Turning the page…
Turning the page…
Glory · The Gospel
Yes, and Scripture says so in the strongest terms: God swears He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, Jesus wept over a city that would not come, and the command to repent goes out to every person everywhere. The Bible also uses 'the will of God' for two different things, what He commands and desires of us, and what He has determined to do. Holding both keeps us from two errors: that God is indifferent to the lost, and that anyone is lost because God shut the door.
https://glorystudy.com/questions/does-god-want-everyone-to-be-saved · Scripture quoted from the World English Bible
Ezekiel 33:1-20
As you read: God's oath about the wicked, and the watchman's urgent plea: turn, turn from your evil ways, for why will you die?
1Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,
2Son of man, speak to the children of your people, and tell them, When I bring the sword on a land, and the people of the land take a man from among them, and set him for their watchman;
3if, when he sees the sword come on the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people;
4then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet, and doesn’t take warning, if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be on his own head.
5He heard the sound of the trumpet, and didn’t take warning; his blood shall be on him; whereas if he had taken warning, he would have delivered his soul.
6But if the watchman sees the sword come, and doesn’t blow the trumpet, and the people aren’t warned, and the sword comes, and take any person from among them; he is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand.
7So you, son of man, I have set you a watchman to the house of Israel; therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me.
8When I tell the wicked, O wicked man, you shall surely die, and you don’t speak to warn the wicked from his way; that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at your hand.
9Nevertheless, if you warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, and he doesn’t turn from his way; he shall die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your soul.
10You, son of man, tell the house of Israel: Thus you speak, saying, Our transgressions and our sins are on us, and we pine away in them; how then can we live?
11Tell them, As I live, says the Lord Yahweh, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn, turn from your evil ways; for why will you die, house of Israel?
12You, son of man, tell the children of your people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his disobedience; and as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turns from his wickedness; neither shall he who is righteous be able to live thereby in the day that he sins.
13When I tell the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his righteousness, and commit iniquity, none of his righteous deeds shall be remembered; but in his iniquity that he has committed, therein shall he die.
14Again, when I say to the wicked, You shall surely die; if he turn from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right;
15if the wicked restore the pledge, give again that which he had taken by robbery, walk in the statutes of life, committing no iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die.
16None of his sins that he has committed shall be remembered against him: he has done that which is lawful and right; he shall surely live.
17Yet the children of your people say, The way of the Lord is not equal: but as for them, their way is not equal.
18When the righteous turns from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, he shall even die therein.
19When the wicked turns from his wickedness, and does that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby.
20Yet you say, The way of the Lord is not equal. House of Israel, I will judge every one of you after his ways.
Matthew 23:23-39
As you read: Jesus' lament over Jerusalem, and the refusal He names without excusing.
23“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. But you ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone.
24You blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel!
25“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and unrighteousness.
26You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the platter, that its outside may become clean also.
27“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitened tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.
28Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
29“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and decorate the tombs of the righteous,
30and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we wouldn’t have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’
31Therefore you testify to yourselves that you are children of those who killed the prophets.
32Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers.
33You serpents, you offspring of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of Gehenna?
34Therefore behold, I send to you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify; and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city;
35that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar.
36Most certainly I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation.
37“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!
38Behold, your house is left to you desolate.
39For I tell you, you will not see me from now on, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’”
Acts 17:16-34
As you read: Paul in Athens, telling a pagan city what God now commands and why the day is fixed.
16Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw the city full of idols.
17So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who met him.
18Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also were conversing with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be advocating foreign deities,” because he preached Jesus and the resurrection.
19They took hold of him, and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is, which is spoken by you?
20For you bring certain strange things to our ears. We want to know therefore what these things mean.”
21Now all the Athenians and the strangers living there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.
22Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus, and said, “You men of Athens, I perceive that you are very religious in all things.
23For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I announce to you.
24The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands,
25neither is he served by men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath, and all things.
26He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their dwellings,
27that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
28‘For in him we live, and move, and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’
29Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, engraved by art and design of man.
30The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent,
31because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained; of which he has given assurance to all men, in that he has raised him from the dead.”
32Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked; but others said, “We want to hear you again concerning this.”
33Thus Paul went out from among them.
34But certain men joined with him, and believed, among whom also was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
2 Peter 3:1-18
As you read: Why the day has not come yet, and what God's patience is for.
1This is now, beloved, the second letter that I have written to you; and in both of them I stir up your sincere mind by reminding you;
2that you should remember the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and the commandments of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior:
3knowing this first, that in the last days mockers will come, walking after their own lusts,
4and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”
5For this they willfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth formed out of water and amid water, by the word of God;
6by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.
7But the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
8But don’t forget this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some count slowness; but is patient with us, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
10But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.
11Therefore since all these things will be destroyed like this, what kind of people ought you to be in holy living and godliness,
12looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of God, which will cause the burning heavens to be dissolved, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?
13But, according to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
14Therefore, beloved, seeing that you look for these things, be diligent to be found in peace, without defect and blameless in his sight.
15Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you;
16as also in all of his letters, speaking in them of these things. In those, there are some things that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unsettled twist, as they also do to the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
17You therefore, beloved, knowing these things beforehand, beware, lest being carried away with the error of the wicked, you fall from your own steadfastness.
18But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.
Isaiah 46:1-13
As you read: God's own contrast between the idols who cannot save and the One who declares the end from the beginning.
1Bel bows down, Nebo stoops; their idols are on the animals, and on the livestock: the things that you carried about are made a load, a burden to the weary.
2They stoop, they bow down together; they could not deliver the burden, but themselves have gone into captivity.
3“Listen to me, house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, that have been borne from their birth, that have been carried from the womb;
4and even to old age I am he, and even to gray hairs will I carry you. I have made, and I will bear; yes, I will carry, and will deliver.
5“To whom will you liken me, and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be like?
6Some pour out gold from the bag, and weigh silver in the balance. They hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god. They fall down—yes, they worship.
7They bear it on the shoulder, they carry it, and set it in its place, and it stands, from its place it shall not move: yes, one may cry to it, yet it can not answer, nor save him out of his trouble.
8“Remember this, and show yourselves men; bring it again to mind, you transgressors.
9Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is no one else; I am God, and there is none like me;
10declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done; saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure;
11calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country; yes, I have spoken, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed, I will also do it.
12Listen to me, you stout-hearted, who are far from righteousness:
13I bring near my righteousness, it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not wait; and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory.
This is not our inference from His kindness; it is His own oath. 'Tell them, As I live, says the Lord Yahweh, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn, turn from your evil ways; for why will you die, house of Israel?' He asks it twice in Ezekiel: 'Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked? says the Lord Yahweh; and not rather that he should return from his way, and live?' and again, 'For I have no pleasure in the death of him who dies, says the Lord Yahweh: therefore turn yourselves, and live.' Lamentations says it from the other side: 'For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.' And the invitation is issued as a command: 'Seek Yahweh while he may be found; call you on him while he is near.' If God were indifferent to the lost, none of this could be said of Him.
“Tell them, As I live, says the Lord Yahweh, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn, turn from your evil ways; for why will you die, house of Israel?”Ezekiel 33:11
“Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked? says the Lord Yahweh; and not rather that he should return from his way, and live?”Ezekiel 18:23
“For I have no pleasure in the death of him who dies, says the Lord Yahweh: therefore turn yourselves, and live.”Ezekiel 18:32
“For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.”Lamentations 3:33
“Seek Yahweh while he may be found; call you on him while he is near:”Isaiah 55:6
“let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to Yahweh, and he will have mercy on him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”Isaiah 55:7
'Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!' Luke's account of the same lament says, 'you refused,' and Luke tells us that when Jesus came near the city He wept over it. He does not say their refusal was impossible; He says they would not. The same Lord says to others, 'Yet you will not come to me, that you may have life,' and explains the refusal from the human side: 'This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil.' Whatever we conclude about God's decree, Scripture never lets us say that the lost were kept out. They would not come.
““Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!”Matthew 23:37
““Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, like a hen gathers her own brood under her wings, and you refused!”Luke 13:34
“When he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had known today the things which belong to your peace! But now, they are hidden from your eyes.”Luke 19:41-42
“Yet you will not come to me, that you may have life.”John 5:40
“This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and doesn’t come to the light, lest his works would be exposed.”John 3:19-20
Paul stands in Athens and tells a pagan audience that God 'commands that all people everywhere should repent,' grounding it in a day He has fixed to judge the world. The risen Christ sends His church to 'all nations,' to 'preach the Good News to the whole creation,' with 'repentance and remission of sins' preached 'to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.' The invitation has no gate attached to it: 'the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich to all who call on him. For, whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.' The Bible's last invitation is its widest one: 'He who is thirsty, let him come. He who desires, let him take the water of life freely.' The desire of God and the offer of the gospel are real, and they are universal, and they are for you.
“The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent, because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained; of which he has given assurance to all men, in that he has raised him from the dead.””Acts 17:30-31
“Go,and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,”Matthew 28:19
“He said to them, “Go into all the world, and preach the Good News to the whole creation.”Mark 16:15
“and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”Luke 24:47
“For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich to all who call on him. For, “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.””Romans 10:12-13
“The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” He who hears, let him say, “Come!” He who is thirsty, let him come. He who desires, let him take the water of life freely.”Revelation 22:17
Here is the distinction that makes the rest of the Bible fit together. Sometimes the will of God means what He commands and what pleases Him: 'this is the will of God: your sanctification,' 'this is the will of God, that by well-doing you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men,' and 'not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.' Sometimes the same phrase means what God has determined to do: 'My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.' 'Our God is in the heavens. He does whatever he pleases.' 'He does according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and no one can stay his hand, or ask him, What are you doing?' Paul blesses God as the One 'who works all things after the counsel of his will.' Both are truly His will, and they are not the same list. So when Scripture says God desires all to be saved, it is telling us what He commands and what pleases Him, and it is telling us the truth. When Scripture says His counsel stands, it is telling us what He will certainly do, and that is true as well. Moses put the boundary in one verse: 'The secret things belong to Yahweh our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.'
“For this is the will of God: your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality,”1 Thessalonians 4:3
“For this is the will of God, that by well-doing you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men:”1 Peter 2:15
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”Matthew 7:21
“declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done; saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure;”Isaiah 46:10
“But our God is in the heavens. He does whatever he pleases.”Psalm 115:3
“All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; and he does according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and no one can stay his hand, or ask him, What are you doing?”Daniel 4:35
“in whom also we were assigned an inheritance, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who works all things after the counsel of his will;”Ephesians 1:11
“The secret things belong to Yahweh our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”Deuteronomy 29:29
Held together, these two truths protect us from two very different mistakes. The first is that God is indifferent to the lost, which Ezekiel and Luke and the whole missionary command forbid. The second is that anyone is lost because God shut the door, which Scripture forbids just as firmly: 'whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved,' and 'he who comes to me I will in no way throw out.' When Paul's own people refused the word, he did not say God had barred them; he said they 'judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life.' Scripture lays the loss at the feet of those who loved the darkness rather than the light. And at the same time it says that the coming itself is a gift: 'No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.' Nobody is condemned for lack of a real offer, and nobody is saved for lack of need.
“For, “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.””Romans 10:13
“All those whom the Father gives me will come to me. He who comes to me I will in no way throw out.”John 6:37
“Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, and said, “It was necessary that God’s word should be spoken to you first. Since indeed you thrust it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles.”Acts 13:46
“This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil.”John 3:19
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up in the last day.”John 6:44
“There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks after God.”Romans 3:11
Christians have read these texts in two ways, and it is worth saying so plainly. Some conclude that God's desire to save all means the outcome turns entirely on the free response of each person, and that His grace can be, and often is, finally refused. Others conclude that God's desire declares what He commands and what pleases Him, while the drawing that actually saves is His own gift to whom He gives it, and that no one who is drawn is lost. We take the second, because Paul can spend three chapters on mercy and hardening and then refuse to explain it, ending instead in doxology: 'Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!' And because the same Bible that says God desires all to be saved also says, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,' and that we were saved 'not by works of righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy.' What both readings confess is what matters for you: God takes no pleasure in your death, the offer that reached you is genuine, and no one who comes is turned away. If you want to be saved, that wanting did not begin with you, and it will not be refused.
“who desires all people to be saved and come to full knowledge of the truth.”1 Timothy 2:4
“The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some count slowness; but is patient with us, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”2 Peter 3:9
“Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you;”2 Peter 3:15
“Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him again?” For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.”Romans 11:33-36
“For he said to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who has mercy.”Romans 9:15-16
“not by works of righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy, he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,”Titus 3:5
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up in the last day.”John 6:44