All Men to be Saved: 1 Timothy III

Introduction:

We now come to the practical instructions for the Church that Paul is delivering to Timothy. The point of the letter is to provide direction for public worship, and so here we are.

The Text:

“I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty  . . . ”  (1 Timothy 2:1-7).

Overview:

St. Paul begins with an exhortation to prayer. We need to keep in mind that he is talking about prayer in public worship (v. 1). There are four kinds of prayer, but they are all directed to one end—they are for “all men.” What is meant by “all men?” It is clear from the context that Paul is talking about “all kinds of men,” because he begins talking about a particular kind of them. We are to pray for kings and for those in authority, in order that we might live quiet, peaceful lives (v. 2). We should pray this way because God our Savior thinks it is good (v. 3), and He wants all men (all kinds of men) to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (v. 4). The reason he gives for the desire for all men to be saved is that there is one God, and there is one mediator, the man Christ Jesus (v. 5). This Jesus gave Himself as a ransom payment at the right time (v. 6), and Paul was ordained to be a preacher and apostle for that gospel (v. 7). This gospel of truth was for all the nations of men.

In the First Place, Public Prayer:

When Paul begins addressing the liturgical needs that Timothy would confront at Ephesus, he began by insisting on a particular kind of public prayer. And from the requirement of this prayer, and the nature of the prayer, and the desired consequences of the prayer, we learn a great deal.

First, each local church is required to intrude itself in the affairs of the world. We are to pray for all men, from the kings to the peasants, and we are to do so because God wants all men to be saved. The Church is therefore a public institution.

Second, the church is to do so by means of what it does in its public worship. This is the action of God’s congregated assembly, having assumed the center.

Third, we learn that the ideal circumstances for the spread of the gospel are those of peace and security. We are grateful that God’s Spirit works powerfully in times of persecution, and we are additionally gratefully that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. But God says quiet and peaceable lives lived by Christians are the best means of bringing all men into the truth.

Fourth, we learn from this prayer what the essential duties of the civil magistrate are—the maintenance of public order and calm. The civil magistrate is the hall monitor, not the principal of the school. God is our Savior (v. 3), not Caesar.  We must pray for the peace of Babylon, but we are not allowed to pray to the king of Babylon. We may desire and seek the stability of our American empire, but we must not be seduced by it. This is, unfortunately, a lesson that many conservative Christians have to learn.

All Kinds of Men, or Every Last Man?

Paul says here (v. 4) that God wants all men to be saved. What does this do to the Reformed understanding of election and the atonement? Well, it contradicts it if you take all men here in the same way that you would take “all triangles are three-sided figures.” But if you render it according to a common usage in Greek, where all meant all manner of, the problem disappears.  When Jesus gave His disciples the authority to heal all diseases and every affliction (Matt. 10:1), this means that they had the authority to heal all kinds of diseases. God wants all kinds of men to be saved (v. 4), which can be clearly seen in this context. We are to pray for all (kinds of) men (v. 1), which can be readily seen in the itemization of one particular kind of man in v. 2—kings and those in authority. At the same time, we must not read this in a way that restricts the global sweep of God’s redemptive design for the world (John 3:16-17).

The Substitutionary Ransom:

The substitutionary nature of the atonement is plainly declared here (v. 6). The word for ransom in Greek is lutron, and one of the words for “instead of” is anti. Paul combines them here into one word antilutron, which could be rendered as “instead-of-ransom,” or “substitute-ransom.” He follows this up with another preposition (huper), which means on behalf of—His death on the cross is what He did as a substitute-ransom on behalf of all. Because there is one God (v. 5), and one mediator (v. 5), there is only one gospel (v. 6)—and there will be one humanity united in Christ at the culmination of all human history. Christ came to give His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).

The Public Declaration:

Consider how the world is evangelized. Personal contact evangelism is not first; it is not the high priority. Note that Paul does not say that God wants all men to be saved, and that therefore, in the first place, we are to leave evangelistic tracts in laundromats. When you locate the root deep in the soil, this may not look like you are tending to the fruit, but that is exactly what you are doing. The first thing is getting the gospel right: Christ died on the cross as a ransom payment for all men. The second thing (and the first thing we do) is getting worship right. Note that Paul says that, first of all, public prayer should be made for kings and all those in authority, so that we will have public order and peace, so that we might bring the gospel to them. The third thing here is the public proclamation of the gospel—Paul was ordained to this task as a teacher, preacher and apostle (v. 7). We do not have the office of apostle today, but we do have the first two.

In the fourth place, not mentioned in this text, we may locate personal evangelism, according to a person’s gifts and opportunities. Do not let anyone tell you that you are not evangelizing simply because you haven’t explained the plan of salvation to a non-Christian today. Other forms of evangelism are certainly lawful (bumper stickers, billboards, tracts, movies, books, and so on), but the ordained means of evangelism is the liturgical public prayer of the church for all men, coupled with prayer for the ordained preachers of the gospel. We have allowed our traditions of evangelism to crowd out the Word of God on this point. The question, “Did you share your faith this week?” should be countered with “Did your church pray for the king last Sunday?”