New Testament
Commentary
Exposition of Thessalonians, the Pastorals and Hebrews
I Timothy 4:10
They gladly carry on this difficult task because they have their hope set not on idols, which can neither make nor keep promises, for they are dead, but on the living God (see N.T.C. on I Thess. 1:9, 10), who is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe.
This clause has given rise to a variety of interpretations. Here one should tread very carefully. Some explanations, as I see it, are wrong even on the surface:
(1) God is the Savior of all men in the sense that ultimately he actually saves every human being who has ever lived on the earth.
Objection: This is contrary to all biblical teaching. Not all men are saved in that full, spiritual sense. Moreover, if this were true, why would Paul have added, “especially of those who believe”? That last phrase would make no sense...
(2) He actually bestows salvation -in the full, evangelical sense of the term -on all kinds of people. He gives to them all everlasting life.
Objection: This explanation, too, is impossible in view of the final phrase, “especially of those who believe.”
(3) He wants all men to be saved (see I Tim. 2:3), but in the case of some his will is “frustrated” by obstinate unbelief. (Lenski’s explanation is along this line; op. cit., p. 639.)
Objection: The present passage, however, does not say that he wants to save, but that he actually saves; he is actually the Savior (in some sense) of all men. Also, “frustration” -in the absolute, ultimate sense- of the divine will is impossible. Otherwise God would not be God!
(4) He is able to save all men; but though all can be saved, only the believers are actually saved. (See N. J. D. White, The Expositor’s Greek Testament. on this passage.)
Objection: That is not what the text says. It says, “He is the Savior of all men.”
The true explanation is found, it would seem to me, by making a thorough study of the term Savior in a passage of this kind. The final phrase “especially of those who believe” clearly indicates that the term is here given a twofold application. Of all men God is the Savior, but of some men, namely, believers, he is the Savior in a deeper, more glorious sense than he is of others. This clearly implies that when he is called the Savior of all men, this cannot mean that he imparts to all everlasting life, as he does to believers. The term Savior, then, must have a meaning which we today generally do not immediately attach to it. And that is exactly the cause of our difficulty. One must study this term in the light not only of the New Testament but also 0£ the Old Testament and of Archaeology.76
Now in the LXX version of the Old Testament the word Soter which is used here in I Tim. 4: 10, and which is usually rendered Savior J is at times employed in a sense far below that which we generally ascribe to it. So, for example, the judge Othniel is called a Soter or “savior” or “deliverer” because he delivered the children of Israel from the hands of Cushan-rish- athaim, king of Mesopotamia Gudg. 3:9). See also II Kings 13:5: “And Jehovah gave Israel a savior (deliverer), so that they were delivered from’ the hands of the Syrians.” In a sense all the judges of Israel were “saviors,” (deliverers), just as we read in Neh. 9:27, “Thou gavest them saviors (deliverers) who saved (that is, delivered) them out of the hand of their adversaries.” Cf. also a somewhat similar use of the word in Obadiah verse 21, “And saviors (deliverers) shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau, and the kingdom shall be Jehovah’s.”
It is not strange that especially Jehovah would be called Savior, for it was he who again and again rescued or delivered his people (Deut. 32: 15; Ps. 25:5). He “did great things in Egypt. ..terrible things by the Red, Sea,” being, accordingly, “God, their Savior” (Ps. 106:21).
Having delivered Israel from the oppression of Pharaoh, he had been the Savior of that entire multitude that went out of Egypt. Yet, “with, most of them God was not well pleased” (I Cor. 10:5). In a sense, therefore, he was the Savior or Soter of all, but especially of those who believed. With the latter, with them alone, he was “well pleased.” All leave Egypt; not all enter “Canaan.”
It is especially in certain beautiful passages of Isaiah that the word Soter is given a rich, spiritual content: Jehovah is Israel’s Savior, and this not only because he delivers his people from oppression but also because collectively he loves them. Yet, even in these exalted passages the meaning which we today generally attach to the word has not been reached. The passages cannot be interpreted to mean that he gave everlasting life to all the individuals in the group. Note Is. 63:8-10:
“For he said, Surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely: so he was their Savior. In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he re- deemed them; and he bare them, and he carried them all the days of old. But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit: therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he himself fought against them. ...” Cf. Is. 43:3, II; 45:15,21; 49:26; 60:16. Cf. Jer. 14:8; Hos. 13:4. (In the last reference note especially the context: “besides me there is no Savior” preceded by “Jehovah thy God from the land of Egypt,” and followed by, “I knew thee in the wilderness.”) According to the Old Testament, then, God is Soter not only of those who enter his everlasting kingdom but in a sense also of others, indeed, of all those whom he delivers from temporary disaster.
Besides, the Old Testament teaches everywhere that God’s kind providence extends to all men, in a sense even to plants and animals: Ps. 36:6; 104:27, 28; 145:9, 16, 17; Jonah 4:10, II. He provides his creatures with food, keeps them alive, is deeply interested in them, often delivers them from disease, ills, hurt, famine, war, poverty, and peril in any form. He is, accordingly, their Soter (Preserver, Deliverer, and, in that sense Savior).
In the New Testament this teaching is continued, as was to be expected. In his love, kindness, and mercy the heavenly Father “makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust” ... “is kind toward the unthankful and evil” (Matt. 5:45; Luke 6:35). The wickedness of evil men consists partly in this that they have not given thanks for this goodness of God (Rom. 1:21). It is he who “gives to all life and breath and all things” (Acts 17:25). It is he “in whom we live and love and have our being” (Acts 17:28). He preserves, delivers, and in that sense saves, and that “saving” activity is by no means confined to the elect! On the Voyage Dangerous (to Rome) God “saved” not only Paul but all those who were with him (Acts 27:22, 31,44). There was no loss of life.
Moreover, God also causes his gospel of salvation to be earnestly proclaimed to all men, that is, to men from every race and nation. Truly, the kindness of God extends to all. There is no one who does not in one way or another come within the reach of his benevolence,” and even the of those to whom the message of salvation is proclaimed is wider than the circle of those who accept it by a true faith.
This is really all that is needed in clarification of our present passage, I Tim. 4:10. What the apostle teaches amounts, accordingly, to this, “We have our hope set on the living God, and in this hope we shall not be disappointed, for not only is he a kind God, hence the Soter (Preserver, Deliverer) of all men, showering blessings upon them, but he is in a very special sense the Soter (Savior) of those who by faith embrace him and his promise, for to them he imparts salvation, everlasting life in all its fulness (as explained in connection with I Tim. 1: 15; see on that passage).
It is this living God who in Jesus Christ is the Savior! In classical and in Koine Greek the term Soter was used as a designation of various gods (Zeus, Apollo, Hermes, Ascelepius), Roman emperors, and leading officials, inasmuch as these were viewed as delivering men from this or that calamity; supplying this or that physical need, or bestowing general health or “well- being.” But according to Paul, back of every real deliverance stands God, the living One. The most glorious “well-being” of all (for the soul but in the end also for the body), and that everlasting, is promised and given by him to all who believe. For them, for them alone.. God is the Soter in the sense in which the term is also used in I Tim. 1:1; 2:3; Titus 1:3; 2:10; 3:4. Them he rescues from the greatest evil, and upon them he bestows the greatest good. It is in that full, evangelical sense that the term is applied to God also in Jude 25 (and, according to some, also in Luke 1:47).
Though as a title for God Paul did not use the term until he wrote the Pastorals, the idea that God is the Soter is certainly present in his earlier writings, as has been shown (see on I Tim. 1:1). It is probable that the closer Paul and believers in general came into contact with the Roman world and with the epithet Soter as applied to its gods and leaders, the more they began to make use of that same term Soter as a designation for the true and living God, basing the contents of this conviction not on thing which the world round about them offered but upon special revelation as given in the Old Testament and in the teaching of the Lord.
76. See the following:
Deissmann, A., op. cit., p. 368, and see his Index; I.S.B.E. on “Saviour”; M.M., pp. 621, 622; Ram say, W., The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthinessy of the New Testament, reprint Grand Rapids, Mich., 1958, pp. 172-198; Taylor” F. J., on “Saviour” in A Theological Word Book Of The Bible (edited by Alan Richardson), New York, 1952; W.D.B., on “Saviour”; Wendland, “Soter,” ZNTW, Number 5 (1904), p. 885 ff.
William Hendriksen and Simon J. Kistemaker, Exposition of Thessalonians, the Pastorals, and Hebrews (Baker Books, 2002), pp. 153-156.
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