‘For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our saviour who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 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.’
(1 Tim 2 v 3-6)
So God ‘will have’ all men to be saved? If all are not saved, then God’s will will be not be done either ‘on earth’ or ‘as it is in heaven’.
I’ve yet to meet a Christian who thinks that God’s will will not be done, yet at the same time believe that not all will be saved. They seem to believe both things at the same time!
God says:
‘My counsel shall stand and I shall do all my pleasure.’
(Isaiah 46 v 10)
And:
‘In him also we have obtained an inheritance being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his own will’
(Eph 1 v 11)
Notice ‘he works all things according to the counsel of his own will’. and his will is that all are saved and come to the knowledge of the truth!
Jesus gave himself a ransom for all (and all means all without exception) to be testified in due time, so when will Jesus’ ransom be testified to and by whom?
When:
‘At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow of those in heaven of those on earth and of those under the earth and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father.’
(Phil 2 v 10-11)
And:
‘That if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved.’
(Rom 10 v 9)
If everyone is bowing the knee and confessing ‘Jesus is Lord’, they must believe that God raised him from the dead. Otherwise they wouldn’t say Jesus ‘is’ Lord!
If we read about Paul’s ministry in the book of Acts, many times he suffered reproach and even persecution at the hands of his enemies for preaching the Gospel of the restoration of all things.
And he says in 1 Timothy 4 v 9 -11:
‘This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, for to this end we both labour and suffer approach, because we trust in the living God who is the saviour of all men, especially of those who believe, these things command and teach.’
(1 Tim 4 v 9-11 )
What Paul is saying here is that Jesus is the saviour of all men, not just of those who believe, and for preaching this he laboured and suffered reproach!
That is still true today. Many times when I have shared the Gospel of the restoration of all things with my Evangelical friends they’ve opposed it and even got angry because they want to keep salvation just for themselves and their select group.
It amazes me that many Evangelicals will go to the ends of the earth or fund mission work trying to save the world, and when you tell them that what they want to happen will happen, that the world will be saved, they get angry and even annoyed that all will be saved, but Paul here emphasises the fact that Jesus is the saviour of all men, not just those who believe.
In Paul’s letter to Titus, he makes this amazing statement:
‘For the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all men.’
(Titus 2 v 11 NASV)
‘All men’ have not received it yet, but they will! For God would never bring salvation to someone if he knew they would never take it.
For salvation is a gift, and:
‘The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable’
(Rom 11 v 29)
This completes our study of Paul’s writings and the things we’ve learned are these:
1.Paul never mentions hell or warns that unbelievers will go there.
2.He says the work of Christ is as universal as the work of Adam.
3.He says that all of creation will be delivered from the bondage of corruption.
4.He says that death does not cut man off from the love of God.
5.He says all Israel will be saved and the fullness of the Gentiles will come in.
6.He says that God has committed all to disobedience that he might have mercy on all.
7.He says that ultimately all will end in Christ.
8.He says that all will hear the Gospel and understand it.
9.He says that Jesus will be Lord of the dead and the living.
10.He says that all people who are not yet his people will one day be his people.
11.He says that all who die in Adam will one day be made alive in Christ.
12.He says that one day God will be all in all.
13.He says that although the wages of sin is death, one day death will be destroyed!
14.He says that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself and that he’s not counting men’s sins against them.
15.He says that all things will be gathered into Christ in the fullness of time.
16.That Christ has reconciled all things unto himself.
17.He says that one day everyone will be presented perfect in Christ.
18.That it’s God’s will that all be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
19.That Christ is a ransom for all.
20.That Jesus is the saviour of all men, not just of those who believe.
21.That at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and that every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and if they confess Jesus is Lord and believe in their hearts God raised him from the dead they will be saved.
I think from his own testimony and his writings that Paul was a Universalist and believed in the gospel of the restoration of all things.
We now come on to the book of Hebrews, in chapter 1 the writer says:
‘He (Jesus), by the grace of God might taste death for everyone.’
(Heb 1 v 9)
Why would Jesus taste death for everyone if not everyone gets saved?
He then says:
‘By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.’
(Heb 10 v 10)
Many times in the book of Hebrews, it says that Christ died ‘once for all’, and all means ‘all’ (all without exception).
To show that others apart from the members of the church will be in heaven, the writer lists who will be in the heavenly Jerusalem.
‘But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels to the general assembly and Church of the first born who are registered in heaven, to God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant and to blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel’.
(Heb 12 v 22-24)
So here we have six groups and individuals mentioned in the heavenly Jerusalem:
1.An