Huey Lewis and the News When the Time Has Come Describes Universalism

Huey Lewis and the News' song When the Time Has Come really says quite a bit about the end times of the world/universe, or eschaton (as I mentioned last time).

Image source: http://espngrantland.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/gl_g_hlts_57611.jpg?w=524

These lyrics will be looked at.

So don't you worry about a thing
Cause you know that train is gonna run
You will be on it
Not just for some
We'll all be on it
From here to kingdom come
When the time has come

The "kingdom" is heaven. "We'll all be on it" says that everyone will go to heaven. This is Universalism.

Jesus didn't teach this. There are quite a lot of places where Jesus mentions hell; I'll just point to Matthew 25: 31 and on.

[Jesus said,] "Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’ And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." (Matthew 25: 44-46)

"Eternal punishment" is commonly referred to as hell. So, according to what is revealed by Jesus, we won't "all be on" the "train" from "here to kingdom come".

Huey should tell Madonna. (The one in the picture, that is.)

The Wolverine Part II

Here is the last part, Wolverine Part I.



In the last post, I gave one reason why living forever in heaven could be a good thing.

In this post, I would like to give the other. The second reason is that the other possible outcome of death is that we could end up in the other place, hell.

So, whether we like it or not, when we die, we either have everlasting life or, essentially, everlasting death.

This is not meant to scare or tick-off people. If that was the case, I might as well say that we are given the gift of life. Life just is, we didn't create it. Well, life after death just is too. The difference is, we get a say about what happens after life in this fallen universe since we have free will.

That's why Jesus came to redeem all of humanity on the cross. That's why he rose from the dead. That's why He commissioned the Church to go and make disciples of all nations through baptism.

Thank you God, since we can't do it all on our own, that is, get to heaven. We just have to respond to His call to discipleship in His body, the Church.