God Wants Everybody--February 23, 2024

God Wants Everybody--February 23, 2024

"...This is right and 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."  [1 Timothy 2:3-6]

Well, this little passage just right goes ahead and says the quiet part out loud, doesn't it?  Here's the open secret of the New Testament: God's desire is for everyone to be saved, and there is no price God won't pay (or, rather, hasn't already paid) to rescue a whole world full of us. For whatever else that claim means, it says pretty clearly that God isn't rooting for anybody to be lost forever, and that God isn't sitting up in heaven just itching to smite you (or anybody else) with a lightning bolt of damnation.  God desires (or more literally in the Greek, "God wills...") for all to be saved.  

I suppose the only question that remains, in that case, is whether we think, at the last, God really will get what God wants after all, or whether there is anything--any power, force, bad deed, or heinous sin--that will ultimately prevent God from getting what God wants when all is said and done. I'll just leave that question there for you to mull over and do its work on you.  I'm still chewing on it, myself, after years of ruminating.

In the mean-time, though, consider just how wide an embrace this passage suggests.  In the immediate context, the writer of what we call First Timothy has just told his readers that they should keep praying "for everyone"--specifically including "kings and all who are in high positions"--which would absolutely have included people outside the Christian faith.  (Remember that the emperor at this time is the force behind Jesus' own crucifixion at the hands of the Roman Empire, as well as Paul's own imprisonment toward the end of his life--so this would include praying for people who were clearly hostile to the faith, wicked, violent, and oppressive!)  And from that request for prayer for everyone, the passage continues with the verses above.  In other words, the whole train of thought says that we should pray for everyone, yes, even including ungodly kings and cruel emperors, because after all, God wants everyone to be saved, and because Jesus gave himself as "a ransom for all."  The writer to Timothy is under no illusions: he knows that this would include some pretty terrible people who have done (or ordered) some pretty terrible things.  And God surely knows that as well.  And yet... here we have the clear statement that God intends to save, redeem, and rescue even the worst of the worst of us.  (Again, the question hangs in the air--will God eventually get what God wants in the end?  And what could there be that would stop or prevent God from getting God's will done at the last?) At least as far as God's intent is concerned, the writer of First Timothy understands that God wants everybody, and the outstretched arms of Jesus on the cross are evidence of just how wide God's embrace is willing to stretch.

Now of course, none of that means to excuse people who do terrible and rotten things (like, say, any bloodthirsty Roman emperors who might have been holding Paul prisoner) from the responsibility they bear for their actions.  None of this dismisses any of us from having to deal with the consequences of our choices, the harm we have caused to others, or our collective calling to speak up against the Doers of Terrible and Rotten Things.  But it does mean that whatever "ransom" Jesus offers with his life at the cross is not limited only to people who are already currently in-group members of the church, or to people with a perfect record on their Righteousness Report Card.  There is no limit to how many of us are included in that ransom or how rotten our behavior has been.  Jesus isn't just the savior of people with little sins--the casual gluttony of a drive-thru culture, the fashionable idolatries of celebrity and technology, or the respectable bigotries encouraged by talking heads on TV.   Jesus is the savior of us at our worst--and to hear the New Testament tell it, the ransom of a whole world full of us, too.

One of things I'm going to have to learn to live with, then, if I take the New Testament seriously, is that God has it in mind to save people I don't currently like.  More than that, God has redeemed people I don't consider worthy.  And God apparently intends to rescue even folks who are dead-set turned away from God and God's sort of justice, mercy, and goodness.  (Ask Paul himself to tell you his story about that, right?) Taking the cross seriously means taking seriously a vision of God's love that reaches to everyone, with or without my approval, and certainly never needing my permission.

So... if you can't cope with a God whose desire is just that all-encompassing, well, it's a dangerous thing to read the New Testament.  If you aren't prepared for a savior who gives himself away as a "ransom for all," well, maybe what you're interested in is a different sort of religion.  And if you can't stand the idea that in glory you'll be rubbing elbows with people who do not pass your personal tests of holiness or make the cut on your list of respectable people, well, then you may want to have a Come-to-Jesus moment yourself, because the Scriptures double-down on this claim of a recklessly gracious God and a cross that stretches out to includes us all.  

God wants everybody. Who are we to stand in the way?

Lord Jesus, widen our vision with the infinite reach of your cross-borne love.