Salvation for All

INTRODUCTION

Salvation is much more radical than we often think. Our passage this morning demonstrates this in some really striking ways. Too often, Christians try to domesticate salvation. We want to tame salvation. When we take the time to really consider what Paul is saying this morning, it may even make us somewhat uncomfortable. Paul begins in verses 1-2, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone (the Greek is a little more formal: ‘all men’ or ‘all people.’ Who does Paul include in “all people?”), 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.” This doesn’t seem very controversial. We may not like our political leaders or agree with everything they do, but no rational person places their dislike of a politician above their own wellbeing. My desire for a good life, always take precedence over my disdain for a politician. We haven’t seen a lot of that in the last couple of weeks. The last two weeks have shown us just how much the world is motivated by hate. The world says it’s okay to celebrate the death of a political figure you don’t like or agree with. Instead of praying for the failure of leaders and rulers or celebrating their demise, Christians are called to pray for their success. Why? Because we agree with everything they do? Of course not. The reason is, as Paul says, “so, that we might lead a quiet and peaceable life.” When we pray for our leaders and our nation and God grants the nation peace and prosperity, life is better for us.

That’s how we see this, but we need to understand what this meant in Paul’s world, because what he says is very radical. In the 1st Century if you were a citizen of the Roman Empire it meant that you were obligated to worship the Caesars. At certain appointed times you would go and offer a pinch of incense to the former Caesars, who were believed to have been made gods, for the good of the empire. Everyone did this, except for the Jews. Astonishingly, the Romans respected the antiquity of the Jewish religion and it’s worship of one God. Instead of worshipping the Caesars, the Jews were given an out. Instead, they were expected to pray for Caesar and the good of the Empire at the Temple in Jerusalem.

The Jews were accustomed, to praying for the Caesar, at least ceremonially, to keep the Romans off their backs. But Paul takes it a step further, and this is the part that likely made many Jewish believers in the Messiah uncomfortable in first century, and it may even make us uncomfortable today. Paul says in verses 3-4: “This is right and acceptable before God our Savior, 4 who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” It is one thing to pray for Caesar, in order that we may live a quiet and peaceable life, but it is an entirely different thing to pray for Caesar’s salvation. For many Jews in the first century, for the Pharisees and especially for the Zealots, it was not Caesar who needed to be saved, but God’s people who needed to be saved from Caesar!

Hang on to that thought for a second. Hang with me here, we’re gonna go Old Testament for a second. The last two chapters of the Book of Daniel describe events leading up the revolt of the Maccabees, which occurred about 164 years before Jesus was born. Daniel writes about the Persians (who let the Jews return to Jerusalem would be overthrown by the Greeks. He describes how Alexander the Great’s Kingdom would be divided up by his generals after his death. He also writes about how the Egyptians and the Syrians would struggle for control over the land of Judah. Then, he writes about a “little horn” that speaks blasphemy and regards no god. Some people mistakenly think this little horn is the antichrist, but the author of Daniel is writing about Antiochus Epiphanes, a Syrian ruler who entered the Temple and set up an idol of Zeus and sacrificed a pig on the altar. That is the abomination of desolation that Daniel refers to.

What does any of this have to do with our text today? In chapter 12 of Daniel, the author describes, not just the other throw of Antiochus Epiphanes, but the final judgement and the resurrection of the dead. Daniel is told, “But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book. 2 •Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake•, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting •contempt. 3 •Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.” Daniel is told deliverance will come to the righteous, and judgement will come to the wicked on that day. Daniel is talking about salvation. He and Paul are on the same page: salvation means that God’s people will rise from the dead and have eternal life. How did the Jews of this period understand this salvation? The Jews will be resurrected to everlasting life, while the wicked (the Syrians—Antiochus Epiphanes) God will judge with everlasting contempt.

In the book of 2 Maccabees (you may or may not have it in your Bible) there is a story about a mother and her seven sons. Antiochus compels the young men to eat pork, but each of them refuse. He tortures each of the woman’s sons in front of her. As each son endures these horrific tortures, she encourages them to be faithful to God and his law. It’s incredibly moving story. I highly encourage you to read it. Antiochus kills six of the brothers and he comes to the youngest. Instead of immediately torturing the youngest brother, he offers him wealth and a public office if only he will reject the ways of his ancestors. Antiochus summoned the mother and tried to appeal to her motherly sensibilities and said to her, “appeal to your son to save himself.” 2 Maccabees records, “After much urging on his part, she undertook to persuade her son. 27 But, leaning close to him, she spoke in their native language as follows, deriding the cruel tyrant: “My son, have pity on me. I carried you nine months in my womb and nursed you for three years and have reared you and brought you up to this point in your life and have taken care of you. 28 I beg you, my child, to look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them and recognize that God did not make them out of things that existed. And in the same way the human race came into being. 29 Do not fear this butcher but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God’s mercy I may get you back again along with your brothers.” The book records that youngest son looked at Antiochus in the face and told him, “But you, unholy wretch, you most defiled of all mortals, do not be elated in vain and puffed up by uncertain hopes when you raise your hand against the children of heaven. 35 You have not yet escaped the judgment of the almighty, all-seeing God. 36 For our brothers, after enduring a brief suffering for everlasting life, have fallen under God’s covenant, but you, by the judgment of God, will receive just punishment for your arrogance.” Antiochus became so enraged that he tortured the youngest son far worse than the others, and finally he killed the mother as well.

In the minds of many Jews living in Paul’s day, Caesar was just Antiochus Epiphanes with a new face. I think there’s an argument to be made that Paul may have even felt this way himself. In fact, during Paul’s lifetime, in year AD 40 the Roman Emperor Caligula attempted to install a statue of himself in the Jerusalem temple. Consider the history of vicious oppression that the Jews endured under their enemies, whether that enemy was Antiochus Epiphanes or the Caesars. Then, here comes Paul saying that God’s desire is for ALL people to be saved. Are you sure about that, Paul? Are you sure God really wants to save ALL people? Paul, do you mean that God even wants to save, Caesar? When Paul heard that question, he answered, “Yes. God even wants to save Caesar.”

For Paul, Caesar was not an enemy to be defeated, but another human being to be reconciled to God. Paul says in the letter to the Ephesians, “for our struggle is not against blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, (rulers and authorities, is that Caesar and the Roman Empire. Yes, but not the flesh and blood persons) against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” Was Caesar the enemy of God and his people? Yes, but Paul says the real enemy is the powers of spiritual wickedness that Caesar was enslaved to. So Paul says, pray for your leaders, so you can have a peaceful life, but also because God wants to save them too. God wants to save them from their sin and from the power of the devil.

This raises a great question, how could the enemy of God’s people possibly come to salvation? Paul’s answer is it’s only through Jesus Christ. “For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind, Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all.” The salvation Jesus acquired on the cross was for the benefit of the entire human family. Think about this, Jesus Christ was the ransom for Pilate, the Roman governor, who condemned him to death. This is a radical kind of love. This is a radical kind of grace.

God our savior desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Does that mean that everyone will be saved? Some people think so, but I don’t believe we can say that. Some people will be lost, because they will not come to the knowledge of the truth. God wanted Pilate to be saved, but he rejected the knowledge of the truth. God wanted Antiochus Epiphanes to be saved, but he rejected the knowledge of the truth. God wanted Adolf Hitler to be saved, he refused the knowledge of the truth. In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder, I’ve seen this post circulating on Facebook, “If Tyler Robinson were to repent and believe in Christ. Charlie Kirk would embrace him as a brother in heaven. That’s how the gospel works.”

We must define salvation. Salvation is not just saying sorry before you die, so you can go to heaven. First, salvation means acknowledging God is God and we are not. He dictates how we should live our lives, we don’t. Paul says there is one God, and we ain’t him. Second, salvation means that we must come to acknowledge the truth about ourselves. Salvation means that we must acknowledging that we are sinful and depraved, that we have hurt other people, and we have offended a holy and righteous God. As someone progresses further into sin, their hearts become harder and harder, and become less likely to acknowledge this truth. Third, salvation means acknowledging the truth that only Christ is our savior, because Christ is 100% God and 100% human only he can mediate between sinful human beings and a holy and righteous God. Fourth, salvation means we must acknowledge the truth that Christ calls us to repent (to change our lives) and turn from our sins. The greater the sin, the greater the sinner, the greater the repentance. Not surprisingly, the Caesars did not repent in the first century, nor in the second century, nor in the third century, but in the fourth century in the year 312 did a Caesar finally repent, when Constantine converted to Christianity.

CONCLUSION

Christians have been able to tame salvation, because we have often reduced salvation to going to heaven and being good enough to go there. Salvation is much more radical than that. For Paul, truth is transformational. There is no salvation without transformation. Salvation is not only for the people we like or the ones we feel are good enough, salvation is available even for the worst of us. God wants to save all people. We all must come to the knowledge of the truth and be transformed. Keep praying for our political leaders, because they need to come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved. Keep praying for the lost people you know in your life, because they need to come to knowledge of the truth. Pray for Tyler Robinson, that he would be driven to repent and believe in Christ. Not even a murderer is out of the reach of Gods grace. No one is too far gone, that God still does not want to save them. No one is too far gone, that God cannot change them and transform them. There are no lost causes in the Kingdom of God. God conquers his enemies, not with the sword, but with the gospel—with the knowledge of the truth.

Lord, let your truth continue to transform us. Open our hearts to share the gospel with all people, even those we don’t like and struggle to love, even those who have hurt us—because you even desire to save them just as you have saved us. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy. Amen.