Even without faith Jesus is still Savior

[Josiah]

Friend, our positions are very similar, but very different. You have all the right questions. I hope you find the right answers ... not that they affect your own salvation.

See post # 18

 

[atpollard]

2. In the light of “Who [God] will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:4), has God proven to be a failure? (Or will He be so proven in the future?)

[Disclaimer: As Josiah said, I can provide AN answer, but only God has THE answer ... However, I have no fear to take a best guess as long as I make it clear that it is my best guess and support it with whatever Scripture I can.]

I can state with confident certainty that God will not be proven a failure. Since God = Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent ... 'failure is not an option'

That was the easy part, now the harder part. So what about 1 Timothy 2:4?

I never view a verse without looking at the context:

1 Timothy 2 [NIV]
1 I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— 2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. 7 And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles.

8 Therefore I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing. 9 I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, 10 but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.

11 A woman[fn] should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;[fn] she must be quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15 But women[fn] will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.


... and looking at other translations:

1 Tim 2:4
[NIV] who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
[KJV] Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
[NKJV] who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
[NLT] who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth.
[ESV] who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
[MGNT] ὃς πάντας ἀνθρώπους θέλει σωθῆναι καὶ εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν ἀληθείας ἐλθεῖν (just kidding ... I don't read Greek)

... But I know how to use Strong's:
wants/will/desires = (G2309) θέλω thelō = apparently strengthened from the alternate form of G138; to determine (as an active option from subjective impulse; whereas G1014 properly denotes rather a passive acquiescence in objective considerations), i.e. choose or prefer (literally or figuratively); by implication, to wish, i.e. be inclined to (sometimes adverbially, gladly); impersonally for the future tense, to be about to; by Hebraism, to delight in:—desire, be disposed (forward), intend, list, love, mean, please, have rather, (be) will (have, -ling, - ling(-ly)).
people/men/everyone = (G444) ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos = from G435 and ὤψ ṓps (the countenance; from G3700); man-faced, i.e. a human being:—certain, man.

Thayer's Greek Lexicon offers some insight on "θέλει" in that this form of the word (beginning with "θ") typically denotes a more emotional preference or choice ... probably why so many translations chose "desires" ... rather than the alternate spelling that denotes a choice based on rational thought.


Looking to others for insight:

Commentary by A. R. FAUSSET
1 Tim 2:4

• "Imitate God." Since He wishes that all should be saved, do you also wish it; and if you wish it, pray for it. For prayer is the instrument of effecting such things [CHRYSOSTOM]. Paul does not say, "He wishes to save all"; for then he would have saved all in matter of fact; but "will have all men to be saved," implies the possibility of man's accepting it (through God's prevenient grace) or rejecting it (through man's own perversity). Our prayers ought to include all, as God's grace included all.
• to come--They are not forced.
• unto the knowledge--Greek, "the full knowledge" or "recognition" (See on JF & B for 1Co 13:12; Phl 1:9 ).
• the truth--the saving truth as it is in, and by, Jesus ( Jhn 17:3, 17 ).

Study Guide by David Guzik
1Tim 2:4
The goal of prayer for all men: That they would be saved.

• a. Who desires all men to be saved: Prayer for those in authority should always have an evangelical purpose. Our real goal is that they would come under the authority of Jesus, and make decisions allowing the gospel to have free course and be glorified.
• b. Who desires all men to be saved: On a human level, we can certainly say that God desires all men to be saved. There is no one in such high authority that they don't need salvation in Jesus.
• i. However, from a divine perspective, we understand there is a sense in which we can not say that God desires all men to be saved - otherwise, either all men would automatically be saved, or God would not have left an element of human response in the gospel.
• ii. God's desire for all men to be saved is conditioned by His desire to have a genuine response from human beings. He won't fulfill His desire to save all men at the expense of making men robots that worship Him from simply being programmed to do so.
• c. Who desires all men to be saved: Because this is true (as seen from a human perspective), therefore the gospel must be presented to all without reservation. Any idea of limiting evangelism to the elect is absurd.
• d. All men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth: Salvation is clearly associated with coming to the knowledge of the truth. One cannot be saved apart from at least some understanding of who Jesus is and what He has done to save us.

[drum roll, please ... and now for my best guess]:

Like Adam and Eve, God created man with everything we need to choose to love and obey Him or not. Like Adam and Eve, God wishes, hopes, desires and longs for the fellowship with his special creation (us) ... all of us. Like Adam and Eve, we (every single last one of us) choose wrong with perfect accuracy. (Romans 3:10-18)

1 Timothy 2 is about PRAYER. We should pray for EVERYONE because everyone was created in the image of God. It is why Christians oppose Abortion and Euthanasia. We are not 'pro-suffering', rather we view EVERY life as sacred. There is no delight in the punishment of the damned, it is a tragedy. It is a sadness. It is a loss. Yet the default condition of man is not that all men go to heaven and some miss the mark. Romans 3:23 " for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" ... the default condition of all men is guilty, to be judged, convicted and damned.

But God (1 Tim 2:4) "wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth", so God said (Rom 9:15) "“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

Romans 9:6-8
6 It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7 Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”[fn] 8 In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.

While this was speaking of the children of Abraham and the promise to Abraham, it seems equally applicable to 1 Timothy 2:4 and all of the children of Adam. God does desire 'all people' "to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth", and just as the true children of Abraham were the children of the promise, not the children of the flesh, so the 'everyone' (all people) of Adam and Eve are the people of the promise and not the people of the flesh ... to reach fulfillment when we sing (Rev 5:9-10) “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.”


So that is MY answer ... you will need to look to God for the definitive answer (His answer trumps my answer).

 

[Josiah]

[Disclaimer: As Josiah said, I can provide AN answer, but only God has THE answer ... However, I have no fear to take a best guess as long as I make it clear that it is my best guess and support it with whatever Scripture I can.]


So that is MY answer ... you will need to look to God for the definitive answer (His answer trumps my answer).

:lick:


IMO, God DESIRES all to be saved.....That's what God says and I think it's true. And Jesus died as the atonement for all..... It's Sola Gratia - Solus Christus - Sola Fide (as ONE, single teaching/doctrine/belief). And I think it's true. I believe that Jesus is the Savior (thus no one else is - including myself - not a bit, not at all, not now, not ever).

The Sola Gratia and Solus Christus parts are always the case (thus my disagreement with TULIP Calvinists and generally with Arminianists), but obviously the Sola Fide is not (since it would SEEM some 5.5 billion people currently don't have faith in Christ as the Savior). Now.... WHY don't they? Well, it is possible to develop human theories and opinions about that with our puny, sinful, fallen, severely limited "brains" but that's entirely unrelated to whether such is true or not. And I reject the two largest ones at this moment (Calvinism and Arminianism) but that doesn't mean I KNOW (because I'm smarter than God, and I tell God what He should agree with, what God should think). There is simply some MYSTERY here. God is not mandated to answer all our questions (stupid ones and otherwise); God tells us what we need to know but not necessarily everything every homo sapiens on the planet may think to ask. I never claimed that God has neatly dotted all the "i's" and crossed all the "t's" in full accord with the assumptions, theories, philosophies, "logic" and science of the current moment - cuz God must not leave any question unanswered. I think we have enough to do as we address the Great Commandment and Great Commission without obsessing over correcting what God has said and "answering" our own questions since God didn't. "Humility is the foundation of all good theology" - Martin Luther. Or my Greek Orthodox friend's constant rebuke of much of Western Christianity, "They have forgotten how to shut up"...... "They can't leave well enough alone but insist on messing it up".....



Pax Christi



- Josiah




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[hedrick]

The OP and some of the more recent posts seem to be about slightly different things.

The OP and discussion up to about post 16 were about the "extent of the atonement." This is not about whether one can be saved without faith in Christ. That's the question of inclusivism. Rather, when people say Christ died for everyone, most mean that his death was sufficient for everyone and in some sense intended for everyone, even though everyone doesn't take advantage of it.

The main people who object seem to be Calvinists. Calvinism teaches "definite atonement," that Christ died for a specific set of people.

One poster seemed surprised to hear that Christ died for everyone in a Presbyterian church. Remember that in the US most Presbyterians are members of the PCUSA. The PCUSA does not teach limited atonement, even though historically Calvinism did so.

I think at least some of this is definition. If you assume that God is both omnipotent and omniscient even about the future, then I think the question about God's intention becomes hard to define. If Christ died knowing that his death wouldn't redeem everyone, can we really say that he intended to save everyone? I think in a real sense we have to assume that for God's intention and what actually happens is probably the same thing. Why he didn't save everyone is in the end a mystery, which Luther (at least later in life) thought it was a mistake to investigate too much. People speculate that it's free will, but why give us free will? I assume he had something good in mind. But I think you can reasonably say that Christ died to save those people that it was possible to save given whatever it was that caused God not to save everyone. It's not unreasonable to speak of this as limited atonement, since God specifically intended to limit the effect of Christ's death to those with faith (or whatever other considerations other soteriologies involve).

However at times Calvin spoke as if God had set out to save and damn a certain set of people, as a simple goal that wasn't subsequent to whatever considerations moved him to reject universalism. I think there's good Biblical reason to reject the idea that God, independent of other considerations, wants anyone to be damned. Hence I can understand why people object to limited atonement and pick unlimited atonement. (Whether Calvin actually intended to say what I've attributed to him is a bit unclear.)

Thus I think there are reasons to affirm both limited and unlimited atonement, but with sllightly different meanings to the terms.

As most readers here know, there are ways to avoid this dilemma. One is to assume that God is not outside time. In that case the future may well not be knowable even to him. However presumably even then God would have enough insight to realize that Christ's death wasn't going to save everyone, even if he might not have known exactly who would be saved. So we're back to definition. Did he die for everyone if he knew not everyone would be saved? Is dying for everyone who it's possible to save limited or unlimited atonement? I don't think the answer is so clear.

Even denying God's omnipotence doesn't entirely remove this ambiguity.

 

[Pedrito]

Of course Jesus is Saviour, even without faith.

Jesus is the Saviour of the world, no matter what.

Even if we can’t consider the words of the Samaritans whom Jesus taught personally, to be trustworthy,

(John 4:20-42: 40 So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days.
41 And many more believed because of his own word;
42 And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.)

maybe we can trust the apostle John

(1John 4:14: And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.)

It all seems so very simple to Pedrito.