Set Apart In Christ

I’ve had reason lately to contemplate the suggestion of universal salvation – that is, everyone will be saved in the end. No need for repentance, conversion or any sense of morality, you’re just “in”. I’ve been thinking about this for no other reason than I take the words of The Army’s sixth doctrine very seriously… “made an atonement for the whole world”. Similarly, I look at passages such as Titus 2:11; “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people” (ESV), and ask myself the question “What does it mean to say “all people?”. How do we address that? Do we actually mean, “the whole world” or do we rationalise it in some way as needing a caveat clause: only those who go through some “initiation process” of some kind “get in” (be that a “sinners prayer” or otherwise)? I recognise that there is a fairly weighty scriptural basis for the suggestion that some people are “in” and some people are “out”. The Bible does speak of a place of punishment, and a place of rewar