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The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

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    VII. Richmond’s Roberts-Immortality a Gift, Not a Possession

    Dr. HAROLD ROBERTS, 6464) HAROLD ROBERTS (1896-), Methodist, trained at University College, Bangor, and Wesley House Cambridge. After pastoral work he became professor of systematic theology andPhilosophy, Wesley College. He then became dean of the Faculty of Theology, University of London (1953-). He was on the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches (1954-), president of the Methodist Conference (1957-1958), and principal of Richmond College, Surrey, since 1955. professor of systematic theology and philosophy of religion at Richmond College, Surrey, England, gave the Fernley-Hartley Lecture for 1954, which immediately after was published as Jesus and the Kingdom of God. In this he sets forth man’s hope of immortality to be as a “gift of God,” not through an inherent or “natural immortality of the soul.” It is dependent upon the grace of God and received through the resurrection. Here is Roberts’ succinct statement:CFF2 880.5

    “Life in the Kingdom of God is the gift of God. It cannot be claimed or earned. It is a gift to be received in humility and gratitude-‘Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven’ (Mt 188). If the teaching of Jesus can be interpreted as implying universal survival, it has nothing to do with the belief that man by nature inherits eternal life. The doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul, when advanced by Christian thinkers, is the outcome, not of reflection upon the Christian revelation of God, but upon the nature of the soul considered apart from that revelation.CFF2 881.1

    “Eternal life, or life in a divine dimension, in this world and in the world to come is dependent on the grace of God. We are not born by nature into this life, but raised to it by the power of God. What Christianity offers is not the promise of immortality through the possession by man of some element within his constitution which is imperishable, but the assurance of being raised together with Christ through the complete submission of mind and body to God’s kingly Rule. The Christian doctrine of the future life is a doctrine of resurrection, and resurrection is the free gift of God.” 6565) Harold Robert1s’ berts, Jesus and the Kingdom of God, pp. 107, 108. (Italics supplied.)CFF2 881.2

    Dr. Roberts repudiates Universalism, and does not preclude the “annihilation” of the wicked, or the concept of “conditional immortality.” He insists that “eternal life is the gift of God.” 6666 Ibid., pp. 105. 106.CFF2 881.3

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