1 Timothy 2:4

who will have The exact rendering is that of R.V. who willeth that all men should he saved not the stronger word bouletai, -desireth," with a definite purpose. Chrysostom's comment is "if He willed to save all, do thou will it also; and if thou willest, pray for it": and Theod. Mops, in the Latin translation "evidens est quoniam omnes vult salvari, quia et omnes tuetur, quia est omnium Dominus." Thus the Greek fathers accepted St Paul's words in their prima faciesense. The Latin fathers seek to guard their application; and St Augustine actually says "by -all" understand -all the predestined," because men of all sorts are among them." The phrase is not "willeth to save all," which would have been very near to universalism; but there is implied "the human acceptance of offered salvation on which even God's predestination is contingent" Alford.

be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth Notice the order of the words; salvation is according to the N. T. usage, past, presentand future.

Past, 2 Timothy 1:9, -God who saved us and called us."

Titus 3:5, -he saved us through the laver of regeneration."

Present, Romans 13:11, -work out your own salvation."

Acts 2:42, -The Lord added … those that were being saved."

Future, 1 Peter 1:5, -guarded unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."

2 Timothy 4:18, -will save me unto his heavenly kingdom."

And here we are evidently to understand by the two clauses first a rescuefrom ignorance and sin, from life in untruth, and then an advance from this first knowledge of one's true self as a sinner to the complete and perfect knowledge of the truth. So far then as the word -salvation" and -saved" are used to describe an experience of the first of these two stages, and are understood to be so limited, the language is Apostolic; and that indeed is a more incorrect usage which refers the word only to final safety, without guarding it as in our collect by a defining epithet "towards the attainment of everlastingsalvation," and without remembering the express statement of the Prayer-Book Catechism that by Baptism we have been now "called to a state of salvation."

At the same time, so far as any teachers or evangelists regard all as finished and completed at conversion, they ignore and contradict the latter clause here; God willeth that allshould come to the full knowledgeof the truth, and not stay ever resting on a past acceptance of the message of forgiveness. The word for full knowledge, epignosis, is repeated four times in these Epistles, 2Ti 2:25; 2 Timothy 3:7; Titus 1:1, and is contrasted with the knowledge, falsely so called, of the heretical teachers, cf. 1 Timothy 6:20; Titus 1:16.

The simple verb is rendered by Westcott, John 3:10, to -perceive by the knowledge of progress, recognition." See also on John 2:24.

The force of the distinction between the simple and compound word is well seen in 1 Corinthians 13:12, "Now I am getting to know in part; but then I shall fully know, even as God knew me fully."