With regard to Scripture passages used to support general redemption, the following may be said: Several passages that speak about “the world” simply mean that sinners generally will be saved, without implying that every single individual in the world will be saved. So the fact that Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29) does not mean (on anybody’s interpretation) that Christ actually removes the sins of every single person in the world, for both sides agree that not all are saved. Similarly, the fact that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself (2 Cor. 5:19) does not mean that every single person in the world was reconciled to God, but that sinners generally were reconciled to God. Another way of putting these two passages would be to say that Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of sinners, or that God was in Christ reconciling sinners to himself. This does not mean that all sinners will be saved or were reconciled, but simply that these groups in general, but not necessarily every single person in them, were the objects of God’s redeeming work: it essentially means that “God so loved sinners that he gave his only Son...” without implying that every sinner in the whole world will be saved.
The passages that speak about Christ dying “for” the whole world are best understood to refer to the free offer of the gospel that is made to all people. When Jesus says, “The bread which I shall give
for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:51), it is in the context of speaking of himself as the Bread that came down from heaven, which is offered to people and which they may, if they are willing, receive for themselves. Earlier in the same discussion Jesus said that “the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world” (John 6:33). This may be understood in the sense of bringing redeeming life into the world but not meaning that every single person in the world will have that redeeming life. Jesus then speaks of himself as inviting others to come and take up this living bread: “He who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst....This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:35, 50–51). Jesus gives his flesh to bring life into the world and to offer life to the world, but to say that Jesus came to offer eternal life to the world (a point on which both sides agree) is not to say that he actually paid the penalty for the sins of everyone who would ever live, for that is a separate question.
When John says that Christ “is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2, author’s translation), he may simply be understood to mean that Christ is the atoning sacrifice that the gospel now
makes available for the sins of everyone in the world. The preposition “for” (Gk. περί, G4309, plus genitive) is ambiguous with respect to the specific sense in which Christ is the propitiation “for” the sins of the world. Περί (G4309) simply means “concerning” or “with respect to” but is not specific enough to define the exact way in which Christ is the sacrifice with respect to the sins of the world. It would be entirely consistent with the language of the verse to think that John is simply saying that Christ is the atoning sacrifice who is available to pay for the sins of anyone in the world.
37 Likewise, when Paul says that Christ “gave himself as a ransom
for all” (1 Tim. 2:6), we are to understand this to mean a ransom available for all people, without exception.
38
When the author of Hebrews says that Christ was made lower than the angels “so that by the grace of God he might taste death for every one” (Heb. 2:9), the passage is best understood to refer to every one of Christ’s people, every one who is redeemed. It does not say everyone “in the whole world” or any such expression, and in the immediate context the author is certainly speaking of those who are redeemed (see “bringing many sons to glory” [v. 10]; “those who are sanctified” [v. 11]; and “the children God has given me” [v. 13]). The Greek word πᾶς (G4246) here translated “every one,” is also used in a similar sense to mean “all of God’s people” in Hebrews 8:11, “for
all shall know me,” and in Hebrews 12:8, “If you are left without discipline, in which
all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.” In both cases the “all” is not explicitly restricted by a specific phrase such as “all of God’s people,” but this is clearly the sense in the overall context. Of course, in other contexts, the same word “all” can mean “all people without exception,” but this must be determined from the individual context in each case.
When Paul speaks in Romans 14:15 and 1 Corinthians 8:11 about the possibility of destroying one for whom Christ died, it seems best here as well to think of the word “for” in the sense that Christ died “
to make salvation available for” these people or “to bring the free offer of the gospel to” these people who are associated with the fellowship of the church. He does not seem to have in mind the specific question of the inter-trinitarian decision regarding whose sins the Father counted Christ’s death as a payment for. Rather, he is speaking of those to whom the gospel has been offered. In another passage, when Paul calls the weak man a “brother for whom Christ died” in 1 Corinthians 8:11, he is not necessarily pronouncing on the inward spiritual condition of a person’s heart, but is probably just speaking according to what is often called the “judgment of charity” by which people who are participating in the fellowship of the church can rightly be referred to as brothers and sisters.
39
When Peter speaks of false teachers who bring in destructive heresies, “even denying the Master who bought them” (2 Peter 2:1), it is unclear whether the word “Master” (Gk. δεσπότης, G1305) refers to Christ (as in Jude 4) or to God the Father (as in Luke 2:29; Acts 4:24; Rev. 6:10). In either case, the Old Testament allusion is probably to Deuteronomy 32:6, where Moses says to the rebellious people who have turned away from God, “Is not he your Father
who has bought you?” (author’s translation).
40 Peter is drawing an analogy between the past false prophets who arose among the Jews and those who will be false teachers within the churches to which he writes: “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them” (2 Peter 2:1). In line with this clear reference to false prophets in the Old Testament, Peter also alludes to the fact that the rebellious Jews turned away from God who “bought” them out of Egypt in the exodus. From the time of the exodus onward, any Jewish person would have considered himself or herself one who was “bought” by God in the exodus and therefore a person of God’s own possession. In this sense, the false teachers arising among the people were denying God their Father, to whom they rightfully belonged.
41 So the text means not that Christ had redeemed these false prophets, but simply that they were rebellious Jewish people (or church attenders in the same position as the rebellious Jews) who were rightly owned by God because they had been brought out of the land of Egypt (or their forefathers had), but they were ungrateful to him. Christ’s specific redemptive work on the cross is not in view in this verse.
42
With regard to the verses that talk of Christ’s dying for his sheep, his church, or his people, non-Reformed people may answer that these passages do not deny that he died to pay the penalty for others as well. In response, while it is true that they do not explicitly deny that Christ died for others as well, their frequent reference to his death for his people would at least strongly suggest that this is a correct inference. Even if they do not absolutely imply such a particularizing of redemption, these verses do at least seem to be most naturally interpreted in this way.
In conclusion, it seems to me that the Reformed position of “particular redemption” is most consistent with the overall teaching of Scripture. But once that has been said, several points of caution need to be raised.
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