These are fundamental questions. They demand clear and unequivocal answers. Here are mine: Christ did not die to make redemption a possibility, to provide redemption, to make sinners redeemable. Christ died as a substitute for sinners to accomplish eternal redemption, a guaranteed redemption, and he did it for all the elect, and only for the elect. There are many passages of Scripture which make this very clear (Matt. 1:21; John 10:11,15; Acts 20:28; Rom. 8:31-39; 1 Cor. 15:3; Eph. 5:25; 1 Thess. 5:9-10; Tit. 2:14; 1 John 3:5,16; 4:10; Rev. 5:9 etc.) From this, plainly, I hold to a limited atonement, a particular redemption, a definite accomplished redemption. But what of those passages which seem to speak of a general redemption, a universal atonement? There are several, often involving the word 'all' or 'world' (Isa. 53:6; John 1:29; 3:16-17; 6:32-33,51; 12:47; Rom. 5:18; 2 Cor. 5:14-15,19; 1 Tim. 2:4-6; Heb. 2:9; 1 John 2:2 etc.) These, I am convinced, do not teach universal redemption, although, at first glance, it might appear so. Ella, I am sure, is at one with me on this, whereas Clifford takes such passages in a universal sense. I will not, however, exegete these passages now – this has been exhaustively done by excellent authors, and there is no need to repeat their arguments here. After all, I am not at this time setting out to establish that Christ's redemption was limited – this I take for granted. The issue is: How to square this with the free offer? If these passages could be shown to teach universal redemption, the 'problem' would vanish. My point is, they teach particular redemption. The 'problem', therefore, remains. |
