Understanding God's will that all be Saved

Understanding God’s will that all be Saved

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            I was able to listen in to a Twitter feed as a Calvinist and non-Calvinist discussed Christian faith, God, justice, a number of passages including I Timothy 2:3-4 in which it is written, “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”  At one point I butted into the conversation, which was a mistake.  It really was a wonderful conversation held between two people who did not agree but who respectfully listened to one another as well as to express their perspective to one another.  I ended up determined to follow both persons’ twitter feeds.

            I was a pretty staunch Calvinist for a number of years, and don’t really know where I stand when it comes to Calvinism now.  In some ways I imagine that I remain a moderate Calvinist.  But I am an Anglican now.  Within Anglicanism one learns to think of truth differently.  Truth isn’t solely a list of propositions capable of being lined up in a logical format and presented as a world view.  Truth is something revealed within the mystery of liturgy.  God calls, man responds, and in the interchange of call and response connecting God and man, there are mysteries only partially explained by logic or propositions.

A recently discovered friend tweeted a quote by Thomas Merton saying “The only cure for the angst of modern man is mysticism.”  If as Christians we understand that truth is personified in the person of Jesus Christ, then Merton must have it correct to some degree.  We certainly can and must be aware of how the Apostles and the Scriptures describe the Christian faith and its implications using propositional truth statements, but somewhere in the mix we understand that truth has been invested in a human being.  We implicitly understand that we know human beings not simply as deductions of logic, nor by scientifically explainable connections of common experiences; but in some manner through a mystical unity that is enjoyed and experienced because friendship transcends all that can be experienced or attempted to be explained within a friendship.  The explainable is essential but it is packaged within a truly mystical relationship.

Wherever I am in my understanding of the relationship between God and man, in man’s being called to faith in Christ and responding to him, I am no longer comfortable trying to define I Timothy 2:3-4 in a way that gets redefined by necessities of the logical system I sought to follow as a strict Calvinist.  But I hope that how I do understand it will be a perspective able to be appreciated by both of the people whom I listened to as they discussed their understanding of various aspects of the faith.  I do not see my perspective as undermining Calvinism or as promoting it, and actually hope that this view will find a home within the Calvinist as well as the non-Calvinist.

I believe that the Calvinist will make himself better understood if he learns to absolutely not try to redefine or fit this verse into his general understanding of the truths of election and grace.  Rather this text of Scripture is best understood and defined by its own Biblical context.  For the truth of the matter is St. Paul is announcing how God wills all men to be saved.  His thought on that truth however doesn’t end with that verse but is an introduction to what he then says about how Christ came into our world to be a mediator between God and mankind.  That is how St. Paul defines what it means to believe that God wills all men to be saved by adding to that statement the next two verses.  He writes in those verses, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.”  This is how God has shown his will that all men be saved.

God has shown us that his will is for all men to be saved, by giving us His Son Jesus Christ; by sending him into our world that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.  This is the meaning of the liturgy of life, of God sending his son into the world, that Christ might dwell in our midst, speak to us, beseech and implore and command us, and that we by faith aroused by Christ’s presence in our life might respond to Christ.  Christ the mediator brings God to us and reveals God to us as much as He takes our sins upon Himself to die for us and to bring us ready to be brought before God the Father through his work on our behalf.

Christ is the mediator, fully God and fully man, that He might communicate God to man fully and that he might bring man to God fully.  Sovereignty and human response meet in this man Christ Jesus; fully God and fully man.  So Christ is the full embodiment of this glorious wonderful truth that God has willed all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.  To that end God has packaged this truth and presented it to the whole world to say how God feels about us in his world.  He wants men and women everywhere and from all circumstances to see that in Jesus Christ salvation is free, open, unhindered, “Come and taste of the Lord” and that God is speaking in and through Christ; revealing his desire for all humanity to come to him.

That is why I felt compelled to respond to the discussion.  I see this as important in this Biblical context before one tries to fit this passage and verse into their system of understanding the logic of the Christian way of thinking.  First and foremost God has spoken in the person of Jesus Christ that anyone seeing Christ may fully understand and rejoice that Christ has come to prove to us that God desires all men, all humanity to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.”  Christ is communicating the freeness of that message to all of us that we may feel no hindrance in responding to him.