02.75. All Shall Be Righteous
75. ALL SHALL BE RIGHTEOUS.
"Your people also shall be all righteous: they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified" (Isaiah 60:21). Who are his people?
"You shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people FROM THEIR SINS" (Matthew 1:21). His people are sinners, and as "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God," all men are sinners, and all are "his people." "All souls are his," and though all have gone out of the way in sin, all are to return to willing obedience.
"I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear, surely shall say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength" (Isaiah 45:23-24). And that word shall be fulfilled:
"It shall not return unto me void; but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11).
Hence we read:
"I shall give you the heathen for your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession" (Psalms 2:8). "You have given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17:2-3). "And he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the WHOLE WORLD" (1 John 2:2). "He gave himself a ransom for ALL" (1 Timothy 2:6). "He tasted death for EVERY MAN" (Hebrews 2:9).
Jesus foresaw and announced this when he said:
"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth (crucified), will draw all men unto me" (John 12:32). "All that the Father gives me shall come to me; and him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37). This explains the meaning of such passages as these:
"All nations whom you have made shall come and worship before you" (Psalms 86:9). "Unto you shall all flesh come" (Psalms 65:2). "All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord" (Psalms 22:27). "And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them, unto the greatest of them, says the Lord, and I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more" (Jeremiah 31:34). "For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell; and having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven" (Colossians 1:19-20).
Archbishop Newcome and Prof. Stuart say "all things" here mean "all intelligent beings." Thus all souls are to be converted to God, and universal holiness will prevail.