Does God Desire All to Be Saved? E-Book

John Piper

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 89

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Are There Two Wills in God? Divine Election and God's Desire for All to Be Saved  In this short, theological essay, John Piper builds a scriptural case that God's unconditional election unto salvation is compatible with God's genuine desire and offer for all to be saved. Helping us to make sense of this seemingly paradoxical relationship, Piper wisely holds both truths in tension as he explores the Bible's teaching on this challenging topic, graciously responds to those who disagree, and motivates us to passionately proclaim the free offer of the gospel to all people.

Leseprobe

Thank you for downloading this Crossway book.

Sign-up for the Crossway Newsletter for updates on special offers, new resources, and exciting global ministry initiatives:

Crossway Newsletter

Or, if you prefer, we would love to connect with you online:

FacebookTwitterGoogle +

Does God Desire All to Be Saved?

Does God Desire All to Be Saved?

Copyright © 2013 by John Piper

Published by Crossway

1300 Crescent Street

Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

This book is a revised and expanded version of material previously published in: Thomas R. Schreiner and Bruce A. Ware, eds., The Grace of God, the Bondage of the Will: Biblical and Practical Perspectives on Calvinism (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995); Thomas R. Schreiner and Bruce A. Ware, eds., Still Sovereign: Contemporary Perspectives on Election, Foreknowledge, and Grace (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000); and John Piper, The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God’s Delight in Being God, revised edition (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2000).

First printing 2013

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. 2011 Text Edition. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture references marked RSV are from The Revised Standard Version. Copyright © 1946, 1952, 1971, 1973 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-3719-6Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-3721-9PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-3720-2ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-3722-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Piper, John, 1946-

Does God desire all to be saved / John Piper.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4335-3719-6 (tp)

1. Election (Theology) 2. Salvation—Christianity. 3. Universalism. I. Title.

BT810.3.P575       2013

2013014374

232—dc23

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

VP             23    22    21    20    19    18    17    16    15    14    13

To Tom Schreiner and Bruce Ware,humble partners in handling the Word of Truth

Contents

Introduction

1  My Aim

2  Illustrations of Two Wills in God

3  How Extensive Is the Sovereign Will of God

4  Does It Make Sense

Acknowledgments

Desiring God: A Note on Resources

Introduction

When climbing from lowlands to mountaintops, one must often pass through clouds. That’s the way it has been for me all my life as I have tried to get the best views of the glory of God.

When you enter a layer of clouds, it helps to have a guide to keep you away from the precipices and on the path to the other side of the murkiness. That’s one way to view this book. I hope it will serve as a guide upward through the haze and confusion about God’s electing and saving will.

I admit that some of the paths in this book are steep. And some of the steepest places are through the thickest clouds. The climb is not for everyone. We all have different gifts, and not everyone is called to this kind of intellectual climb. I don’t mean that the non-climbers will see less glory or worship with less passion. There are glories in the valleys. And there are paths into beauties of God that are less intellectual. I would not dare to claim that those who do this sort of climbing always see or savor more glory than those with wider eyes for the glory that is right there in the meadow.

Nevertheless, some of us are wired to make this climb. There is not much choice in it. We should no more boast about doing it than one should boast about being a morning person. Almost every time we open our Bibles, we see challenges. Puzzles. Mysteries. Paradoxes. Mountain paths beckon us, but seem to lead in opposite directions. We move toward these paths like bumblebees toward morning glories.

So if you are like me in this way, I would like to invite you to take a climb. I don’t claim to be superior, but it may be that on this mountain I’ve gone up and down enough times to be of some help. There are clouds. It can get really murky on the way to the brightness on the other side. I would like to help if I can.

The paths that beckon us on this mountain are the path of God’s election and the path of God’s will for all people to be saved. Election seems to say that God has a people who are his, and he sees to it that they come to Christ and are saved. But the other path seems to say that God loves everyone and invites everyone to come, and wants them all to be saved.

On the mountain path of election, Jesus says: “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word” (John 17:6). And in another place, he says, “No one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father” (John 6:65). Or, as God says in Romans 9:15, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” Then Paul draws out the inference: “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy” (v. 16).

But on the mountain path of God’s desire for all, Jesus says to the city that is about to kill him: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Luke 13:34). And he offers an open and free invitation to everyone who is heavy laden, thirsty, and perishing: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28); “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37); “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

It’s an old paradox. I didn’t climb this mountain by myself. More seasoned climbers than I helped me along the way. I’ll introduce them to you as we go.

The aim of the climb is not intellectual satisfaction. The aim is worship. God gets more honor when we worship on the basis of what we know about him than he gets if we worship on the basis of what we don’t know. If our effort to know God more clearly is not an effort to love him more dearly, it will be fatal. “‘Knowledge’ puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Cor. 8:1). This means that the only knowledge worth having in the end is knowledge that leads to love—love for God and love for people.

This leads to a second aim of this climb: missions and ministry. The aim of knowing is loving people—all the peoples of the world and all the people in the neighborhood. If we are confused about God’s election and God’s universal invitation to salvation, we will not love the world as we ought.

These are dangerous and difficult days in world missions. Hundreds of unreached peoples that Jesus commands us to evangelize belong to religions and cultures that do not want us to come to them. But Jesus did not say, “Go and make disciples where you are wanted.” He said, “I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves” (Luke 10:3). Without a clear, strong conviction about God’s saving will for these peoples, we will not have the resolve to go.

The same is true of our neighborhoods, near as well as far. There is suburban misery no money can heal. The brokenness may be hidden, but it is real. The rich are perishing. Most of them do not want us to tell them all is not well.

And in the ever-multiplying poor urban centers of the world, the pain, brokenness, sickness, dysfunction, hopelessness, and rage seem to be resistant to every kind of remedy. But Christians lean toward need, not comfort. At least we should. And the aim of this book is to bring such clarity to the will of God for ourselves and for the lost that we will not waver in moving toward need with the gospel of Christ.

God is sending us—all of us, in one way or another—to the world. We are not our own. We were bought with a price. We belong to Christ. His design for the world is our destiny. We have an inestimable treasure for the world—the gospel of Jesus Christ. We do not deserve it any more than they do. That God has chosen us to know him and love him makes us debtors to every person. If this book succeeds in helping you make it through the clouds of confusion to the light of God’s glorious saving will, the evidence will be that you give yourself as never before to spreading this news:

Come, everyone who thirsts,

come to the waters;

and he who has no money,

come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

without money and without price. (Isa. 55:1)

We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. (2 Cor. 5:20)

1

My Aim

My aim in this short book is to show from Scripture that the simul­ta­neous existence of God’s will for all people to be saved and his will to choose some people for salvation unconditionally before creation1 is not a sign of divine schizophrenia or exegetical confusion. A corresponding aim is to show that unconditional election therefore does not contradict biblical expressions of God’s compassion for all people and does not rule out sincere offers of salvation to all who are lost among the peoples of the world.

The Perplexing Texts

First Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9, Ezekiel 18:23, and Matthew 23:37 are the texts most commonly cited to show that God’s will is for all people to be saved and none to be lost.