IS CHRIST THE SAVIOUR OF ALL MEN?
A study on 1 Tim. 4:10
12/2/07
We all know that in life things are not always as the appear. Things we see, things we read, things we hear are all filtered through our presuppositions, through our experiences, through our knowledge.
Think of a beautiful sunrise. I can see that sunrise and think to myself, wow, that’s beautiful. I can look at it and praise God for it, knowing that it comes from Him. A cow on the other hand can look at the very same sunrise and be totally unaffected by it. It will not see any beauty in it, it will mean nothing to the cow.
Why? Well first of all we have different natures. We have different levels of intelligence, (at least I hope so), different comprehensions and so forth. So while we may see the same thing, it means much more to me then to the cow.
The same is true in what we read. Say I know a physicist and he gives me a book on quantum physics. We both read the book. We can read the exact same words yet they can mean something totally different to him then they do to me. Why? Because he has a better understanding of physics then I do, his knowledge is greater. He has different presuppositions then I do and so forth.
The same is true when we read that Bible. When we read the Bible we bring baggage with us. We read it with different presuppositions, we read with different levels of knowledge. Perhaps a person knows Greek, or has studied 1st century culture, which may give them a better insight into a particular passage. It will color their understanding of it.
We read the Bible knowing what we know, and what we know often times effects how we read a given passage, how we understand it, how we see it. We all bring all these presuppositions with us when we open our Bibles. Very often because we know what we know we read a passage looking for it to prove what we already believe.
It is those passage that do not fit into what we know that can cause a lot of confusion for us. Too often rather then study something out, we simply ignore the passage, or come up with some out of context understanding rather then let the passage speak for itself within the context of chapter, or book, or the Bible itself.
Let me make something very clear. Just because folks may understand certain passages in different ways, does not mean that the passage does in fact have different meanings.
If a passage states “Paul sat on a chair.” And a person who does not believe in chairs understands that word chair to mean table, does not in fact mean that the word chair means table. Truth is not relative. The persons belief does not change the meaning of chair. The passage means what it means whether we like it or not. A passage of Scripture is NOT validated by OUR understanding of it, it is validated by what it states. While there may in fact be different viable interpretations of a passage, in the end only one is correct, only one is the truth.
It want us to understand as we move on.
The reason I bring all that up is because the next couple of passages that we will be looking at over the next couple weeks, have been understood in different ways. We are going to be looking a couple of difficult passages. As we look at them we must keep a couple things in mind.
First we must look at the context of the passage. You cannot simply pull a passage out of its context and say this means so and so. The passage is where it is at, it is in the context it is in because that is where the Holy Spirit of God wanted it.
Second, Scripture must be allowed to interpret Scripture. If your understanding of a passage contradicts other Scripture you have problem. I will say that your understanding of that passage is wrong. Scripture does not contradict itself. I would challenge anyone who says that it does. I have found that the person who states scripture contradicts scripture, either does not know what the Bible teaches as a whole, is taking something out of context, or does not understand what a contradiction is.
So let us keep those two things in mind. Context, and Scripture must interpret scripture.
Let us now look at our passage we will looking at. We will be spending a couple of weeks on this one. Please turn with me to 1 Tim 4:10.
I want to give you a quick background into the book we call 1 Tim. Which is of course actually a letter. It is a letter written by the Apostle Paul to young man by the name of Timothy. The book is thought to have been written sometime 62-66 AD.
Paul writes to Timothy in order to encourage him in his work of overseeing the Ephesian church. Timothy also may be overseeing other churches as well. But 1 Tim. 1:3 we read , “As I urged you when I went into Macedonia––remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine,” Paul tells Timothy to remain in Ephesus. So we know that Timothy is in Ephesus. We can also see that 1 Timothy is somewhat of a church leadership manual.
As we will see later on it is important for us to know Timothy’s circumstances.
Because context is important in our understanding of this passage I want us to read beginning in verse 6;
“If you instruct the brethren in these things, you will be a good minister of Jesus Christ, nourished in the words of faith and of the good doctrine which you have carefully followed. But reject profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise yourself toward godliness. For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance. For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe.”
The phrase that has puzzled some is the last part of verse 10; “…because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe.” What exactly does Paul mean when he states that God is the Saviour of all men? How are we to understand this? There are four views, four ways of understanding the words of found here in 1 Tim. 4:10. And may I remind you, only one is correct. Paul has a certain point in mind when he wrote this, it is not an option to just pick one out of the four and say it is just as valid as the others.
I want us to look at these four views and I want us to see the one that I believe is correct. For there is only one view that will fit with the context itself, and with the overall context of the Bible.
The first view I want to point out is what is called the Universalists view. To understand this view we must first define and understand what universalism is and what it teaches.
When we hear the term we may think of the Universalists society we have right here in Oneonta. It is known as the Universalists Unitarian Society of Oneonta. The website states, “Love is the doctrine of this church, the quest for truth is its sacrament, and service its prayer.”
The problem with the second part there, “The quest for truth…” is that Unitarian Universalists do not believe in absolute truth. Truth is what ever you believe it to be. That is of course as long as you are not an evangelical Bible believing Christian, then your “truth” must be rejected for all the other truths out there. But that is a sermon for another day.
The national web page states that following, “Unitarian Universalism is a liberal religion that encompasses many faith traditions. Unitarian Universalists include people who identify as Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Pagans, Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists, and others. As there is no official Unitarian Universalist creed, Unitarian Universalists are free to search for truth on many paths.”
The problem again to me is obvious. The Christian cannot be right and the atheist right at the same time. Either God exists or He does not. God’s existence is not determined by whether a person believes He does or not.
If someone tells me that they do not believe that I exist I do not cease to exist based on their believe. The believe system, or lack there of, of the UU is not only faulty, but illogical.
The name Unitarian itself points to a belief in god. Not the God of the Bible mind you. Unitarianism historically has denied the triune nature of the God of Scripture. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A Unitarian believe states that there is no Trinity. Unitarianism is the belief in the single personality of God, in other words Jesus was not God, and niether is the Holy Spirit.
There are other unitarian groups. JW would be one that comes to mind. While historically unitarianism was a heresy of Christianity it had its roots in the Christian faith. Because of the liberal nature of the movement they have, as is the case in Oneonta, moved far to the left of anything resembling Christianity.
I promise we are going to get back to verse. The second word of the Unitarian Universalism is the one we are going to apply to our verse. As far as the Unitarian Universalism goes they would define universalism as the believe that everyone will receive salvation in whatever form their “path of truth” leads them to.
There are however what some would call "Christian Universalism" this would be a believe that all of mankind will ultimately be saved through the atoning work of Jesus Christ. Faith itself is not necessary for salvation. It makes the claim that God’s attributes of love, sovereignty, justice, etc., require that all people be saved and that there is no eternal punishment. Salvation is not from hell, but from sin.
It is this "Christian Universalism" that we are dealing with today, because the folks that hold to this would look to passage such as 1 Tim. 4:10 in support of their view.
There argument would be as follows, when 1 Tim. 4:10 states that “God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe.” Paul is teaching that God is in fact the Saviour of all men and therefore all men must be saved. In order to be a Saviour you must save.
So these folks look to 1 Tim. 4:10 and a couple of other select passage and make the argument that God is going to save everyone. Faith in Christ is not a prerequisite for eternal life, everybody wins. As I stated part the argument is based on the fact that God is love, and if God is love He would not, nor could He actually send anybody to hell.
I should make mention, that just as with the other views we will be dealing with not all who call themselves Christian Universalists would hold to all this. There are different degrees of Christian Universalism. In fact many folks are semi-Universalists in that they believe that pretty much everybody goes to heaven, hell is reserved that who are really bad, like Hitler or Stalin.
So then is this what Paul means? Is the Holy Spirit saying in 1 Tim 4:10 that all mankind will be saved regardless of their faith in Christ? Is the atoning work of Christ on the Cross applied to all mankind regardless of faith?
I would say absolutely not.
R.B. Kuiper in his book, “For Whom did Christ Die?” makes the following observations. “Admittedly Universalist doctrine is derived, not so much from the Bible as from the reason and moral sense of its exponents. Because that cannot conceive of a God who would sentence certain of His creatures to eternal perdition and find it impossible to respect such a God, they conclude that God simply cannot do such a thing.”
Kuiper goes on to say, “From the viewpoint of Scripture it is difficult to take unqualified universalism seriously. One obvious reason is that Universalists by and large do not take Scripture seriously…it is difficult, impossible even, from the view point of Scripture to take unqualified universalism seriously is that Scripture contradicts it so patently, so frequently, and so emphatically.”
So then the objection to this view of 1 Tim 4:10 is clear, it contradicts the clear teaching of Scripture.
We can see from the Bible that not all people are going to heaven. There are sheep and there are goats. There is wheat and there are tares.
Listen to Matthew 13:24-30, our Lord’s parable of the wheat and tares; “"Another parable He put forth to them, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. "But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. "So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ "He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ "But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. ‘Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, "First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”
Later in that same chapter vss 36-40; “Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him, saying, "Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field." He answered and said to them: "He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. "The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked [one]. "The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. "Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age.”
Jesus does not say the tares become wheat. There is a difference. The wheat goes to eternal life, the tares are burned.
Also in Matthew chapter 25 our Lord states, “All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.”
Notice again goats do not become sheep, there is separation of the two at the end of the age.
You know who speaks most about being cast into hell for the rejection of God, in essence a lack of faith in God as Saviour? Jesus Christ. So to say that everyone goes to heaven, is to reject a major teaching of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Note also the words of Paul in 1 Thess 1:7-9; “ (when the) Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,”
The rejection of the gospel brings everlasting destruction from the presence of God.
Lest there is still any question listen to Rev. 20:5 along with Rev. 21:7-8; “And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire… He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
Whether folks like to admit it or not, the Bible teaches that there is a hell, and that there are those cast there. Denying it does not change that reality.
So we see that the context of Scripture does not allow for a Universalist interpretation of 1 Tim. 4:10. But we should also note that neither does the context of the verse itself allow for it. Again listen to last phrase,
“… because we trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe.”
It God is Saviour of all men in the sense that all men will be saved from eternal damnation, that what does “especially of those who believe.” mean? Salvation is not something God does in degrees, either you are saved or not. If God saves all mankind, someone who believes cannot be more saved that someone who is not. It just does not make sense. Eternal life is eternal life.
What we have seen then is that reading 1 Tim 4:10 through the Universalists lens does not fit with the context of the Scriptures as a whole or the passage itself. It must be rejected.
Next week we will be looking at two more views, (I hope), then we will be looking at the interpretation that not only fits in the context of the passage and of Scripture as a whole, but it also makes the most sense.
In closing I just want to say that there are two eternal destinations, one in the presence of God in heaven, the other the lake of fire. Both are eternal destinations.
My prayer is that each one of you know where your destination will be. As John states in 1 John 5:13 “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life,” To believe in Christ, to believe in His gospel, is to have eternal life, and not only have it, but KNOW you have it.
Eternal life comes through believing that Christ died for your sins, that He was buried, and that He rose again on the third day, and now sits at the right hand of the Father. Any questions.
LET US PRAY
