1 Timothy 2:4

1 Timothy 2:4. No assertion of the universal love of God can be more clear than this. Whatever might be St. Paul's belief as to election and predestination, it did not prevent his resting absolutely on the truth that God wills all men to be saved. Men were tempted to draw a line of demarcation in their prayers, and could hardly bring themselves to pray for a Nero or a Tigellinus. St. Paul's argument is that such prayers are acceptable with God because they coincide with that will which, though men in the exercise of the fatal gift of freedom may frustrate it, is yet itself unchangeable. But this is not all. The nature of the ‘salvation' is expressed in the words that stand as in opposition with it. It is found in the ‘knowledge' mil and deep, more than the mere gnosis of the understanding, of the truth which is eternal. This was what our Lord taught, as recorded by St. John (John 17:3), and this was always the most prominent element in St. Paul's thoughts of the blessedness of the future (1 Corinthians 13:12). Comp. 1 John 3:2.