1 Timothy 2:3-6 ESV 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.
It seems to me that God's sovereign decree is that the elect shall certainly be saved and the rest shall receive justice. However, God's desire is for all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth, the elect will do so by God's irresistible grace of regeneration and perseverence in faith in Christ from the Holy Spirit. The rest are called to repentance and faith of their own free wills. It is a testiment to man's wickedness that none of them choose to repent and believe in Christ. So essentially the atonement of Christ on the cross was sufficient for all men but only applied to the elect therefore is it universal in sufficiency but limited in scope of application, so the doctrine of limited atonement stands but not because Christ did not die for all people but because irresistible grace to salvation that applies the atonement was limited to the elect. So the death of Christ for the sins of all people justifies the elect because the elect believes and condemns the reprobate because the reprobate did not believe on the Son of God.
John 3:18 ESV 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
The below is quoted from C.H. Spurgeon in regards to this passage:
"There will be a dreadful hell as well as a glorious heaven, and there is no decree to the contrary.
What then? Shall we try to put another meaning into the text than that which it fairly bears? I trow not. You must, most of you, be acquainted with the general method in which our older Calvinistic friends deal with this text. "All men," say they,—"that is, some men": as if the Holy Ghost could not have said "some men" if he had meant some men. "All men," say they; "that is, some of all sorts of men": as if the Lord could not have said "all sorts of men" if he had meant that. The Holy Ghost by the apostle has written "all men," and unquestionably he means all men. I know how to get rid of the force of the "alls" according to that critical method which some time ago was very current, but I do not see how it can be applied here with due regard to truth. I was reading just now the exposition of a very able doctor who explains the text so as to explain it away; he applies grammatical gunpowder to it, and explodes it by way of expounding it. I thought when I read his exposition that it would have been a very capital comment upon the text if it had read, "Who will not have all men to be saved, nor come to a knowledge of the truth." Had such been the inspired language every remark of the learned doctor would have been exactly in keeping, but as it happens to say, "Who will have all men to be saved," his observations are more than a little out of place. My love of consistency with my own doctrinal views is not great enough to allow me knowingly to alter a single text of Scripture. I have great respect for orthodoxy, but my reverence for inspiration is far greater. I would sooner a hundred times over appear to be inconsistent with myself than be inconsistent with the word of God. I never thought it to be any very great crime to seem to be inconsistent with myself; for who am I that I should everlastingly be consistent? But I do think it a great crime to be so inconsistent with the word of God that I should want to lop away a bough or even a twig from so much as a single tree of the forest of Scripture. God forbid that I should cut or shape, even in the least degree, any divine expression. So runs the text, and so we must read it, "God our Savior; who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth."
--C.H. Spurgeon
This has always been one of those texts used to "refute" the doctrines of grace, especially the idea of particular redemption. I think the way you have explained the passage is correct, and your thoughts were carefully worded. If I may - we can explore another aspect of this text. Namely, what does Paul mean by "desires all men to be saved." If this is what God desires, then why doesn't it happen?
It is not good enough to simply say, as the Arminians do, that it doesn't happen because God gives priority (or sovereignty) to our free wills rather than His decree and therefore God is limited by us. This completely misses the point. All orthodox Christians, whether Calvinist or Arminian, believe that God has the basic attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. This needs to be appreciated, because a corollary of that is that God is sovereign over all things, and that His will cannot be compromised (Rom. 9:19). The opposite of the statement in the Westminster Confession of Faith that God has "ordained whatsoever comes to pass" is not classical Arminianism or orthodox Christianity, it is Open Theism at best and atheism at worst.
I like the way the ESV and the NASB render the greek as "desires" because that gets to the heart of the matter. This is similar to what God spoke through the prophets "Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the LORD God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?" (Ezek. 18:23). Clearly these passages are not speaking of God's sovereign will of decree, but they are speaking of God's will of complacency. There are at least three ways that the Biblel speaks of God's will
1.) God's sovereign will of decree
2.) God's preceptive will
3.) God's will of complacency
The third one, God's will of complacency, is what things God takes pleasure in, the things He enjoys, but don't necessarily come to pass. Sin is an example of something that pains God, in a sense, but is still allowed to occur. Clearly it would be "pleasing" to God, in that same sense, for all men to be saved, but that obviously doesn't happen. It is not something that He has decreed sovereignly from the foundation of the world.
__________________ Something that sounds cool should go here...
If I may - we can explore another aspect of this text. Namely, what does Paul mean by "desires all men to be saved." If this is what God desires, then why doesn't it happen?
The third one, God's will of complacency, is what things God takes pleasure in, the things He enjoys, but don't necessarily come to pass. Sin is an example of something that pains God, in a sense, but is still allowed to occur. Clearly it would be "pleasing" to God, in that same sense, for all men to be saved, but that obviously doesn't happen. It is not something that He has decreed sovereignly from the foundation of the world.
I agree with what you said above. That is my understandign of it as well. I know that we can't really wrap our minds around God's way of thinking but what you have said above is I believe as good as we can do.
"I cannot tell you why God permits moral evil, neither can the ablest philosopher on earth, nor the highest angel in heaven. This is one of those things which we do not need to know."
--C.H. Spurgeon
"And so we will say no more about the matter, but just go on to the more practical part of the text. God's wish about man's salvation is this,—that men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Men are saved, and the same men that are saved come to a knowledge of the truth. The two things happen together, and the two facts very much depend upon each other. God's way of saving men is not by leaving them in ignorance. It is by a knowledge of the truth that men are saved; "
--C.H. Spurgeon
"Unable to be careless, and unable to find comfort in false confidences, some poor agitated minds are driven into a wide and stormy sea without rudder or compass, with nothing but wreck before them. "There is no hope for me," says the man. "I perceive I cannot save myself. I see that I am lost. I am dead in trespasses and sins, and cannot stir hand or foot. Surely now I may as well go on in sin, and even multiply my transgressions. The gate of mercy is shut against me; what is the use of fear where there is no room for hope?" At such a time, if the Lord leads the man to a knowledge of the truth, he perceives that though his sins be as scarlet they shalt be as wool, and though they be red like crimson they shall be as white as snow. That precious doctrine of substitution comes in—that Christ stood in the stead of the sinner, that the transgression of his people was laid upon him, and that God, by thus avenging sin in the person of his dear Son, and honoring his law by the suffering of the Savior, is now able to declare pardon to the penitent and grace to the believing. Now, when the soul comes to know that sin is put away by the atoning blood; when the heart discovers that it is not our life that saves us, but the life of God that comes to dwell in us; that we are not to be regenerated by our own actions, but are regenerated by the Holy Ghost who comes to us through the precious death of Jesus, then despair flies away, and the soul cries exultingly, "There is hope. There is hope. Christ died for sinners: why should I not have a part in that precious death? He came like a physician to heal the sick: why should he not heal me? Now I perceive that he does not want my goodness, but my badness; he does not need my righteousness, but my unrighteousness: for he came to save the ungodly and to redeem his people from their sins. I say, when the heart comes to a knowledge of this truth, then it is saved from despair; and this is no small part of the salvation of Jesus Christ. A saving knowledge of the truth, to take another line of things, works in this way. A knowledge of the truth shows a man his personal need of being saved."
--C.H. Spurgeon
I think there's a basic moral desire on God's part that all men should come. They're supposed to come. They are properly summoned, they are under moral obligation to come. The fact that none come of their own corrupted wills, as you've said results in a condemnation of them all.
By God's choice He changes people to come. It's not everybody; it's a remnant. God has no obligation to save people. We're not worth His time. None of us are. Yet He does.
As a result of His universal moral desire, God calls on everyone to come and be saved. Yet God summons His people by re-creating them in New Birth, and then they inevitably answer His call. In Greek a "summons" and a "call" are the same thing.
__________________ "... not an unconcerned sitting of God in heaven, from which He merely observes the things that are done in the world; but that all-active and all-concerned seatedness on His throne above, by which He governs the world which He Himself hath made." John Calvin regeneration does not act in people as if they were blocks and stones; nor does it abolish the will and its properties or coerce a reluctant will by force, but spiritually revives, heals, reforms Canons of Dordt, 1.16
"Have I become your enemy by telling the truth?" Paul
A friend of mine just sent me the following earlier this week:
I often hear it argued that God is not willing that any should perish. Often this is argued from 1 Timothy 2:4.
1 Timothy 2:3-4 This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires (thelo) all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
The reformed exegesis of this passage has been gone over plenty of times, so I have no desire to do it here. My real question is how the non Calvinist view reconciles that with John 5:21.
John 5:21 "For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes (thelo).
If God truly desires the salvation of every single individual, then why does the Son not give them life? He says He gives it to whomever He desires. Do the Father and Son have conflicting desires regarding to whom they do and do not wish to give life?
Even further, if the Son giving life to whom He desires is contingent upon the choice of man, then doesn't it follow from Jesus' comparison (just as/even so) that the Father's resurrection of the dead must also be contingent on the choice of the individual whom He desires to resurrect?
__________________ “Were it not that God had chosen some, Heaven would have none!" Elder D.J. Ward
This is one of those things which we do not need to know."
Linear Mode
