Ezekiel 33:11 “Say to them: 'As I live,' says the Lord God, 'I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die O house of Israel?”
In the previous section we saw that God has His perfect will and His permissive will. In this section, we will see that salvation is God’s perfect will, and that damnation is God’s permissible will. In other words, it is God’s perfect will that all men be saved, but nevertheless He permits men to reject His salvation, which is His perfect will for their lives, and thus eventually incur damnation which is His permissive will for their lives. For God eventually casts into hell, those who choose to reject His salvation. The scriptures teach us that out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, we are to let every word be established (Matthew 18:16). In this section, we want to establish the truth from God’s word, that it is the perfect will of God the Father that everyone should be saved. And so, in order to establish this truth I have quoted not just two or three, but rather four witnesses that all confirm the same truth to us, i.e. that it is the perfect will of God the Father that all men be saved. The four witnesses are the prophet Ezekiel, the Lord Jesus Christ, the apostle Paul and the apostle Peter. There are many more scriptures that confirm this same truth for us, but quoting four is enough to meet the biblical requirement. The first witness quoted above is the prophet Ezekiel. In this passage God instructs His prophet, to tell us that it is not His desire to destroy the wicked but rather it is His desire that the wicked should turn from his evil ways and thus live or be saved. Obviously if God wants the wicked to be saved then He also wants the righteous to be saved as well. And so, very clearly we can see from this passage that it is the perfect will of God that all men be saved.
Michael E.B. Maher
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