PAUL’S statement of the great vision (Rev

30 Jul PAUL’S statement of the great vision (Rev

This is S. v. I 3), in which every created thing in heaven and on earth and under the earth unites to sing- Blessing, etc., to God most High. Could a picture more universal be painted – every knee, in heaven, on earth, under the earth bending, and every tongue proclaiming God’s praise. Such is the force of the original. All things, says LIGHTFOOT, “whatsoever and wheresoever they be. The whole universe, whether animate or inanimate, bends the knee in homage and raises its voice in praise.”

And this divine will S

In what sense this subjugation of all things to Christ is to be understood, is clear from the context, “who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.” Note the significance of this. No one can doubt that Christ is destined to subdue all things, but this passage shows decisively that Christ’s subduing all things (in the Scriptural sense) is making them like unto Himself. See note on 1 Cor. xv. 25.

“GOD OUR SAVIOR, WHO WILL HAVE ALL MEN TO BE SAVED, FOR THERE IS ONE GOD.” 1 Tim. ii. 3-4.

Yes, “bringing salvation to all men:” this is precisely the larger hope

“None can hinder His doing as He wills * * Now His will is that all should be saved.” – S. JEROME on Eph. i, 11″. S. PAUL here directs thanksgiving and prayer to be offered for all men on the express ground that God wills the salvation of all. PAUL grounds on the divine unity – a fact which marks this passage noteworthy- for the One God can have but one eternal (irresistible) purpose. “God is One, the One that is All, that binds up all in one, and one in all, and makes all one.” – J. WHITE, Restoration of all things. This Divine Oneness is no merely arithmetical proposition. It states a deep spiritual fact, viz., that Oneness is of the essence of the divine plan. A Creator who is ONE, and a creation perpetually TWO (i.e., perpetually divided into two classes), is to S. PAUL a thing inconceivable. – See ch. vi. towards the end.

Any obscurity in this passage becomes clear the moment we reflect on God’s plan by which the elect – those who believe – are first saved, and then become the means, here or in the ages yet to come, of saving all men.

Death is abolished, and with death that which it in Scripture implies, sin and evil. For death abolished, and yet death in its worst form, the second death, maintained for ever, are plain contradictions. Will those who maintain the doctrine of conditional immortality explain how death can be abolished, and yet swallow up finally all sinners in a sentence of annihilation?

But how is “salvation brought to all men” consistent with the damnation of myriads of men – nay, of any man? if, as we are distinctly told, God’s gifts are without repentance, i.e. effective and irrevocable.

These words amount to a complete overthrow of the popular view of the state of the sinful dead; for plainly they assert a process of redemption as going on after death. Remark , carefully, who they were to whom Christ took the Gospel, and whom, as the following passage shows, He saved. They were those who had sinned against the greatest light known in their day, and DIED IN THEIR SINS.

“THE GOSPEL WAS PREACHED EVEN TO THE DEAD, (IN ORDER), THAT THEY MIGHT BE JUDGED AND LIVE IN THE SPIRIT.” 1 Peter iv. 6.