Bruce Collins, Evangelist

Meditation for the week of December 21, 2008
1Timothy 2:3-6
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.  For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time,

I like the little words in the Bible.  I can understand them.  One of those words that I really like is the word all.  I preach the Gospel, and I preach it in the confidence that everyone to whom I preach can be saved.  This time of the year we are reminded that the Lord was given the name Jesus which means Savior because Joesph was told by the angel of the Lord, “you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins. (Matthew 1:21).”

I am convinced that the Lord not only died for the elect, but he died for all.  In the old testament, the Jewish people are the elect or chosen people.  They are an earthly people.  In the new testament, those who are ‘in Christ” because they have faith in Him are the elect or chosen people.  They are a spiritual people.  Those who miss out on God’s salvation, will do so “because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God  (John 3:18).”  People rejected Christ when He came to reveal God to us and to die for our sins, but Christ did not reject anyone when He finished the work that saves.  Again, our text says that He gave Himself a ransom for all.  Since all we like sheep have gone astray, it is good news to know that the LORD laid on Christ the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). 

Peter agrees with this.  He says, “The Lord is not slack (or slow) concerning His promise (to come again), as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance  (2 Peter 3:9).”  Repentance is the change of mind that brings us to faith in the Lord and it is clear that salvation is by faith alone according to the Bible.  It is God’s desire that all would come to repentance so that they can be spared from perishing. 

Christ our Savior is available to all men but He only saves those who believe.  I often think about those who hear the Gospel and reject it.  They will one day be in eternal torments and one of those torments will be to have known that Christ died for them but they wouldn’t believe in Christ.  It won’t be a case of them not being able to believe in Christ, but it will be a case of not being willing to believe in Christ.  And because of that simple mistake, they will be lost.  Since the Lord wants everyone to be saved and since He paid the ransom to buy us all back from the slave market of sin, the best way to celebrate this season would be by trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ if we haven’t already trusted Him.  It would be the smart thing to do.  And if we are saved, the best thing we can do is to thank God that His Son paid the ransom price for us all. 

We have all sinned (Romans 3:23).  There is an all in that verse that I don’t really like, but it is there just the same. None of us deserve to be saved.  But we can all be saved,  God has not limited the work of Christ in any way.   Provision was made so that God could forgive all the sin of all the people in all the world when Christ died on the cross.  However, we ourselves can  limit the work of Christ by not believing in Him.  That is the greatest offense that we can commit against God.  He loved all the people in the world and He sent His son into this world to die on a cross to prove that.  When people reject that love, I believe that they deserve to perish.  But that is not why Christ came.   He came to save, not to destroy.  "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved (John 3:18)”

The Lord Jesus Christ gave Himself a ransom for all.  That is the Christmas story and the Easter story all wrapped up together. When we believe in the Lord, we start a new life with Him and we enjoy a new beginning because of a new birth.  So we also have the New Year in this story.  And that is good news. 

Bruce Collins