HelpyHelperton said:
As it stands, it fits perfectly with passages like this [1 Ti 2:1-4]
context friend.
Exactly, context. Let us look, therefore, at the full context of the verse.
1 Timothy 2:1-4 Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
You have brought forward a single passage which may be said to argue for "Unlimited Atonement." But
HERE is where you commit a theological Error.
For you will tell me that this passage does directly instruct us to pray for God to effectually accomplish nothing less than the actual salvific redemption of "All men"
without exception, every single individual member of the human race. But, in addition to asserting that God deliberately Wills the Salvation of every man without exception, and that His will is thus billions of times Overthrown, to assert what you do is very nearly to risk the Anathema in pursuit of defeating Calvinism!! For does He not tell us in the Revelation of Christ unto John:
Revelation 22:18-19 I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book.
And what also has He told us in Revelation, than the certainty that
NOT "All Men without Exception" shall be saved?
Revelation 13:7-8 It was also given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him. All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain.
Revelation 20:15 And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
This is a True Prophecy of God; What, then, is this: that you should advise us that Paul teaches Timothy to pray for nothing less than that this very PROPHECY OF GOD -- (that
NOT "All Men" shall be saved) -- should be overthrown?!?! That God has Foreknown and Prophesied to Us that NOT All men will be saved, but that -- so you tell us -- we should nonetheless pray for this Word of Prophecy to be
Removed from the Book of Prophecy??? For Jesus Christ has said, regarding prayers according to His Will,
John 14:13-14 Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.
So if you claim that it be according to His Will that we pray for the actual Salvific Redemption of every single human individual without exception, then you are claiming that Paul teaches us to pray for the Removal of those very Prophecies of which Christ says to John, it were a grave sin for any to Remove!!
But if this is not a Right understanding of this passage (and it is
not, for we may NOT set Paul to War with John and Christ), then how should we read it? Is the weakness in the "desire" of the Lord (verse 4) that "all men" should be saved? No, for this is an
effective desire, both to Wish and to Will; indeed, this same Greek word, for "desire", is found in Romans 9: 18 -- So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.; and this is a powerful Desire indeed, by which He has raised up pharoahs and ruled the affairs of men and nations!!
But the misunderstanding is to be found, in the treatment of "all men". For if it is taught as meaning, "all men"
without exception, then in this verse, we are being taught to pray
against the revealed prophecies of Johns Apocalypse. But if the verse is understood as having reference to verses 1 and 2, which immediately precede it, then we see in this our duty to pray for Kings and all in Authority and "all men"
without distinction; even as He is pleased to save "all men"
without distinction; -- though
not "all men without exception", for not "all men without exception" will be saved, as is Revealed in the Apocalypse of John.
It is an important point to remember here: The Bible was not written in English. It was written in Greek. As, of course, was this passage:
oJ;ß pavntaß ajnqrwvpouß qevlei swqh'nai kai; eijß ejpivgnwsin ajlhqeivaß ejlqei'n.
As Strong's Interlinear commentary explains,
Original Word paß Transliterated Word Pas
Definition:
- individually -- each, every, any, all, the whole, everyone, all things, everything
- collectively -- some of all types
... "the whole world has gone after him" Did all the world go afterChrist? "then went all Judea, and were baptized of him in Jordan."Was all Judea, or all Jerusalem, baptized in Jordan? "Ye are of God,little children", and the whole world lieth in the wicked one". Does the whole world there mean everybody?
The words "world" and "all" are used in some seven or eight senses in Scripture, and it is very rarely the "all" means all persons, taken individually. The words are generally used to signify that Christ has redeemed some of all sorts -- some Jews, some Gentiles, some rich, some poor, and has not restricted His redemption to either Jew or Gentile.
I maintain that the Bible is Infallible. By that, I mean that no passage of Scripture is contradictory to, or inconsistent with, any other passage.
Therefore, I hold with Strong, that the sense
of the Greek pavntaß used here is used in the sense of the collective --
some of all types, the
common and general sense in which this term is used, and not the rarer "each and every individual" sense.
As Custance has observed,
We are, therefore, exhorted to pray for all men. And yet we know from John 17:9 that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself
deliberately refrained from praying for all men, "I pray for them [the chosen few]:
I pray not for the world but for them You have given Me." It is of course perfectly true that the Lord Jesus knew who were to be the sheep of his flock even before they became part of his inner circle of disciples, and He also knew the spiritual battle which lay ahead for them all. It might therefore be argued that He prayed for them specifically, and not for the world, for this very reason. But are we being called upon to engage our prayer life on behalf of all men indiscriminately? Would this not so dilute our prayers as to be meaningless and ineffective?
To pray for everyone is really to pray for nobody.
It seems more likely that the phrase "for all men" should be translated more selectively to read "for all sorts of men." Such a translation is perfectly consonant with the original Greek, for the word all frequently has the less inclusive meaning of "all kinds of," or "all manner of." The simple form
pas is translated "all manner of" in the following places, all of which provide a more precise definition of its meaning:
Matthew 4:23 --"all manner of disease"
Matthew 5:11 --"all manner of evil"
Matthew 10:1 --"all manner of sickness"
Luke 11:42 --"all manner of herbs"
Acts 10:12 --"all manner of four-footed beasts"
Romans 7:8 --"all manner of concupiscence"
1 Peter 1:15 --"all manner of conversation"
Revelation 21:19 --"all manner of precious stone"
And as a
vastly better Greek scholar than you or I (Bishop Saint Augustine of Hippo) has observed:
THE LIMITS OF GOD'S PLAN FOR HUMAN SALVATION -- Accordingly, when we hear and read in Scripture that He "will have all men to be saved," although we know well that all men are not saved, we are not on that account to restrict the omnipotence of God,
but are rather to understand the Scripture, "Who will have all men to be saved," as meaning that no man is saved unless God wills his salvation: not that there is no man whose salvation He does not will, but that no man is saved apart from His will; and that, therefore, we should pray Him to will our salvation, because if He will it, it must necessarily be accomplished. And it was of prayer to God that the apostle was speaking when he used this expression. And on the same principle we interpret the expression in the Gospel: "The true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world:" not that there is no man who is not enlightened, but that no man is enlightened except by Him.
Or, it is said, "Who will have all men to be saved;" not that there is no man whose salvation He does not will (for how, then, explain the fact that He was unwilling to work miracles in the presence of some who, He said, would have repented if He had worked them?), but that we are to understand by "all men," the human race in all its varieties of rank and circumstances, -- kings, subjects; noble, plebeian, high, low, learned, and unlearned; the sound in body, the feeble, the clever, the dull, the foolish, the rich, the poor, and those of middling circumstances; males, females, infants, boys, youths; young, middle-aged, and old men; of every tongue, of every fashion, of all arts, of all professions, with all the innumerable differences of will and conscience, and whatever else there is that makes a distinction among men. For which of all these classes is there out of which God does not will that men should be saved in all nations through His only-begotten Son, our Lord, and therefore does save them; for the Omnipotent cannot will in vain, whatsoever He may will? Now the apostle had enjoined that prayers should be made for all men, and had especially added, "For kings, and for all that are in authority," who might be supposed, in the pride and pomp of worldly station, to shrink from the humility of the Christian faith. Then saying, "For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour," that is, that prayers should be made for such as these, he immediately adds, as if to remove any ground of despair, "Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." God, then, in His great condescension has judged it good to grant to the prayers of the humble the salvation of the exalted; and assuredly we have many examples of this.
Our Lord, too, makes use of the same mode of speech in the Gospel, when He says to the Pharisees: "Ye tithe mint, and rue, and every herb." For the Pharisees did not tithe what belonged to others, nor all the herbs of all the inhabitants of other lands. As, then, in this place we must understand by "every herb," every kind of herbs, so in the former passage we may understand by "all men," every sort of men. And we may interpret it in any other way we please, so long as we are not compelled to believe that the omnipotent God has willed anything to be done which was not done: for setting aside all ambiguities, if "He hath done all that He pleased in heaven and in earth," as the psalmist sings of Him, He certainly did not will to do anything that He hath not done.
Now, I say that this verse best agrees with Scripture if the Greek word
pavntaß is here read (as is the most common and regular usage in Scripture), "all manner of sorts, without distinction".
