First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions,
that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is
one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.
For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.
I have heard far too many reformed ministers and teachers bow the knee to their systematic theology, all their theological blocks being neatly lined up, coming up with arguments
against what Paul seems to be saying, but failing to do justice to what the text actually says. For instance, I was taught that the answer to this is that Paul means,
all kinds of men…men from all walks of life, men from every tongue, tribe and nation under heaven. Or even that the gospel is offered to all men, but God doesn’t give all men the grace to accept it.
But, if that is what God meant, the Holy Spirit could have easily said it just like that. But of course, He didn’t. Instead, we find ourselves arguing in the same manner that
frustrates us when others argue this way, saying that the Bible doesn’t mean what is so plainly is saying. I fear that too many of our own men want to strip the mystery and depth of who God is and what God is doing, right out of the Bible.
So, we are told that mystery is something that pastors are paid to get rid of and I admit that in my early ministry I was one of those, trying to make sure that everything made
sense according to the reasoning of my reformed theology. But I am learning, that God is much bigger and more vast than anything that I, in my small understanding, or those who we consider to be brilliant thinkers, could ever imagine. And to be candid: I am
perfectly fine with scratching my head and wondering: How could God be, do, desire and effectuate something that I cannot wrap my head around.
I am not trying to cop out of anything. I want to say what the Bible says…but that’s just it: I want to say everything the Bible says, not just what my theological tradition approves
of. So, when God knocks over all my neatly ordered theological blocks, I no longer panic as I used to, but rather have a good chuckle and think to myself: Of course, how wonderfully vast and unsearchable is our God!
Listen to this from Charles Spurgeon who was as a committed reformed, predestinarian thinker and preacher as there could be:
“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…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.”
[MTP 26:49-52; cited in I. Murray, Spurgeon v. Hyper-Calvinism, 151]
Let me set this for us with a different example: We find in the scriptures God weeping over the sin of His people…he is truly grieved by the mess we make of our lives. We find
Him singing over his faithful people, we find Him running to his repentant people, we even find him dancing and rejoicing over His righteous people. Oh, says the doctor of theology, God doesn’t have emotions…God doesn’t have passions…He is unchangeable, and
sovereign, He already knows everything before it happens. Those texts are anthropomorphic, they are just trying to relate to us on a human level and so the Bible uses human imagery but we shouldn’t take that to mean God has those kinds of “human” emotions.
I simply don’t buy it. That isn’t what the texts say. God is a God of covenant, relationship, intimacy…Don’t strip away the relational aspect of God’s being on the altar of some
hyper-rationality that makes God some kind of stoic, some emotionless, fatalist. God cares…God loves…Unlike fate, God is personal and personally involved.
In Genesis 6:6 we read:
“The Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” Other translations render that last phrase, “his heart was filled with pain.”
The Lord God was offended by the sinfulness of man, our selfishness, our indifference to God, our playing fast and loose with holiness and obedience. But he was not merely offended by it; it cut him to the heart!
The word translated grieved is used in the OT to express the most intense emotion: sometimes anguish, sometimes rage mixed with anguish. It is the word used to describe the way
Dinah’s brothers felt after they learned their sister had been raped. It is the word used to express Jonathan’s emotion when he heard that his father planned to murder his best friend David; and the same word is used of David when he learned of the death of
his son Absalom. In Isaiah. 54:6 it is used of the way a deserted wife feels!
There are many statements like this one in the Bible. We read that Israel often
grieved the Lord in the wilderness (Psalm 78:40) same word as used here. Later the Lord would grieve that he made Saul, Israel’s first king (1 Sam.15:10) and we could go on and on. When Paul wrote about grieving the Holy Spirit, or when Moses penned
those words in Genesis they had no intention or thought to deny God’s absolute sovereign rule and knowledge of all things.
Nonetheless, these statements, including the one in our text about God desiring all men to be saved, are meant to teach us something about the character and nature of the God
we call Father. All manner of human emotions are attributed to God: sorrow, regret, anger, love, joy, satisfaction, and so on. And they are obviously crucial to the revelation of God that we are given in Holy Scripture.
Listen to this author:
Human sin is a matter of the deepest sorrow and disappointment to the living God. Unless we know that fact, how God feels about our sin, how he responds to it and reacts to it, we do not and cannot understand this world or human life in this world.
Sin is not simply a problem; it is a tragedy, and the deepest reason for that is its effect on God himself.
Perhaps you and I need to consider this more deeply in our battle against sin…as you battle anger, bitterness, lust, the self-centeredness and self-pity that plague your life:
What does your sin do to the heart of your Father? After all He has done for you, after the love that He has shown and continues to show you…and we think to treat our sin lightly? It may be that we cannot know, perhaps we will never know
how it can be said that the God who knows and who plans all things was grieved to his heart by the sin of mankind, or that the God who has placed His electing love on some people but not all people, can yet desire for all men to be saved…
…I would argue that instead taking one side against the other, we should embrace both sides fully and then put our hand over our mouths and stand in silent awe of a God we know…and
who is at the same time, past our comprehension. Would any argue, that as Christians you have NOT at times given in to your sin and grieved God deeply? You have never done anything to disappoint Him? You have never, by your actions, your words, your refusal
to obey, offended God? Of course, we have…it is to our shame that such things are true.
When Paul says that God desires all men to be saved he is merely saying what the prophets said before him: “For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord
God, so turn, and live! (Ezekiel 18:23, 33:32) The same is said in 2 Peter 3:9,
“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise…not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance.”
Brothers and sisters, we are reformed…we are Calvinists. But first, we must be Biblicists. We are talking about the mind and heart of God…does anyone really think that they could
reduce the eternal God to simple man-made systems of thought that was going to comprehend and answer the depth of who He is and what He has planned? I do not think we stand in awe of our God as we should, as we must. We think we can figure Him out, bring Him
down to bite size pieces so that we are satisfied with the image of God we have made. How foolish.
I realize this devotion is a bit longer than most and there is so much more to say, but I will conclude with these words from a Reformed minister. He says it well.
“There is a sense in which Christ died for all and a sense in which he did not. That is all we can say. After all, we are talking about God’s intention, what was in his mind
when he did what he did as God the Son on the cross. Can you read God’s mind? I am sure I cannot. There is so much about God and about God’s works that we do not and cannot understand and should not imagine that we could understand. Who can explain the ways
of the Lord? He does not see to the accomplishment of things he longs for. But he is God and all his ways are true and righteous altogether. There stands the text, and I believe that it is my Father’s wish that ‘all men should be saved and come to the knowledge
of the truth.’ But know, also, that he does not will it, so that he will save any one of them, unless they believe in his dear Son; for he has told us over and over that he will not. He will not save any man except he forsakes his sins, and turns to him with
full purpose of heart: that I know. And I know, also, that he has a people whom he will save, whom by his eternal love he has chosen, and whom by his eternal power he will deliver. I do not know how that squares with this; that is another of the things I do
not know. If I go on telling you of all that I do not know, and of all the things that I do know, I will assure you that the things that I do not know will be a hundred to one of the things that I do know. And so, we will say no more about the matter. God’s
wish about man’s salvation is this, — that men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.”
Prayer:
Father, over and over I read in your word about the life of the Savior and how I am to emulate Jesus in my living. Oh Father, I have barely begun to understand how to do this, what it looks like! Help me, that such things would not only be with words, but
that I would humbly embrace the life of the cross awaiting the day of exaltation at my Savior’s side. Help me to believe and trust all you have said in your Word that my life my be pleasing in Your sight. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
Hymn: Ubi Caritas. This is in Latin, but click the show more tab and the words are in English. This is as beautiful a piece of music as you are likely to hear for a while!