Chapter 19

McClymond on the Johannine Texts—The Light That Draws All People

A. McClymond’s Argument: Johannine Dualism as the Death Blow to Universalism

If you have spent any time reading the Gospel of John, you have probably noticed something striking about the way John writes. He loves contrasts. Light and darkness. Truth and lies. Life and death. Belief and unbelief. The world above and the world below. The children of God and the children of the devil. From start to finish, the Fourth Gospel seems to divide reality into two columns, and McClymond believes this division is fatal to the universalist case.

McClymond’s argument runs like this: the Gospel of John presents a sharp, uncompromising dualism between those who believe in Jesus and those who do not. Those who believe have eternal life; those who refuse to believe are “condemned already” (John 3:18). Jesus himself draws a bright line between light and darkness, and that line, McClymond insists, is permanent. The Johannine writings, in his view, support a twofold outcome—eternal life for believers and eternal condemnation for unbelievers—and this stands as one of the clearest biblical witnesses against universal restoration.¹

McClymond points to several features of John’s theology. First, there is the language of condemnation in John 3:18–20, where Jesus says that “whoever does not believe stands condemned already” and that people love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. Second, McClymond notes John’s emphasis on the necessity of personal faith. Believing is not optional in the Fourth Gospel—it is the dividing line between life and death. Third, McClymond appeals to the broader pattern of “two ways” found throughout John: the sheep and the goats, the wheat and the tares, the saved and the lost.² This dualistic framework, McClymond argues, cannot be reconciled with universal salvation. If John portrays some people as permanently in darkness, permanently outside the fold, then universalism reads against the grain of the text.

McClymond’s broader framework strengthens his case. He has argued throughout The Devil’s Redemption that universalists routinely leap from God’s love to universal salvation “while omitting the messy part in between”—the incarnation, the call for faith, the atoning death, and the need for evangelism (V 1, p. 22).³ In his reading, the Johannine writings represent the “messy part.” Yes, God loves the world. Yes, Jesus came to save the world. But not everyone receives what Jesus offers, and John, according to McClymond, is very clear about that.

He also draws on the broader scholarly consensus that the sayings and parables of Jesus consistently point toward a twofold outcome—and that it is “quite difficult to develop a universalist argument from the sayings and parables of Jesus” (V 2, pp. 919–20).⁴ The Johannine material, McClymond believes, is simply more evidence for this position. John’s Jesus draws lines. And those lines, McClymond says, are eternal.

Let me say plainly: McClymond is not wrong that John’s Gospel contains dualistic language. It does. The contrast between light and darkness, between belief and unbelief, is one of the most prominent features of Johannine theology. Any serious reader of John must reckon with it. The question is whether McClymond has understood what that dualism actually means—and whether he has reckoned with the other half of John’s witness, which points in a very different direction.

B. Identifying Weaknesses: What McClymond Misses in John’s Gospel

McClymond’s reading of the Johannine texts suffers from a problem that runs through much of The Devil’s Redemption: selective attention. He highlights the texts that seem to support a permanent twofold outcome, and he either ignores or minimizes the texts that point toward universal restoration. In John’s Gospel, this selective reading is especially damaging, because the texts McClymond ignores are not peripheral. They are some of the most important declarations Jesus ever made.

Here is the core problem. McClymond treats John’s dualism as though it were metaphysical—as though John is describing two permanent, unchangeable categories of people: the saved and the damned, the children of light and the children of darkness, locked forever into their respective destinies. But that is not what John is doing. John’s dualism is ethical and eschatological. It describes the present condition of people who are either walking in the light or walking in darkness—not their final, irrevocable state.⁵

Think about what that means. When John says that those who do not believe are “condemned already” (John 3:18), he is describing their present condition, not issuing a verdict about their eternal destiny. The Greek word for “condemned” here is krinο—it means “judged.” The person who does not believe stands under judgment right now. But judgment in John’s Gospel is not the end of the story. It is a present reality that Jesus came to overcome. And the very next verse tells us how: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:17).⁶

This is the verse McClymond needs to explain, and he never adequately does. The purpose of Jesus’s coming is not condemnation. It is salvation. And the scope of that salvation is not “some people in the world” or “the elect within the world.” It is the world. The Greek word is kosmos, and John uses it repeatedly to describe the full scope of what God intends to redeem.

McClymond’s second weakness is that he treats Johannine dualism as a static picture when John clearly presents it as a dynamic one. People move. That is the whole point of the Gospel. The Samaritan woman begins in spiritual darkness and ends up proclaiming Jesus as Messiah (John 4). Nicodemus comes to Jesus “at night”—John’s symbol for spiritual darkness—and gradually moves toward the light over the course of the narrative (John 3, 7, 19).⁷ Thomas starts in doubt and ends with the most exalted confession in the entire Gospel: “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28). People who are in darkness do not have to stay in darkness. The light is stronger.

McClymond’s third weakness is the most glaring. He appeals to John’s dualism while ignoring what may be the single most explicit universalist statement Jesus ever made: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32). He cannot adequately explain the extraordinary promise in John 6:37–40 that Jesus will lose nothing of what the Father has given him. He does not wrestle with the fact that John the Baptist introduces Jesus as “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29)—not the sin of the elect, not the sin of believers, but the sin of the world. And he does not address the confession of the Samaritans that Jesus is “the Savior of the world” (John 4:42).⁸

These are not minor texts. They are central declarations in the Fourth Gospel. Any reading of John that highlights the dualistic passages while passing over these promises is a reading that has heard only half the witness.

Finally, McClymond fails to account for the trajectory of Johannine theology. John does not leave the reader in the darkness. The trajectory of the Fourth Gospel is always, relentlessly, from darkness toward light. From death toward life. From condemnation toward salvation. The prologue announces it: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). The Gospel ends with it: the risen Christ commissioning his disciples to carry that light into the world (John 20:21). The darkness is real. But it is not permanent. The light wins.⁹

C. The Universalist Response: The Full Witness of John’s Gospel

1. “The Lamb of God Who Takes Away the Sin of the World” (John 1:29)

The Gospel of John opens with one of the most sweeping christological statements in the entire Bible. John the Baptist sees Jesus approaching and declares: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).

Notice the scope. Not the sin of Israel. Not the sin of the elect. Not the sin of those who happen to believe. The sin of the world. The Greek here is unambiguous: tēn hamartian tou kosmou—the sin of the entire created order that has fallen into rebellion against God.¹⁰

And notice the verb. Jesus does not merely offer to take away the sin of the world. He does not attempt to take it away. He takes it away. The Greek verb airο is in the present tense, indicating ongoing, active, effective action. This is not a conditional promise. It is a declaration of what Jesus does. He removes sin from the world.¹¹

Now, if McClymond is right that the Johannine writings teach a permanent division between the saved and the damned, then we have a serious problem with John 1:29. If some portion of the world remains forever in sin, forever under condemnation, forever separated from God, then Jesus has not taken away the sin of the world. He has taken away the sin of part of the world. But that is not what John the Baptist says. He says the world.

The early church fathers noticed this. Ilaria Ramelli points out that in Johannine theology, Christ is presented as the one who bears and removes the sins of the entire cosmos, making purification universal in its intent and scope.¹² The declaration of John 1:29 sets the stage for everything that follows in the Fourth Gospel. Jesus has come for the world. Not part of it. All of it.

2. “The True Light, Which Enlightens Everyone” (John 1:9)

Before we leave the prologue, we need to notice another remarkable statement that McClymond passes over in silence. In John 1:9, the evangelist writes: “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”

Pay close attention to that word “everyone.” The Greek is panta anthrοpon—literally, “every human being.” This is not “every believer.” It is not “every elect person.” It is every human being, without exception. The true light—Jesus Christ himself—enlightens every single person who has ever lived.⁵⁵

What does this mean? At minimum, it means that no human being is completely beyond the reach of Christ’s light. Every person, no matter how deep in darkness, has been touched by the true light. The light may be resisted, ignored, or rejected for a time. John acknowledges this in the very next verses: “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him” (1:10–11). The rejection is real. But the light does not stop shining because it is rejected. The light keeps coming. It keeps reaching. It keeps enlightening.

The author of Universalism: Fact or Fiction notes that John 1:7 says John the Baptist came to bear witness about the light “that all might believe through him.” The English word “might” can give the impression of mere possibility, as though the outcome is uncertain. But the Greek construction points toward purpose and intended completion, not mere chance. The purpose of the Baptist’s witness, and ultimately of Christ’s own coming, is that all might believe. Not some. All.⁵⁶

Here we see the trajectory of Johannine theology already established in the prologue. The light enters the darkness. The darkness does not overcome it. The light enlightens every person. Some receive it immediately. Others resist. But the light does not give up. It keeps shining until the darkness is fully dispelled. And that trajectory leads straight to John 12:32, where the one who is the light promises to draw all people to himself.

3. “God So Loved the World” (John 3:16–17)

John 3:16 may be the most famous verse in the Bible. It appears on bumper stickers, billboards, and the face-paint of football fans. But its familiarity can blind us to what it actually says.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16–17).

Two things stand out immediately. First, the object of God’s love is the world. Not a select group within the world. The world. When God saw the full scope of human rebellion—the corruption, the violence, the idolatry, the cruelty—he loved it all. And he acted on that love by sending his Son.¹³

Second, the stated purpose of Jesus’s mission is explicitly not condemnation. Verse 17 could not be clearer: God did not send his Son to condemn the world. He sent his Son to save the world. The Greek is hina sοthē ho kosmos di’ autou—“in order that the world might be saved through him.” The purpose clause (hina) identifies the reason God acted. The reason was salvation. The scope was the world.

McClymond and other critics of universalism tend to focus on the word “whoever” (pas ho pisteuοn) in verse 16, arguing that this implies a condition: only those who believe will be saved. And they are right that faith is important in John’s theology. The universalist does not deny this. Faith in Christ is absolutely necessary for salvation. What the universalist affirms, and what McClymond denies, is that God is powerful and patient enough to bring every person to genuine, willing faith—whether in this life or beyond it.¹⁴

As James Beilby notes, the scriptural case for God’s universal love for all people is nicely summarized in John 3:16 itself. God’s love is not given only to the righteous but extends to sinners with whom he desires relationship. The natural tendency is to love only those who deserve it, but that is not the message of Scripture.¹⁵ The question the universalist asks is simple: if God’s love is genuinely for the whole world, and if God sent his Son specifically to save the whole world, then on what basis should we assume that God’s purpose will fail?

Here is where John 3:17 becomes crucial. Notice the verb. God sent his Son to save the world. Not to try to save the world. Not to make salvation possible for the world. To save it. If the result of Christ’s mission is that the majority of the world remains forever lost, then the mission has failed. And that is a conclusion that no serious reader of John’s Gospel should accept, because John’s entire narrative is about the triumph of God’s purpose through Jesus Christ.¹⁶

But what about the condemnation language in John 3:18–20? McClymond puts great weight on these verses, where Jesus says that the one who does not believe “stands condemned already” and that people “loved darkness rather than light.” These are serious words, and the universalist takes them seriously. But they describe a present condition, not a final destiny. The person who does not believe is under judgment right now. That is true. But the entire purpose of Christ’s coming, as John has just told us in verse 17, is to deliver people from that very condition. The condemnation is real. The rescue is also real—and the rescue is what Jesus came to accomplish.¹⁷

Think of it this way. Imagine a doctor who walks into a hospital ward full of gravely ill patients. The doctor announces: “I did not come here to pronounce these patients dead. I came here to heal them.” Now suppose a critic responded: “But some of these patients are already dying! You just said so yourself!” Would that be a good argument against the doctor’s stated purpose? Of course not. The fact that the patients are sick is precisely why the doctor is there. The sickness is real. But the doctor came to cure it.

That is exactly how John 3:16–20 works. The world is in darkness. People love darkness. They stand under condemnation. And God sent his Son into that very darkness, not to leave people there, but to save them out of it.

4. “All That the Father Gives Me Will Come to Me” (John 6:37–40)

In John 6, Jesus makes one of the most remarkable series of promises in the entire Gospel. And when you read them carefully, they create a very serious problem for McClymond’s position.

“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day” (John 6:37–39).

Three things are happening in this passage, and each one matters for our question.

First, Jesus says that everything the Father gives him will come to him. The verb is emphatic: will come. Not “might come.” Not “could come if they choose.” Will come. The Father’s giving is effective. It produces results.¹⁸

Second, Jesus says he will never cast out anyone who comes to him. The double negative in the Greek (ou mē ekbalο) is the strongest possible way of saying “absolutely never, under no circumstances.” There is no one who comes to Jesus whom Jesus will reject.

Third—and this is the crucial point—Jesus declares that the Father’s will is that he should lose nothing of all that the Father has given him. The Greek word for “nothing” is mēden—not one thing, not a single person. The Father’s will is zero loss.¹⁹

Now the question becomes: what has the Father given to Jesus? McClymond and the Reformed tradition typically answer: the elect. The Father has given the elect to Jesus, and Jesus will lose none of the elect. This keeps the promise safely limited. But is that what the text actually says?

Consider John 17:1–2, where Jesus prays: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.” Jesus has been given authority over all flesh—not some flesh, not the elect only, but all flesh. And his purpose is to give eternal life to all that the Father has given him. If the Father has given him authority over all flesh, and if the purpose of that authority is to bestow eternal life, then the scope of the “giving” extends far beyond any limited circle of the elect.²⁰

Ramelli draws attention to this passage, observing that in Johannine theology Jesus has been entrusted with every human being and desires to bestow eternal life upon every being the Father has given him. This corresponds directly to Paul’s declaration in 1 Timothy 2:4 that God desires all people to be saved.²¹

I. Howard Marshall, a careful New Testament scholar who was not himself a universalist, argued that the purpose of the “giving” language in John is not to limit the scope of salvation to a fixed group of elect, but to emphasize that salvation from start to finish is God’s gift. It does not lie under human control. A person who tries to gain eternal life on his own terms will fail because it has not been granted to him by the Father—but that is a statement about the source of salvation, not its limits.²²

And here is where John 6:44 becomes so important for the universalist case. Jesus says: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” The Calvinist tradition has always emphasized this verse as proof that humans cannot come to God on their own. The universalist agrees completely. No one can come to Christ apart from the Father’s drawing. We are helpless apart from grace. But the universalist then asks: does the Father draw everyone? And the answer is found in John 12:32, where Jesus promises that he will draw all people to himself. If no one can come unless drawn, and if Jesus will draw all, then the conclusion follows: all will eventually come.²³

George Hurd puts the two passages together precisely. John 6:44 establishes that no one comes to Christ apart from the Father’s effectual drawing. John 12:32 declares that Jesus will draw all to himself. In the present age, only some are being drawn—the elect, the firstfruits. But in the fullness of time, the drawing extends to all flesh.²⁴

Now add to this the Father’s explicit will that Jesus should lose nothing (John 6:39). If the Father wills zero loss, and if Jesus always does the Father’s will (John 6:38), then the outcome is clear. Jesus will not lose anyone the Father has given him. And the Father has given him authority over all flesh. The math leads to one conclusion: universal restoration.

5. “When I Am Lifted Up, I Will Draw All People to Myself” (John 12:32)

This is the text. If I had to point to one verse in the Gospel of John that most directly supports the universalist hope, it would be this one.

“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32).

The context is crucial. Jesus has just announced that “the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (12:23). He speaks of his death as a seed falling into the ground (12:24). He declares that the “ruler of this world will be cast out” (12:31). And then comes the climax: when he is lifted up on the cross, he will draw all people (pantas) to himself.²⁵

The word “all” here is pantas—the accusative plural of pas, meaning every single person without exception. Some interpreters, following the tradition represented by scholars like Leon Morris, have tried to limit the scope of this “all.” Morris, a highly respected conservative scholar, acknowledged that the expression “all people” was “something of a problem” for his position. His proposed solution was to read it as meaning that all those who are destined to be drawn will be drawn—reducing the magnificent promise to a tautology.²⁶

Thomas Talbott responded to Morris’s reading with devastating clarity. Why did Morris find the expression “all people” problematic? Not because of anything in the immediate context of John 12:32. Nothing in the surrounding verses limits the scope of the “all.” The problem was not the text. It was Morris’s Augustinian theological framework, which told him the text simply could not mean what it says. As Talbott observed, Morris’s interpretive move turned a magnificent prediction of triumph—“I will draw all people to myself”—into a hollow tautology: “I will draw to myself all those whom I draw to myself.”²⁷

That is not exegesis. That is eisegesis—reading a predetermined conclusion into the text rather than letting the text speak for itself.

Other scholars have tried a different approach, arguing that “all people” means “people from all nations” rather than every individual. In this reading, Jesus is saying that his death will draw people from every ethnic group, not that he will draw every single person. This reading has some appeal in the context of John 12, where Greeks have come seeking Jesus (12:20–22), suggesting that the scope of his mission is expanding beyond Israel.²⁸

But this reading has serious problems. As the author of Universalism: Fact or Fiction pointedly asks: if Jesus meant “people from all nations,” why didn’t he say that? He had the vocabulary to say it. He chose instead to say “all” (pantas). And the Greek text does not even include the word “people” (anthrοpous)—it simply says “all.” The addition of “people” in many translations is an interpretive decision, not a translation of what is actually there.²⁹

And the verb “draw” (helkyο or helkο) is itself deeply significant. We tend to think of “drawing” as gentle attraction—a soft pull, a wooing. But the same Greek word is used elsewhere in the New Testament for dragging a net full of fish (John 21:6, 11) and for dragging Paul and Silas into the marketplace (Acts 16:19). There is nothing passive or uncertain about this verb. It describes an irresistible force that accomplishes its purpose.³⁰

Hurd connects this directly to John 6:44: the same Greek word helkο appears in both passages. In John 6:44, no one can come to Christ unless the Father draws (helkysē) him. In John 12:32, Jesus declares that he will draw (helkysο) all to himself. The logic is clear: drawing is necessary for anyone to come to Christ, and Jesus promises to draw everyone. Therefore, everyone will come.³¹

One more thing about the context. Immediately before this promise, Jesus says: “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out” (John 12:31). The cross is the moment of cosmic judgment. Satan is dethroned. And what follows Satan’s defeat? The drawing of all people to Jesus. The cross does not merely create the possibility of universal salvation. It is the mechanism by which it happens. The cross defeats the enemy, and the risen Christ draws all people to himself.³²

Notice, too, that Jesus did not give a timeframe. He did not say “before death” or “in this age only.” The verb is future tense, expressing ongoing and certain action. The drawing has begun, but it is not complete. Some have already been drawn. Others have not yet been drawn. But the promise stands: all will be drawn. The timing is in God’s hands, not ours.³³

6. “The Savior of the World” (John 4:42; cf. 1 John 4:14)

After Jesus’s encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well, the people of her village come out to hear Jesus for themselves. After spending time with him, they make an extraordinary confession: “We know that this is indeed the Savior of the world” (John 4:42).

This is not a title the Samaritans would have used lightly. The Samaritans had their own religious traditions, their own temple, their own expectations of a deliverer. For them to call Jesus “the Savior of the world” meant something enormous. It meant that Jesus was not merely a Jewish Messiah, not merely a teacher of Israel, but the one who had come to rescue the entire world from its captivity to sin and death.³⁴

The same title appears in 1 John 4:14: “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.” This is not a conditional statement. The Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Not the Savior of some people in the world. Not the Savior of those who happen to believe in this lifetime. The Savior of the world.

Hurd observes that the Calvinist attempt to limit “world” to “the world of the elect” fails completely in John’s usage. John consistently uses “world” (kosmos) in contrast with the people of God, not as a synonym for them. When John writes that “the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one” (1 John 5:19), he is obviously not describing the elect. So when John calls Jesus “the Savior of the world,” the “world” in view includes precisely those who are not yet believers.³⁵

7. “God Is Love” and the Johannine Vision of God’s Nature

Before we leave the Johannine witness, we need to address one more dimension that McClymond overlooks, and it may be the most important of all. It is the Johannine declaration about God’s very nature.

“God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16).

This is not a casual observation. It is a statement about God’s essential being. And Talbott, in one of the most penetrating analyses of this text in the universalist literature, shows why it matters so much for our question.³⁶

Talbott points out that there are two other Johannine statements of exactly the same grammatical form: “God is light” (1 John 1:5) and “God is spirit” (John 4:24). No one disputes that these are statements about God’s essential nature. “God is spirit” means that God’s entire essence is spiritual. “God is light” means that there is no darkness in God at all—this is what he is, not merely what he chooses to do sometimes. If those statements describe God’s nature, then “God is love” must do the same. It is not merely that God happens to be loving, or that God is loving toward some people. Love is what God is.³⁷

Calvin, remarkably, recognized this. He wrote that the apostle’s statement is about God’s nature—that God is the very “fountain of love.” But then Calvin, realizing where this logic would take him, inexplicably reversed course and claimed that the statement only describes what God “is found to be by us”—that is, by the elect. Talbott calls this what it is: an explicit self-contradiction. Calvin said the text describes God’s nature, and then immediately denied that it describes God’s nature.³⁸

If God is love, then it is as impossible for God not to love someone as it is for him to exhibit darkness rather than light. This does not mean that God’s love never takes the form of judgment. It does—as any parent knows, love sometimes disciplines. But it means that God’s judgment is always an expression of love, never a departure from it. And love, by its nature, never gives up on the one it loves.

J. I. Packer once dismissed the universalist appeal to “God is love” by insisting that this statement cannot be used to question “the severity of God’s justice.” The universalist has no quarrel with this. God’s justice is severe. But justice that serves love is restorative justice. It aims to set things right, not to destroy the one being judged. And a God who is love cannot permanently abandon any creature he has made.³⁹

8. “I Did Not Come to Judge the World but to Save the World” (John 12:47)

One more Johannine text deserves attention. In John 12:47, Jesus says: “If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.”

This is staggering. Jesus explicitly says that his purpose is not judgment but salvation. And the scope of that salvation is, once again, the world. Not the church. Not the elect. The world.

McClymond’s framework requires the judgment texts in John to be the final word. But Jesus himself says they are not. The final word is salvation. Judgment is real—Jesus does not deny its reality. But judgment is not the purpose. It is the painful but necessary process through which salvation is accomplished. Think of a surgeon who causes pain not because he enjoys it but because the patient needs healing. The incision is real. The pain is real. But the purpose is restoration.⁴⁰

9. The Johannine Letters and the Scope of the Atonement

The Johannine epistles reinforce everything we have seen in the Gospel. In 1 John 2:1–2, the apostle writes: “If anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”

This text is one of the most explicit statements in the New Testament about the scope of Christ’s atoning work. Jesus is the hilasmos—the propitiation, the one who turns away God’s wrath—not only for the sins of believers but for the sins of the whole world. The phrase is emphatic: peri holou tou kosmou—“concerning the whole of the world.”⁴¹

If Christ is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world, then the sins of the whole world have been dealt with. This does not mean that everyone automatically receives the benefits of the atonement without faith. It means that the objective basis for reconciliation exists for every human being. The debt has been paid. The door is open. And as we have seen from John 12:32, Jesus will draw all people through that door.

Beilby notes that 1 Timothy 4:10 makes a closely parallel claim: God is “the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.” The word “especially” (malista) does not limit the first claim. You cannot affirm that God is the Savior of all people and then immediately deny it by limiting salvation to believers only. The word “especially” indicates that believers experience salvation now, in this age, in a special and full way. But the saving work extends beyond them to all people.⁴²

10. Johannine Dualism Rightly Understood: Ethical, Not Metaphysical

Now we can return to McClymond’s central claim about Johannine dualism and address it head-on.

Yes, John uses dualistic language. Light and darkness. Belief and unbelief. Life and death. Children of God and children of the devil. The universalist does not deny this. We take it seriously. But the question is: what kind of dualism is this?

McClymond reads it as metaphysical dualism—a permanent, ontological division between two categories of people who are forever fixed in their respective destinies. But John’s dualism is better understood as ethical and eschatological. It describes the present moral condition of people who are walking either toward God or away from God. It does not describe their final, irreversible state.⁴³

How do we know this? Because the people in John’s narrative move. Nicodemus starts in darkness and moves toward the light. The Samaritan woman starts in ignorance and moves toward faith. Thomas starts in doubt and arrives at worship. The man born blind moves from physical and spiritual darkness into seeing. The entire narrative arc of the Fourth Gospel is the story of people being drawn out of darkness into the light. The dualism is real, but it is not static. It is the starting point, not the ending point.⁴⁴

Even the harshest Johannine texts about unbelief describe a present condition that can change. When Jesus says “you are of your father the devil” (John 8:44), he is not making a metaphysical claim about the permanent essence of his listeners. He is describing their present spiritual allegiance. People who are under the devil’s influence can be freed from that influence. That is precisely what Jesus came to do: “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).

And the prologue of John’s Gospel tells us who wins this contest. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). The verb here can be translated “overcome” or “extinguished” or “comprehended.” However you translate it, the point is the same: the darkness has not defeated the light. The light wins. And if the light ultimately wins, then the darkness ultimately gives way. That is the trajectory of Johannine theology, and it points straight toward universal restoration.⁴⁵

11. “Whoever Believes in Him Should Not Perish”—What Does “Perish” Mean?

One of the most important Johannine words for our discussion is the Greek verb apollymi, often translated “perish” or “be lost.” It appears prominently in John 3:16 (“should not perish but have eternal life”) and in several other Johannine texts. McClymond and other critics of universalism assume that “perish” describes an irrevocable, permanent state—either eternal conscious torment or annihilation.

But apollymi has a wider range of meaning than that. In the Gospels, the same word is used for a coin that is “lost” (Luke 15:8–9), a sheep that has “strayed” (Luke 15:4–6), and a son who has “gone away” (Luke 15:24). In each of these cases—Jesus’s own parables—the thing that was “lost” (apollymi) was found. The coin was recovered. The sheep was brought home. The son returned. “Perishing” in Jesus’s usage is not necessarily permanent. It is a condition that can be reversed.⁴⁶

In John 6:39, Jesus says the Father’s will is that he should “lose nothing”—and the verb for “lose” is the same apollymi. This is significant. If the Father’s will is that Jesus should “lose nothing,” and if “perish” in John 3:16 means the same kind of “losing,” then the Father’s will directly addresses the perishing: his will is that nothing be permanently lost. Jesus came to seek and save the lost (apollymi)—and the Father’s will is that he succeed completely.

12. John’s Vision of “Eternal Life”—Quality, Not Just Duration

One final feature of Johannine theology strengthens the universalist reading. In John’s Gospel, “eternal life” (zοē aiοnios) is not primarily about duration. It is about quality—the quality of knowing God. “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).⁴⁷

Eternal life is knowing God. It begins now, in this life, for those who believe. But if eternal life is about knowing God, then the absence of eternal life is not knowing God. And not knowing God is precisely the condition that Jesus came to remedy. “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). The purpose of the incarnation is to bring the knowledge of God to those who do not yet have it—and thereby to give them life.

As we addressed in detail in Chapter 15, the term aiοnios does not necessarily mean “everlasting” in the sense of infinite duration. It means “pertaining to the age” or “of the age to come.” So zοē aiοnios is “the life of the age to come”—the quality of life that belongs to God’s coming kingdom. The universalist affirms that God intends every human being to share in that life. The question is not whether God wants it. It is whether God can accomplish it. And John’s Gospel answers that question with a resounding yes.⁴⁸

D. Counter-Objections and Responses

Objection 1: “John 3:36 says that whoever does not obey the Son will not see life, and the wrath of God remains on him. Doesn’t this teach permanent condemnation?”

This is a strong objection, and we should not minimize it. John 3:36 says: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”

The key word is “remains” (menei). McClymond might argue that this implies permanence—the wrath of God stays on the unbeliever forever. But menei simply means “abides” or “continues to rest upon.” It describes the unbeliever’s present and continuing state. As long as a person refuses to believe, the wrath of God rests upon them. This is true. But it does not say that they will always refuse to believe. It does not say the wrath can never be removed. It describes the current condition of unbelief and its consequences, not the permanent impossibility of change.⁴⁹

Remember the trajectory. The same Gospel that records John 3:36 also records Jesus’s promise to draw all people to himself (12:32), his declaration that the Father’s will is zero loss (6:39), and John the Baptist’s announcement that Jesus takes away the sin of the world (1:29). The wrath described in 3:36 is the present reality for the unbeliever. The drawing of 12:32 is the future hope for the same unbeliever. Both are true. The universalist simply affirms that the drawing will ultimately succeed.

Objection 2: “John 5:28–29 describes two resurrections—one to life and one to judgment. Doesn’t this prove a permanent twofold outcome?”

In John 5:28–29, Jesus says: “Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.”

The universalist does not deny this. There are two resurrections—or at least two different experiences of the resurrection. Those who have done good will be raised to life. Those who have done evil will be raised to judgment. The text is clear about this.

But notice what the text does not say. It does not say “resurrection of permanent, irrevocable judgment.” It says “resurrection of judgment” (anastasin kriseοs). Judgment is real and serious. But as we have argued throughout this book, judgment in the biblical framework is not the end of the story. It is the painful but necessary step toward restoration. God judges in order to heal. He disciplines in order to restore. As Hebrews 12:11 says, discipline “yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness” for those who have been trained by it (we addressed this in Chapter 22).⁵⁰

And notice that all who are in the tombs will hear Jesus’s voice. This is total. Every person who has ever died will be raised. The voice of Christ reaches everyone. And if the voice of Christ is the voice that “draws all people” (12:32), then even the resurrection of judgment is not the end. It is the beginning of the process by which those who resisted God are finally brought home.

Objection 3: “John 8:21 says ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ Doesn’t this imply some are permanently excluded?”

In John 8:21, Jesus tells the religious leaders: “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.” This sounds final. It sounds permanent.

But look at the audience. Jesus is speaking to specific people in a specific moment of confrontation. He is warning them that if they refuse to believe, they will die in their sins—and in that state, they cannot follow him. This is a warning, not a prophecy of their final destiny. Warnings are meant to be heeded. If the warning were a fixed decree—if they were already permanently lost—then there would be no point in Jesus warning them at all.⁵¹

And notice the word “cannot” (ou dynasthe). They cannot come in their present condition—dead in their sins. But Jesus himself has already declared what he does about that condition: he takes away the sin of the world (1:29). He draws all people to himself (12:32). He loses nothing (6:39). The “cannot” of 8:21 describes their present inability apart from grace. It does not describe the final, permanent impossibility of grace reaching them.

Objection 4: “Doesn’t John 17:12 say that Judas was ‘lost’ and ‘the son of destruction’? Doesn’t this prove at least one person is beyond saving?”

In his great prayer, Jesus says: “While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled” (John 17:12).

This is a weighty text, and we should handle it honestly. Jesus says Judas was “lost” (apοleto—from apollymi, the same verb we discussed earlier). And he calls Judas “the son of destruction” (ho huios tēs apοleias).

But remember what we said about apollymi. The same word is used for the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the lost son in Luke 15—and all three were found. Being “lost” in Jesus’s vocabulary is not necessarily permanent. It is a condition that God actively works to reverse. Furthermore, the phrase “son of destruction” describes Judas’s present role and character, not his eternal destiny. Paul uses the same phrase in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 to describe the man of lawlessness, and neither text necessarily implies permanent, irrevocable damnation.⁵²

Hurd makes an important point about Jesus’s prayer in John 17. Although the prayer begins with the immediate disciples, it expands to include “those who will believe in me through their word” (17:20), and then expands further to encompass the purpose that “the world may believe” (17:21). The trajectory of the prayer is not narrowing but widening—from the disciples, to future believers, to the whole world. Even in the prayer where Judas is mentioned as lost, the ultimate horizon is the belief of the world.⁵³

Objection 5: “Reading universalism into John requires ignoring the clear binary language of the Gospel. John sees two categories: believers and unbelievers. Period.”

This objection mistakes a description of the present for a prescription of the future. Yes, John describes two categories: those who presently believe and those who presently do not. The universalist affirms this distinction without reservation. Right now, in this present age, there are people walking in the light and people walking in the darkness. That is the reality.

But the universalist also affirms what John himself says about the future: that Jesus will draw all people to himself (12:32), that the Father’s will is zero loss (6:39), that Jesus takes away the sin of the world (1:29), that God sent his Son to save the world (3:17), and that Jesus is the Savior of the world (4:42). These are not peripheral texts. They are among the most important declarations in the entire Gospel.

The binary language in John describes the current state of affairs. The universalist texts in John describe the ultimate outcome. Both are true. The mistake is to treat the current state of affairs as though it were the permanent, final reality. It is not. The current reality is that some believe and some do not. The future reality, according to Jesus himself, is that he will draw all people to himself.

Objection 6: “The universalist reading of John cherry-picks the hopeful texts and ignores the hard ones. A fair reading must give equal weight to both.”

This objection sounds reasonable, and I want to take it seriously. It is the same objection that Balthasar raised when he spoke of the “dual strands” in the New Testament—one strand pointing toward universal salvation and another pointing toward a permanent twofold outcome. McClymond endorses this framework and argues that the “particularist” strand should govern the interpretation of the “universalist” strand (V 2, pp. 919–20).⁵⁷

But here is the problem with this approach. It assumes that the two strands are equally balanced—that the texts pointing toward universal salvation and the texts pointing toward permanent condemnation carry the same weight and must simply be held in tension. That assumption is false, for two reasons.

First, the universalist texts in John are explicit statements of divine purpose and promise. God sent his Son to save the world (3:17). Jesus will draw all people to himself (12:32). The Father’s will is zero loss (6:39). Jesus is the Savior of the world (4:42). He takes away the sin of the world (1:29). These are not ambiguous texts. They are not texts that require elaborate theological gymnastics to extract a universalist reading. They say what they say, plainly and directly.

Second, the “particularist” texts in John are descriptions of present conditions, not declarations of final outcomes. People stand condemned right now (3:18). Some people love darkness rather than light right now (3:19). Some refuse to believe right now (5:40). These are real, serious, and tragic descriptions of the human condition. But none of them include the words “forever,” “permanently,” or “irrevocably.” They describe where people are. They do not say that people must stay there.

So the two strands are not equally balanced. The universalist strand consists of promises about what God will do. The particularist strand consists of descriptions of what people are doing. Promises about divine action outweigh descriptions of human behavior, because God is more powerful than human resistance. That is the whole point of John’s Gospel. The light is stronger than the darkness. Love is stronger than hate. Life is stronger than death. God’s purpose is stronger than human rebellion.⁵⁸

Beilby, while not himself a committed universalist, acknowledges that each of the major universalist texts, taken on its own terms, provides real support for the belief in universal salvation. The challenge for the anti-universalist is not merely to assert that other texts exist but to explain how the clear language of promise in texts like John 12:32 and 3:17 can mean something less than what they plainly say.⁵⁹

The universalist is not cherry-picking. The universalist is reading John’s Gospel from beginning to end and letting the promises speak with the same authority as the warnings. If anything, it is McClymond who cherry-picks in the other direction—he amplifies the warnings and mutes the promises. He turns up the volume on the condemnation texts and turns it down on the salvation texts. That is the real selectivity at work, and the Fourth Gospel will not allow it.

Conclusion

McClymond believes the Johannine writings support a permanent twofold outcome. But when we read John’s Gospel and letters carefully—without selective attention, without filtering out the texts that point toward universal salvation—the picture that emerges is very different from what McClymond presents.

John’s Gospel tells us that the true light enlightens every person (1:9). It tells us that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (1:29). It tells us that God loved the world so much that he sent his Son to save it (3:16–17). It tells us that the Father’s will is that Jesus should lose nothing of all that has been given to him (6:39). It tells us that Jesus will draw all people to himself through the power of the cross (12:32). It tells us that Jesus came not to judge the world but to save it (12:47). It tells us that Jesus is the Savior of the world (4:42). It tells us that he is the propitiation not for our sins only but for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2). And it tells us that God is love (1 John 4:8)—not that God happens to love, but that love is who God is, at the deepest level of his being.

The dualistic language is real. The warnings about judgment are serious. The universalist does not wave them away. But the dualism describes the present, not the future. The warnings describe what happens to those who resist God, not their permanent destiny. And the overwhelming trajectory of Johannine theology—from the prologue to the final commission—is the triumph of light over darkness, life over death, love over everything that opposes it.

McClymond has heard the warnings in John. But he has not heard the promises. And when you hear the promises—really hear them, in all their breathtaking scope—they point unmistakably toward the day when the one who was lifted up will have drawn all people to himself, and the Savior of the world will have accomplished the mission for which the Father sent him.

In the next chapter, we will turn to the Pauline texts that McClymond believes undermine the universalist case—and we will show, once again, that the cumulative witness of Scripture points not toward a divided eternity, but toward the reconciliation of all things in Christ. The Johannine witness and the Pauline witness are not in conflict. Together, they proclaim the same staggering truth: that God’s love is wider, deeper, and more relentless than anything we have dared to imagine. Together, they testify that the one who created all things in love has entered his creation in the flesh, borne its sins in his body, defeated the powers of darkness on the cross, and now draws all people irresistibly toward himself. That is not wishful thinking. That is the witness of Scripture.

The light shines in the darkness. And the darkness has not overcome it. It never will.⁵⁴