MrOpinionated
3 months ago
The Bible says, in the book of John, chapter 3, verse 16:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16, ESV)
What this verse means, first of all, is that God, the only God, who created the world and all the people in it, is perfectly holy. He made the first people perfectly able to obey him, but in time they chose to disobey—that is, to sin against God. And now they and their children are inclined to sin. They deserve God’s punishment for this, which is death. Consequently, we would all be headed toward perishing and suffering forever for our sins. But God is also a God of love. He loved the world and sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to earth as a man in order to die to take the punishment for the sins of everyone who trusts in him for salvation. (Jesus can do this because he is also divine. God is one God, but the Bible teaches that God also exists as three “Persons”—the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit—all equally God.) Jesus died, and then he arose from the dead, proving that he had defeated death. So now, not only will those who believe in Jesus be forgiven for their sins, but even though they may die and leave this life, they will also rise from the dead and live forever in the joy of God’s presence.
This is a simple teaching, and I urge everyone who reads it to believe it and find forgiveness through faith in Jesus.
But God teaches us more things about himself and about salvation. Certainly these things are not as important as the doctrine of salvation just described, but they are important nonetheless. In particular, the Bible says that God has “predestined” believers for salvation, having chosen them before the foundations of the world. This does not mean that some who seek salvation through faith in Jesus will not find it. All who seek salvation through faith in Jesus will indeed be saved. Instead, it means that people who believe, who seek Jesus by faith, do so because God has led them to do so. What it means is that we must give God all the glory for saving us; we do not even deserve credit for the decision to seek Jesus, because God gave us that as well. It is also a source of encouragement to us that Jesus has died specifically for us, the Good Shepherd specifically for his sheep.
The problem is, this doctrine seems unfair to people. People may talk about why if they join this discussion. Nevertheless, I claim that this is what the Bible teaches. So I offer this as a debate. But more specifically, the debate will be about the claim that not only did God choose people, but when he sent Jesus to die for sins, he died not for every person in the world, but only for those who would at some point believe in him. (This does not mean that people should despair of knowing whether Jesus died for them; it means that they should obediently accept his offer of salvation and then thank him for giving them salvation, and for giving them the faith to believe.) This is called the doctrine of “Limited Atonement” or “Particular Atonement.” The question is, does the Bible teach Limited Atonement?
Ground Rules: This debate is about what the Bible (Old and New Testaments) teaches. Therefore, people may only contribute arguments and rebuttals that assume the Bible is true in all it teaches, and that the Bible teaches that salvation is gained solely through faith in Christ. All posts that argue on another basis will be regarded as off-topic.
Yes, he did. I will argue from just one passage, 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 (all Bible passages here quoted from ESV):
“(14) For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; (15) and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”
A cursory reading of this passage might lead us to believe that this verse teaches the opposite of Limited Atonement, that is, Unlimited Atonement—that when Jesus died, he died for the sins of every last person in the world, but that only those who believe in him gain the merits of Jesus’ death for their forgiveness. After all, verse 14 says, “one has died for all,” and verse 15 says, “he died for all.”
The problem for this interpretation is that the passage says more. It says, “one has died for all, therefore all have died” (bold added).
We need to discern what is meant by “therefore all have died.” The verse explicitly says that “all” have died (whoever these “all” are) because Jesus died. That’s what “therefore” means. Somehow, Jesus’ death has caused the death of the “all.” (One might suppose another meaning could be that the “therefore” is a “therefore we can see that....” But even if we do that, we still have the death of “all” tied to the death of Christ, so this gains us nothing in understanding who the “all” are; we will assume the other meaning.)
As Christians are quite aware, they can say that they have died—spiritually died to sin—because Christ has died. In fact, Paul says so in Colossians 3:3: “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Also Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Emphases added.)
But never, as far as I can tell, does the Bible ever talk about the death of unbelievers being tied to the death of Christ, or being caused by the death of Christ. Hence, “all” in the 2 Corinthians passage must refer not to all people in the world, but to “all” Christians. Certainly that fits with the context, because in the 2 Corinthians context Paul is speaking about himself and his audience, who are presumed to be believers (he is writing to the church of God in Corinth and “all” the saints in Achaia), and what they most have in common is new life in Christ. Since he is teaching about what “we” have in Christ, such as an eternal home in the heavens (5:1), it is not shocking that he would refer to “all” those people as simply “all,” and his hearers would understand.
But regardless of how likely it is that Paul would use “all” in this way, we have already shown that he is using “all this way”; “all” must mean all Christians. And verse 14 says that all for whom Christ has died have themselves died (to sin). Ergo, perpetual non-Christians, who have not died to sin, have not been died for by Christ. Christ died only for the elect.
Answers to Objections:
I will not answer any actual objections here; I just want to note that if anyone wants to post an argument in favor of the other side is obviously free to post a “No” post. But if you choose to write a rebuttal to my argument here, then it is not enough to argue that other verses say other things. If you want to rebut this argument, then you need to show how my logic is erroneous, or even better, offer a better interpretation of these two verses in 2 Corinthians. In particular, you need to explain—if “all” means all people universally—then in what sense has Jesus’ death caused the death of non-Christians?
