4. Still another passage that is urged is Eph. 1:9, 10, where we read: +"Having made known unto us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth."+ Here it is urged that things in heaven and things in earth are to be summed up in Christ. This is true, but it should be noticed that the Holy Spirit has specifically omitted here the phrase that is found in Phil. 2:10, the "_things under the earth_," that is the abode of the lost, so this passage, so far from suggesting that the lost ones in hell will be restored, suggests exactly the opposite thing. There is then certainly nothing in this passage to militate even inferentially against the plain statements we have been studying.
5. One more passage that is urged against the doctrine we have been studying remains to be considered, that is 1 Cor. 15:22. Here we read, +"For as in Adam all died, so also in Christ shall all be made alive."+ It is urged in connection with this passage that we are distinctly told here that all who die in Adam, that is every human being, shall be made alive in Christ, and that "made alive" means "obtain eternal life," or "be saved." For years I thought that this was the true interpretation of this passage, and for that reason in part, I held and preached at that time that all men ultimately, some time, somewhere, somehow, would be brought to accept Jesus Christ and be saved; but when I came to study the passage more carefully I saw that this was a misinterpretation of the passage. Every passage in the Bible, or in any other book, must be interpreted in its context. The whole subject that Paul is talking about in this chapter is not eternal life, not the immortality of the soul, but _the resurrection of the body_, and all this passage declares is that as all lose physical life in Adam, so also all will obtain a resurrection of the body in Christ. Whether that resurrection of the body is a resurrection to everlasting life or a resurrection to shame and everlasting contempt (Dan. 12:2) depends entirely upon what men do with the Christ in whom they get it. There is absolutely nothing here to teach universal salvation. It only teaches a universal resurrection, resurrection of the wicked as well as of the righteous.