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Tuppence for "On "Limited" Atonement"

1. There are, in fact, a number of verses to which you might go to demonstrate that Christ died for the world. John 1:29; 3:16; 6:51; 1 Tim. 2:6; Heb. 2:9. The fact is unarguable. But, much like predestination, concerning which the Apostle Paul explicitely states four times between Romans 8 and Ephesians 1 that God predestines, the question (and the controversy) is in how you understand the term. Does “the world” or “everyone” mean all people everywhere throughout all time or something else. I do not believe that it does. Take John 3:16, for example: “God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” Remember that Jesus is speaking her to Nicodemus here, a man of the Pharisees, a ruler of the Jews, who were notorious for trying to keep salvation for themselves. It makes sense to me therefore when Jesus says, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life,” to understand his following statement that “God so loved the world” to be emphasizing God’s love for the Gentiles as well as the Jews. If you understand “the world” here to mean all people everywhere throughout all time you have a problem anyway, because Jesus goes on to say, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world,” same word, kosmos, “might be saved through him.” So in this case (and I present this only as a case to give an example) you would have to advocate universalism in order to say that the world includes the un-elect because the world here is being saved. It’s important to understand the statements of the Scripture authors in the context of the force of their arguments and not to try to answer questions, necessarily, that they weren’t asking at the time. =)

   — Travis Carden    Oct 27, 08:47 AM    #

2. > “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world,” same word, kosmos, “might be saved through him.” So in this case (and I present this only as a case to give an example) you would have to advocate universalism in order to say that the world includes the un-elect because the world here is being saved.
   
   Not necessarily. It says ”... so that the world might be saved.” Or to you is there no distinction between might and will? Read it this way and tell me what’s different:
   
   “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world would be saved through him.”
   
   And I’m not going to argue “predestination”, as Paul makes it’s existence clear, though I wonder if our understanding of the concept is weakened by two millennia of cultural shifts.
   
   Anyway, I’ve determined that my primary problem with Calvin is probably a result of semantic misunderstandings. It is my strong desire to reject the idea that God has created us as automatons, damning and saving us arbitrarily. It makes much more sense to me to reject free will if you realize that the only “freedom” that God has allowed you is to choose sin over righteousness. It’s made clear in scripture that you will serve a master, whether it be God or sin, that you are a slave in spite of your willing it to be so. But the choice is still there.
   
   But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD. Joshua 24:15
   
   This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. Deuteronomy 30:19-20

   — Mark Drzycimski    Oct 27, 09:56 AM    #

3. Your latter comments on Calvinism in total are surely beyond the scope of a reasonable blog comment to address, but as to the difference between “might” and “will”, I wasn’t making any distinction. Now I can’t argue for doing that from a grammatical standpoint because the word “might” isn’t in the original Greek at all – it’s the tense of the verb “be” – and I can’t presently go beyond Strong’s Numbers with Greek. I would, however, suggest that you wouldn’t make a distinction either if you didn’t have a theological need to. Or would you interpret “might” to mean “possibly” in these cases? “For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living,” Romans 14:9. “It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus,” Romans 3:26. “my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God,” 1 Corinthians 2:4-5. Or (wowser), “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers,” Romans 8:29. We could always ask someone who reads Greek, but until then I think that what’s good for the goose better be good for the gander!! Hehe. ;-)

   — Travis Carden    Oct 27, 10:11 AM    #

4. Just to be clear, likewise, you’d have not needed to interpret “the world” as referring to only the elect if you hadn’t had a theological need to?

   — Mark Drzycimski    Oct 27, 10:44 AM    #

5. This is just going to turn into a teasing match now! =)

   — Travis Carden    Oct 27, 10:50 AM    #

6. I don’t want to get into details or arguments here, but if you’re looking for passages on atonement, you got one right. I suggest you have in hand other related passages as well.

   — Wong PoKér Hu Online    Nov 15, 04:09 AM    #