In the comments section of Fisher’s post John Calvin on Fatalism, the conversation seemed to have found its way to 1 Tim 2:4. And since this verse seems to generate a lot of debate these days, at least from my perspective, I thought it would be a good idea to explore 1 Tim 2:4 a little bit more thoroughly.

1 Tim 2:3-4 “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth”

The key part is “who will have all men to be saved” (KJV). Other versions state it as “who desires all men to be saved” (NASB) and “who wants all men to be saved” (NIV) but it essentially means the same thing.

The first thing we need to do is look at the context of this verse. According to John MacArthur (from whom I’m getting this explanation), this verse falls in the middle of a section of scripture addressing Evangelistic Prayer (verses 1 through 8). So given the context of this section, we should remember that Paul is addressing how we, as believers, should be praying for the lost to be saved as this lines up with Gods desire. It is Gods desire that all be saved so therefore it should also be our desire that all be saved.

The full explanation can be found here, but I just want to look at the words will, desire and want as used in verse 4 of the various english translations. In each case we find it has been translated from the Greek word “thelo” into will, desire, or want. Now, working back to the Greek from will (KJV). There are two basic Greek words for will and they are “thelo” and “boulomai”. So what does each of these words mean? “Thelo” reflects the will of desire springing from feeling and inclination while “boulomai” speaks of a will that comes from precise determination.

So the will/desire/want used in 1 Tim 2:4 is not the will/desire/want in the “boulomai” sense; that God has precisely determined the salvation of all men. It is not a sovereignly ordained fact that everyone is going to be saved. 1 Tim 2:4 is not talking about that kind of will but that of “thelo” which is the word used in the original Greek text.

It’s not simply a “What God wants he gets” in some sort of universalistic salvation or that we have some sort of impotent God who is unable to fulfil His will. There’s a distinction between God’s sovereign will and His moral will.

To put it another way, we would all agree without equivocation that God does not desire people to sin. Could we agree with that? We do not believe that God desires people to do evil, to sin, to be disobedient, to be unholy, to fail to give Him glory. No, we would all agree with that. In fact the spectrum of evangelical theology would agree to that. We know God desires men not to sin. We do not for a moment advocate anything different than that. So turn the table a bit. Would we would all agree then that God desires all men to be holy? No one would argue against that, right? God desires all men to be righteous. God desires all men to be sinless. God desires all men to give Him glory and give Him honour and give Him respect. God desires all men to be obedient. I mean, He commands men over and over and over and over to be obedient. He calls for righteousness. He calls for holiness. He calls for sinlessness. He calls for everyone on the face of the earth to give Him honour and give Him glory. He calls for all men everywhere to repent. Nobody debates that. We all know God wants men to be holy.

Therefore, we conclude that people sin though God does not want them to. That’s obvious. People are unholy though God does not want them that way. People do not give God glory though God does not want them not to give Him glory. Then why is it such a hard thing for some people to realise that people also go to hell though God does not want them to? God wants all men to be saved. That is the desire of God.

Men sin and they go to hell, not because it is God’s express sovereign purpose for them. They go to hell because they denied God’s moral will for their life. He calls them to repent. He calls them to be saved. If anyone goes to hell, they go there not because of the predetermined choice of God, but because of the rejection of Jesus Christ. That’s what He’s saying. He wants all men saved.

In the exact words of John MacArthur;

I believe in the sovereignty of God, I believe in election, I believe in predestination, beloved, I also believe that God wills men to be saved and by their choice they are not saved and that is their responsibility not God’s. And if you ask me how those two things harmonize, I say I’ll tell you our first day in heaven, I’ll explain the whole thing. But I know this, God has a broken heart because He desires salvation from the ends of the earth, why else would Jesus weep over Jerusalem. “O how often I would, I willed to gather you together but you would not.” He said that. You wouldn’t do it. Why will you die? Why will you reject?

So in tying this with the challenge in the comments of Fishers post, I believe the will of God espoused by John Calvin, Ryft and Fisher with regard to the issue of choice, election and predestination is the will of “boulomai.” It is not the will of “thelo” that we find in 1 Tim 2:4.

[The following article was paraphrased and summarised from an interview with John MacArthur entitled “When believers stop believing: Portrait of an Apostate”¹]

No.

If you once professed faith and now don’t, then you were never saved to begin with.

People who believe it is possible to lose your salvation are usually brought to that position because of people like Charles Templeton. It isn’t because they find it in the Scriptures. It’s because they’re trying to explain how someone could be a Christian one day and not the next day. There are massive amounts of Christians around the world who think you can lose your salvation and they’ve got people to prove you can. We need to look at this issue Biblically to try to help those people who might be drawn to that conclusion because of people they know who denied the faith. Read the rest of this entry

The temporary sign gifts can be found listed in 1 Cor 12:10 and are; miracles, healings, languages, and the interpretation of languages.

Miracles: A miracle is a supernatural intrusion into the natural law, which can have no other explanation than that of God acting. In John 2:11 it is revealed that Jesus performed His first miracle in order to manifest His glory. Why did He do miracles? It was to manifest His glory and reveal Himself as God. What is His glory? It is the composite of His attributes as deity. Miracles are the confirming signs of the revelation of God. That has always been and will always be their intent. John 5:36 and John 20:30 also attest to this truth. Miracles are always in the scripture for one purpose; to prove God is speaking.

For 30 years of His life Jesus did no miracles (John 2:11). This proves that it is not God’s purpose to perform miracles in all ages and in all times. Only when God reveals Himself do we see miracles. Jesus waited till the beginning of His ministry before the miracles began. We see the same pattern in the Old Testament too. The revelation at the time of Moses was accompanied by miracles, same too with the lives of Elijah and Elisha. The rest of the Old Testament is very scarce when it comes to miracles.

Miracles were to authenticate the living word and the written word. They are only found in Christ, the Apostles and those that worked with them in setting up the foundations of the church. Mark 16:17-20 and 2 Cor 12:12 support the fact that the signs of an apostle were “signs”, that is, the ability to do miracles.

If we were to say that miracles are continuing today, after we have established that the purpose of miracles is to confirm God’s revelation, then God is still revealing His word. And if He is still revealing His word then the Bible is incomplete and Revelation 22:18 and Gal 1:8-9 are a lie, because they say that if anyone adds to what has been taught by them, then they are accursed.

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The permanent edifying gifts are divided into two categories; speaking gifts and serving gifts.

There are 5 speaking gifts identified in Romans 12:6-8 and 1 Cor 12:8-10. These are prophecy, knowledge, wisdom, teaching and exhortation. In the same passages we find 6 serving gifts which are; leadership, serving, giving, mercy, faith and discernment. Lets look at each of these individually.

Prophecy: As we discovered earlier the meaning of prophet means someone who speaks out. So here we have a simple variation to the ability to speak out. It is the gift given by the Spirit of God to a person to proclaim God’s truth to others. To proclaim God’s truth publicly before an audience. Prophecy falls into 2 categories; revelation and reiteration. Revelation: disclosing something never before disclosed. Reiteration: repeating a message which God has already given. The revelatory gift of prophecy was in play during the early church and in Old Testament times, but now it has no function as all revelation has been given (Rev 22:18). Now only the reiterative gift of prophecy is present in the church because that’s what’s needed.

An interesting side note here is that all the gifts mentioned in Rom 12:6-8 are non-miraculous (including prophecy). And all the gifts listed in 1 Cor 12:8-10 are miraculous. Prophecy which is mentioned in both, can be both. In once sense prophecy can be miraculous and revelatory and in another sense it can be normal proclaiming. Hence it’s inclusion in both lists.

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There are 5 types of “gifted men”: Apostles, prophets, evangelists, teaching pastors and teachers. In the early days of the Church the apostles and prophets had some miraculous gifts (healing, languages…etc). These were so that their message was confirmed as from God. Now that message (The Word of God) has been established as a doctrinal foundation, these specific gifts are no longer necessary. It is interesting to note that apostle is Greek for messenger. So it’s important for those reading the New Testament to make a distinction between capital “A” apostles and the little “a” messengers. The first apostle (Heb 3:1) was the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ then gave the word apostle a technical meaning when he appointed the 12 (capital A). Apostle became a proper name or an official title. Also an apostle was someone who had seen the resurrected Christ. And apostles are also identified as those with very unique abilities – miraculous powers (2 Cor 12:12). Another way of distinguishing between the two would be as the Apostles of the Lord and the apostles of the churches.

The Greek word for prophet means one who speaks out. It wasn’t until medieval times that the word prophet in the English language came to be connected with the idea of prediction. Biblically it has always been connected with the idea of speaking forth for God.

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In Chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians Paul talks about spiritual gifts. He does this because the Church at Corinth has lost its way. The problem was that the Church had managed to drag into their Church life, all of the features of their former pagan existence. Their culture and the society of the city of Corinth was enamoured with the mystery religions that trace their origins to the tower of Babel, the elements of which are still present in the world religions of today. Even some “Christian” denominations show signs of such influence and practice.

In Corinth, their behaviour was a remnant of their unsaved, idolatrist days when ecstatic utterances and such practices made by pagan priests and worshipers under the control of a demon were thought to be the highest level of religious experience. These things infiltrated the Church and were confused with the true gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The Church, however, has been endowed by the Spirit of God with supernatural gifts for its ministry of edification and evangelism which are critical to its operation. It is essential that we understand spiritual gifts and also understand that Satan counterfeits them. He counterfeits them because they are absolutely necessary to the life and functioning of the Church. The Church can’t function without the operation of spiritual gifts. That’s how the Holy Spirit works.

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