God’s Will: The Salvation of All

Who will have all men to be saved (I Timothy 2:14).

The Lord is long suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (II Peter 3:9).

God wills that all men should be saved …

It is our wisdom, safety and happiness to accept every revealed truth with the simplicity and the faith of little children. We must yield ourselves to it to prove its living power within our hearts. Let us not fear to yield ourselves to the utmost to this blessed word: God will have all men to be saved.

God is love. His will is love. As He makes His sun to shine on the good and the evil, so His love rests on all. However little we can understand why His love is so long-suffering and patient, we can believe in and be assured of the love that God gives to us – a love whose measure in heaven is the gift of His Son, and on earth every child of man.

His love is nothing but His will in its Divine energy doing its very utmost in accordance with the Divine law. Thus, His relationship to mankind is regulated to make men partakers of His blessedness. His will is nothing but His love in its infinite patience and tenderness delighting to win and bless every heart into which it can gain access.

If we only knew God and His love, how we would look on every man we see as one upon whom that love rests and for whom it longs. We would begin to wonder about the mystery of grace that has taken up the Church, as the body of Christ, as a partner in the great work of making that love known, and rendered itself dependent upon its faithfulness …

God will have all men to be saved. This truth is a supernatural mystery. It can only be understood by a spiritual mind. It is in itself so Divine and beyond our apprehension … To very many who do not possess a humble, loving heart, the words carry little meaning.

To the believer, who in very deed seeks to know and to do all God’s will, God’s words give a new meaning to life …

He learns that just as this loving, saving will of God is the secret source of all His will and rules it all, so this loving, saving will is to be the chief thing that he lives for, too. I have been redeemed, organically united to, and made a member of the saving Christ, who came to do this will of the Father …

I feel the need of spelling out the words of the sentence until my heart can call them its own:

God – my God, who lives in me. Will Have – with His whole heart. All Men – here around me, and to the ends of the earth – To Be Saved …

As we pray to be possessed and filled with the knowledge of God’s will, let us seek, in all things, to have our hearts filled with this love. Let us have tongues which speak of Jesus and His salva¬tion, and a will which finds its strength in God’s own will – that all men be saved. So will our life, our love, our work, and our will in some measure be like that of Jesus Christ – a doing of the Father’s will.

Andrew Murray (1828-1917)
God’s Will: Our Dwelling Place
Chapter 23: The Salvation of All

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Tags: Hope, Inclusion, Restitution, Salvation, Universal Reconciliation, Victory

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