God’s Self-Sufficiency
One of the most humbling truths the Bible teaches us is that God is independent and self-sufficient. He does not need anything outside Himself. Not only are all things His—the cattle on a thousand hills and all else—but they add nothing to Him. If He had never created anything He would still be complete and all-glorious.
That is what the word of God means in Romans 11:34–36: “For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him and through him and to him are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.”
Not only can no man know all that is in the all-knowing mind of God but because God is all knowing no one can tell Him anything He does not already know perfectly and eternally.
Nor can anyone give anything to God. Even when we “give” thanks, praise and glory to Him we add nothing to His glory. The salvation of the whole church adds nothing to His glory but is only a revelation of the glory He already has in Himself. He is the source, the means and the end of all things.
More than anything else the great name JEHOVAH reveals His self-sufficiency. According to that name He is the I AM, the all in all.
This truth is especially important in our salvation. Many have the idea that God cannot be a merciful God, a God of love and grace without us. He needs us, so they think, to be such a God of love and mercy. Some would even say that He cannot be a God of love unless He loves all men and shows grace to all. That is a denial of God’s self-sufficiency. If we had never been created He would still be the God of all grace, a God of perfect love (consider, in this connection, the doctrine of the Trinity). Having created us and seen us fall into sin His glory as a gracious, loving, merciful God would be no less if He saved no one at all.
What a humbling truth that is. How it magnifies the grace and mercy He does show, though it be only to some. What a great God He is.
But there is more. The other side of God’s independency is our dependency, that we have nothing of ourselves, can do nothing of ourselves and are nothing apart from Him. How foolish we are when we seek to live apart from Him. How foolish we are when we do not look to Him and pray to Him for everything necessary for body and soul.
Confess then, not only in word but also in deed, His self-sufficiency by trusting in Him for all things and by extolling the wonder of His grace and mercy shown to such as we. Rev. Hanko
God the Saviour of All Men (2)
“For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe” (I Tim. 4:10).
We began our discussion of this verse last time and we ought, I think, to recall what was said.
We pointed out that the text cannot be used, as it so often is, in support of “the well-meant offer of the gospel,” which teaches that God desires the salvation of all men. The text does not say, “God desires to be Saviour of all men.” It says, “God is the Saviour of all men.”
We also pointed out that the main thought of the text is Paul’s explanation to Timothy of why they were willing to labour and suffer on behalf of the gospel: they trust God and they trust Him because He is the Saviour of all men.
There are, we said, two interpretations of this verse. One says that the word “Saviour” must be explained as “Preserver” or “Sustainer.” God sustains the life of all men. The other says that the word “specially” means “namely.” God saves all kinds of people, namely believers.
Both interpretations deserve some discussion.
It is true that the word “Saviour” can mean “Preserver.” Every lexicon of the Greek New Testament allows for this translation. Thayer, for example, in his Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament translates the Greek word as “saviour, deliverer, preserver.” He appeals to other texts where the meaning is, according to him, “preserver”: II Peter 3:2, “… Lord and Saviour [or, Preserver]” and Ephesians 5:23, “Christ … is the Saviour [or, Preserver] of the body.” Whether Thayer is right that these two texts mean Saviour as Preserver is another question.
The problem with this interpretation is that it hardly seems to be a reason why Paul and Timothy toiled so laboriously and suffered reproach in the cause of the gospel. Why would the mere fact that God preserves the life of all men be an incentive to do this? It is hard to say.
The other interpretation, namely that the word “specially” means “namely,” is an interesting one. Although the Greek word is used elsewhere in the New Testament with the meaning “especially,” two passages almost certainly should be translated as “namely” or “that is.”
The first passage is Acts 25:26. Festus is speaking to Agrippa about Paul, a prisoner about to be sent to Rome for trial. Festus says: “Of whom [Paul] I have no certain thing to write unto my lord. Wherefore I have brought him forth before you, and specially before thee, O king Agrippa, that, after examination had, I might have somewhat to write.” Since Festus is speaking to Agrippa, the clause could just as well be translated, “Wherefore I have brought him forth before you, namely, before thee, O king Agrippa.”
The other passage is II Peter 2:9–10: “The Lord knoweth how to … reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: but chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness …” Surely the apostle means that “the unjust” are the same as “them that walk after the flesh”? Hence the passage could well be translated: “The Lord knoweth how to … reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished, namely them that walk after the flesh.”
This same interpretation can be applied to I Timothy 4:10. If this is the case then Paul is saying that God saves all men, namely believers. He saves all kinds of men: male and female, bond and free, Gentile and Jew, king and subject, master and servant, rich and poor, wise and foolish, Greek and Roman and Italian and Dutch and German and English—all kinds. But God saves all kinds who are believers. That is, not every man head for head is saved, only believers are saved.
And believers are not saved because they are believers, as if God looks around to see who might be a believer and then saves him. Believers are saved because all God’s salvation is by faith. Believers are elect and their faith is a gift of God. These God saves. This meaning of the words “all men” is in harmony with the rest of Scripture (cf. I Tim. 2:4; Tit. 2:11).
Because God saves all kinds of men, those who labour in the ministry of the gospel (as Paul and Timothy did) are willing to exhaust themselves in the work and are ready to suffer every reproach. God is pleased to save through the foolishness of preaching. Preachers trust in God to save His church out of all men. To have a part in that work is a glorious privilege. No suffering is too great, no labour too exhausting, when by that work the glorious church of God is saved. Prof. Hanko
Can We Die Before Our Time?
One of our readers has submitted two questions which we would like to answer in this issue of the News. They are: “Is the length of all our lives already determined?” and “Can you die before your time?”
These questions must be answered first of all in the light of what we know about the sovereignty of God, especially the biblical truth that He has predetermined and foreordained all things. If He has foreordained all things then He has also determined the length of our lives and the moment of our death.
Ephesians 1:11 teaches that God has determined everything: “Who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” So does Isaiah 46:10: “Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure” (cf. Ps. 115:3, 135:6; Dan. 4:34–35; Acts 15:18).
God’s sovereign determination of all things in our lives is taught in Matthew 10:29–30: “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered” (cf. Jer. 10:23).
But Scripture teaches too that God has predetermined the length of our lives. In Job 14:5–6 we read: “Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass; turn from him, that he may rest, till he shall accomplish, as an hireling, his day.” The bounds mentioned in this verse are those which God has set with regard to the length of a man’s life, as is clear from the first part of the verse. Within those bounds man’s days are accomplished as an hireling, that is, as one who works and is hired to work for an appointed number of hours.
We also find this truth confessed by one of God’s people in Psalm 31:15: “My times are in thy hand.” The writer of the Psalm is saying that not only his life and strength are in God’s hands but also the number of days, the length of his life and the time in which he lives.
Nor does Ecclesiastes 7:17 contradict this. We read there: “Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time?” In this passage, dying before one’s time should be understood to mean dying before the seventy or eighty years that is the ordinary expectation of many (Ps. 90:10). But though we may expect to live “threescore years and ten,” our days, as appointed by God, may in fact be fewer, especially under the judgment of God for great wickedness.
No one, therefore, can die before the time that God has appointed, a time no one knows. Nor can anyone live a moment beyond that time. The issues of life and death are not in the hands of doctors or surgeons but in the hands of the Almighty. Medications and life-support systems are in vain if He does not give life, as everyone discovers sooner or later.
But this is not without comfort for those who love God. To know this as a Christian is to know that our lives are in the hands of one who is wise, gracious and good. It is a reason to put our trust in Him and not in men. And because it is part of the great truth that all things are appointed by Him it is also the foundation for assurance that all things work together for good to them that love God. He appoints them all.
May it also remind us that our appointed time must be used for His glory. Rev. Hanko
