn’t have to keep repeating myself over and over again, and since any thorough discussion of soteriology would have to cover pretty much all of the points in the articles anyway, it saves me time by only having to explain our interpretations of Scripture once, and it also saves you time because you can find our primary arguments and relevant interpretations in one place and don’t have to go back-and-forth with me (or whoever sent it to you) to learn what I’d just be repeating from this very series anyway (and in order to convince any of us that our interpretations of the passages related to this topic are incorrect, you’d first have to know what all of our interpretations of the relevant passages actually are, which would require you to learn everything covered throughout the entire series of articles). Besides, it will take you far less time to read this whole thing than it took me to write it, so again, don’t be lazy.

I should also quickly discuss the Bible translation that I used throughout these articles. You see, A) there are a number of Christians out there who won’t consider scriptural references from anything other than this one particular translation, B) it’s still one of the most popular and recognizable Bible translations, C), it means I don’t have to worry about copyright when quoting Scripture, not to mention D) whether or not God actually did perfectly preserve Scripture in English the way many Christians think He promised to do, for reasons I’m not going to get into here, I personally believe it’s not only the best of the various less literal English translations of Scripture (by which I mean Bible versions that aren’t extremely literal translations of the original Hebrew and Greek the way versions such as the YLT — meaning Young’s Literal Translation — and others like it are), but that it’s the best English translation of Scripture overall (even though it’s a very figurative translation in many places, I believe it’s still the best English Bible version one can use, at least once they learn how to interpret it carefully), which is why all scriptural references in this book are from the KJB (the King James Bible), also known as the KJV (the King James Version) and the AV (the Authorized Version). That being said, if you don’t like the King James Bible, please feel free to look up the supporting references throughout the footnotes and the body of the book in whichever Bible version you prefer, as I wrote this book to be accessible to everyone, not just King James Bible Believers (which is the label that most people who are commonly referred to as KJV-Onlyists, and even certain people who are sometimes called KJV-Mostlyists, use for themselves — myself included), and the interpretations and arguments that I provided in this book can technically be shown to be true using nearly any English translation of Scripture. And along those lines, I should also point out that some of the creators of the supporting material I linked to do use other Bible versions themselves, and many of them are not fans of the KJB the way I am (in fact, some of them believe it to be quite badly translated), but I still want you to read their articles and books, or to watch their videos, even if you are a King James Bible Believer, in order to learn more details that I didn’t have the time to get into here myself. Speaking of those footnotes, please keep in mind that just because I link to specific articles, books, or videos doesn’t mean that I agree with everything their creators, writers, and/or publishers believe and/or teach. In some cases, I link to them for the sole reason that they happen to have better supporting material on a specific point than anybody else I’ve found so far when it comes to proving the points made in this series of articles.

Biblical Universalism Articles