Savior for All - 9-18-22
Savior of All
Ps 113; 1 Tim 2:1-7
Ps 113
Praise the Lord! Praise, O servants of the Lord; praise the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time on and forevermore. From the rising of the sun to its setting the name of the Lord is to be praised. The Lord is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens. Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth? He raises the poor from the dust, and lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people. He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the Lord!
1 Tim 2:1-7
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, 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 is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 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—this was attested at the right time. For this I was appointed a herald and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.
Prayer – God of grace, we give thanks that what you have done for us—bringing us close to you through your son—and what you have done you have done for all. Forgive us when we have (maybe unintentionally) limited the scope of your salvation to people like us. Give us a vision of the grand expanse of your love and prod us to be part of your proclamation of your good news to all. Amen.
In today’s epistle from 1 Timothy, Paul opens by asking the early church to “pray for kings and everyone who is in authority so that we can live a quiet and peaceful life in complete godliness and dignity.” That call for prayer for the governing authorities is a bit strange when you think about it. This was addressed to a congregation that had probably suffered persecution by those same authorities for whom we are to pray. There’s a good chance that these words were written from a jail cell. Paul would eventually be a victim of capital punishment by the authorities in Rome.
That’s probably why these early Christian are asked to pray for the authorities so that they might be allowed to live in peace and quiet. Still, it’s more than charitable for these Christians to pray for those pagans who persecute them. Why would you pray for those who are your worst enemies, even though it “pleases God our savior”?
The key to that question is found in the rest of the passage. Who is the savior? The one who “wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. There is one God and one mediator between God and humanity, the human Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a payment to set all people free” (2:5-6).
Why are even pagan rulers worthy of our prayers? Not only because it “pleases God our savior” but also because our savior is their savior who wants “all people to be saved” and “gave himself as payment to set all people free.” All.
Here, embedded in this letter, casually mentioning a truth that must have been so widespread and apparent that there was no need to go into detail or mount an argument. What Christ did, he did for all. He wants all, not some “to be saved and to come to a knowledge of truth.” All. Presumably that applies even to pagans in power who don’t yet know that what Christ has done, he has done for all, even powerful people who sometimes work harm against the powerless.
What we’ve got here is what’s often referred to as “universalism,” the hope that all will be saved, that God’s intent is not just to reach and to love a few, but all. Universalism is the hope that all will eventually turn toward the God who has turned toward all.
If God has found a way to turn toward you, enabling you to turn toward God, it’s charitable of you to believe that God is able to turn to any and to all. After Jesus has shown up and called a wretch like you, it’s hard not to be a universalist.
Still, some ask, “Can it be that all be saved?” In one sense, such speculation is none of our business. Only God accomplishes salvation.
I think that universalism, at its best, is not based upon some sappy notion that, “after all, everybody is well-meaning and nice, even if they are pagan politicians.” First Timothy doesn’t say that. Rather, this belief in the universal value and hope for all is based upon all that we know of Christ and his work. The early church quickly adopted this belief that God’s salvation through Christ was in fact for all.
I think that it’s good to believe that the benevolence Christ has shown you is shown toward all and to avoid limiting the extravagant graciousness of God. We don’t get to disapprove of the way God loves humanity. Our job is to make sure that everyone gets the news of the Trinity’s universal intent.
Christ has been given for all. God was in Christ, reconciling the whole world to himself. Paul says that just as all have sinned, so has God shown mercy to all. All. As in Adam, all die, so in Christ will all be made alive. All.
Like many of you, I grew up believing we were destined for either heaven or hell. I was taught, as I can imagine that you were, that only those who confessed their sins and accepted Jesus as their Savior before they died would live forever with God. All the rest would suffer hell’s eternal torment. As a child, even as a youth, even as a young adult, I’d never questioned this formula. It was simple and clear. As I grew as an adult, the belief became more uncertain in the face of life’s complexities. I just couldn’t believe that if God is indeed love personified, then it would be a cruel joke, a cruel God even, to torment someone for eternity.
Jeff McSwain was a Young Life leader for years before being forced to resign because of his views on salvation. But he remains in youth ministry, and continues to preach the gospel of God’s universal
redemption and the need for a response of repentance and faith.
McSwain began rethinking his approach to ministry as a result of wrestling with the views of Armenians and Five-Point Calvinists…. For Calvinists, to say that it is our faith that makes Christ’s death effectual is to say that salvation rests on our shoulders. It also smacks of relativism: Salvation is not true until we believe it.
McSwain argues that Jesus loves everyone he created and that he died on the cross for everyone. He says that he believes that the atoning work of Christ actually accomplished reconciliation and forgiveness for everyone for whom Christ died. He concludes. McSwain defends himself by noting a comment by Jim Rayburn, the founder of Young Life,… teaching on 2 Corinthians 5:19,… Rayburn said, “Every single person in the whole wide world is now reconciled to God…. It’s been true for nearly two thousand years. I wonder what they [high school kids] would do if they knew it…. God has reconciled us, all of us, it’s already done.”…
As I said, the early church held true to universalism but once the civil authorities got more involved in the church, theologians began to see universalism as a potential problem. Even though 1 Timothy says that God desires that all be saved. Whether or not all will be saved (God’s self-assigned task) and turn toward God (we can’t know just who has and has not adequately responded to God), we ought at least to hope that all be saved, since we ought to want what God wants. What does God want? All.
True, though Jesus Christ is Lord, God doesn’t always get what God wants. Human sin asserts itself. God has made us free for God’s love yet also free stupidly to resist. Maybe, in spite of God’s relentless resourcefulness, it’s possible for some of these powerful, royal, pagan people in authority eternally to refuse God’s reign. Who knows the full extent of human stupidity?
Universalism. When Jesus invites himself to the home of Zacchaeus the worst man in town, and Zacchaeus responds with the most extravagant giveaway Jericho had ever seen, Jesus says, “Today salvation has come to this house.” Not someday, somewhere. Here. Now. Salvation is whenever Jesus shows up and we start acting like it.
Although salvation is what God does without our contribution, salvation invites cooperation. A gift isn’t much of a gift if it’s refused. One of John’s Wesley’s favorite texts, “Work out your own salvation with fear in trembling,” sent both Calvinists and Lutherans through the roof. Salvation is a gift, and Christ welcomes our synergy.
The God I’ve experienced, and I hope you have as well, is the God of Jesus – a God of unlimited patience, infinite love, and eternal faithfulness. Jesus described a God who waits long through the night, with the light lit and the door open, confident that God’s most defiant child will one day realize this boundless and grace-filled love and turn toward home. Jesus revealed a God who loves the unlovable, touches the untouchable, and redeems those thought beyond redemption. Not because of what we do, but because that is God’s loving choice.
The God who loves people more than formulas, mercy more than judgment, and pardon more than punishment is the God that Jesus reflected each and every day. The God who seeks the lost, heals the brokenhearted, accepts the outcast, is kind to the wicked and ungrateful, is merciful and forgiving, and loves the whole world – all of God’s children – the faithful, the wayward, the grateful and the rejecting – God saves all through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Jesus told a parable about workers who showed up early in the day to labor in the vineyard while others didn’t show up until midmorning, midday, even one hour before quitting time. At the end of the day, the quixotic boss paid everyone the same. There was grumbling. The landowner feigned surprise, “Why are you envious because of my generosity?”
I’ll tell you why. We who have been lifelong Christians—attempting to follow Jesus from our youth, against our desires remaining chaste in our personal life, bored to tears by decades of Sunday school and long sermons—why should we not be envious when some little wayward lamb staggers back to the sheepfold, or a prodigal son returns home? Salvation, when offered to the likes of an outsider, provokes envy in me. Proffered to all comers, especially to the latecomers, without regard for my merit, somehow salvation seems less gracious than God’s grace reserved just for well-deserving me.
When Peter says that there is “no other name by which we must be saved,” that’s good news for anybody who needs saving; not so good for we who are affronted by the scope of salvation in Jesus’s name. Maybe that’s why the church has traditionally taught that there is “no salvation outside the church.” Salvation is a group thing, God taking us as a crowd, many of whom are not my type.
A major reason why a nice person like Jesus ended up on a cross was that he saved the wrong people, people who nobody thought could be saved, those that nobody even wanted saved.
In the parable of the waiting father, the father waits and yearns to welcome but doesn’t force the prodigal to return home nor coerce the older brother to loosen up and join the father’s party. God enables, encourages, empowers human response to God, but if God coerced us to return God’s love, would it be love?
Let’s be honest. Sometimes others do not embrace God’s love in Christ, not because they rejected Christ, but because they are put off by the rotten way the church has presented God. The world needs to know that God’s eternal, extravagant love is not part of the gospel – it is the whole gospel. Those who are ungrateful and wicked need to know God loves them. They are not objects of God’s wrath. Their reconciliation is the desire of God’s heart. They need to know the ceiling will never fall, the other shoe will never drop. It is held by grace, always and all ways.
Though we don’t know the limits of humanity’s power to reject the God who has refused to reject humanity, we have seen God refuse our rejection, disallowing our decisions as the final word on relations between God and us: how decisive can human rejection be?
And in this morning’s epistle from 1 Timothy, just when we get our prayer list completed, remembering all of our friends and family, praying for everyone in this congregation, along comes Christ urging us to pray even for people we don’t personally know, even people whom we do not like, even those who may have done us some injustice. All.
“Will all be saved?” We have reason to hope that God will at last achieve that which God desires, that for which God has so dearly paid. We can pray that God’s will be done for all, as it has been done in us. We can work for universal fulfillment of God’s desire. All we know for sure is that God was in Christ, reconciling the whole—sometimes responding, often
rebelling—world to himself.
Besides, who wants to show up in eternity, stand before the throne of God, and be embarrassed by having the Almighty ask, “Nice to see you, but where are the others?” The text speaks of Christ desiring that all be saved. What is “saved”? Let me say quickly, “salvation” is the result of Christ’s turn to all of us. Thanks be to God - amen