{"id":12036,"date":"2019-04-18T23:27:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-19T03:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=12036"},"modified":"2019-04-18T23:30:27","modified_gmt":"2019-04-19T03:30:27","slug":"a-universalist-looks-at-the-new-testament-i-timothy-21-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=12036","title":{"rendered":"A Universalist Looks at the New Testament – I Timothy 2:1-6"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Universalist Looks at the New Testament \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I Timothy 2:1-6<\/p>\n

During this series of Looking at the New Testament from a universalist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perspective<\/a>, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve found some verses that universalists do need to explain why they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean what they at first glance seem to mean. (Usually that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because of a poor translation.) But this is a verse that non-universalists have to explain away in order to hold their theory of eternal torment for nonbelievers.<\/p>\n

The passage is I Timothy 2:1-6:<\/p>\n

I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people \u00e2\u20ac\u201c for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are two important \u00e2\u20ac\u0153all\u00e2\u20ac\u009ds in this passage.<\/p>\n

First, it says that God our Savior wants all<\/em> people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. Could that possibly be clearer?<\/p>\n

Now, the devotional that our church is using actually says that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean that God wills all people to finally be saved. And the reason given is that if God wanted everyone to be saved then everyone would<\/em> be saved! They cite Romans 9:19, which says that no one can resist God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s will.<\/p>\n

So they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re basically saying God doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want everyone to be saved (despite what this passage says) because if that were true, universalism would be true!<\/p>\n

So they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re making my point for me, that if this verse means what it seems to mean \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that God wants everyone to be saved \u00e2\u20ac\u201c then universalism is true.<\/p>\n

It seems like your choices one of these three:<\/p>\n

1)\tUniversalism is true.
\n2)\tGod doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really want all<\/em> people to be saved.
\n3)\tGod wants all people to be saved, but the power of those people to rebel is greater than God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s power to win them over. So regretfully, not all will be saved.<\/p>\n

I think the interpretation that fits Scripture best is that God indeed wants all people to be saved and He indeed loves the world and everyone in it. And what God wills, God can bring about, even though it may take until the end of the ages for some to come to Him. But one day God will be all in all.<\/p>\n

And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the only \u00e2\u20ac\u0153all\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in this passage. Another is that Jesus \u00e2\u20ac\u0153gave himself as a ransom for all people.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

If Jesus gave Himself to save all people, but all people are not saved \u00e2\u20ac\u201c then was His sacrifice ineffective?<\/p>\n

This is the main reason Thomas Allin gives for believing universalism, and the reason he titled his book Christ Triumphant<\/a><\/em>. You can read my review to get a taste of that reasoning \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but do we really think God set out to save the world and then failed?<\/p>\n

Jesus gave himself as a ransom for all people, so if all people are not ransomed, then surely Jesus was defeated in each case of a person who was not saved.<\/p>\n

But back to the beginning. Do you believe in your heart that God truly wants all people everywhere to be saved? Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that a bigger, a more powerful and<\/em> more loving God than the one you hear about who (however regretfully) sends people to suffer eternally because they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t accept His offer and believe the right formula while they were still on earth?<\/p>\n

God loves you and He loves me and He loves our loved ones more than we do ourselves. And He also loves those people I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really want or expect to see in heaven. All of them, even, maybe especially, those who seem truly lost now.<\/p>\n

And truly this brings glory to God our Savior.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Universalist Looks at the New Testament \u00e2\u20ac\u201c I Timothy 2:1-6 During this series of Looking at the New Testament from a universalist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perspective, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve found some verses that universalists do need to explain why they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean what they at first glance seem to mean. (Usually that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because of a poor translation.) But this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-universalist-looks-at-the-new-testament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12036\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}