You know the drill—“Whosoever.” “All means all.” and “Those are your verses, but what about this one?” Without getting into why such an approach undermines biblical inerrancy, here is a short list of the main verses brought up and a brief reason why No, they are not your verses any more than they are mine, but all are God's verses and make up a coherent, singular revelation of his salvation that is by grace alone.
John 3:16. This is the classic text to which all who first stumble upon Calvinism appeal. One word settles the matter. That one word is “whosoever.” Or at least that was the one word back when the King James Version reigned supreme. Here is the ultimate statement of God’s love, and that is a love for the whole world. The whole of the Incarnation is wrapped up in this love for all mankind. What might be very surprising for our Evangelical brethren to know is that we completely agree. Some Reformed will make of the word “world” to refer to all people groups as opposed to simply the Jews. That is not illegitimate, as John uses such language elsewhere (cf. 10:16; 11:51-52; 1 Jn. 2:2). However it is not really even necessary in this case. Calvin commented here,
That faith in Christ brings life to all, and that Christ brought life, because the Heavenly Father loves the human race, and wishes that they should not perish … And he has employed the universal term whosoever, both to invite all indiscriminately to partake of life, and to cut off every excuse from unbelievers.1
Once we have that settled, it is worth noting about the “whosoever” clause, that this means nothing more or less than that everyone who believes in Jesus will indeed have the promised eternal life. It says nothing at all about how many there will be or how it is they come to believe. Neither the word nor concept is relevant to the debate.
Now someone may push back to all this and say, “Well it is certainly refreshing to know that you Calvinists are not quite as monstrous as I have heard you were, but surely you are not as sharp as you think! The very offer of salvation in Christ to whoever logically implies that any and all may have it of their own free will!” We should reply to this that, in the first place, that is a philosophical assumption that one brings to the text and not something found in it.
But in the second place, the particular notion of free will that must be set forth to make this assumption fly will suffer from two main difficulties: (1) its form (often called libertarian free will) is logically incoherent, as Jonathan Edwards rigorously demonstrated in his Freedom of the Will (1754); and (2) its application is misguided to begin with because the person bringing it up almost universally ignores what the Reformed side means by the bondage of the will that chooses not Christ. It is not a denial of the faculty of volition as such, but of the capacities of the spiritually dead to bring forth spiritual fruit. But since this is a simple survey of texts, I will leave those two points for another day.
2 Peter 3:9. Here it seems to plainly say that God is “not willing that any should perish.” And indeed it does plainly say that. Unfortunately those quotation marks are not in the inspired text, and so we do violence to the text when we recall that place where it says “[God is] not willing that any should perish.” Well actually, no, that is not quite what it says. That unwitting (no doubt) shift in the quotes conceals the fact that other things are on either side of them. In a letter already addressing the elect, Peter is giving the church an answer to the charge of the scoffer, who wants to know why the Lord is so “slow” about returning. His reply is first to us.
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
The “any” and “all” is already defined as you. God is withholding the return of Christ until he gathers every last one of his elect. Similar relations between the Second Coming and the elect can be seen in the Olivet Discourse: “But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short” (Mat. 24:22).
1 Timothy 2:4. There are generally two ways that the Reformed will interpret this verse. The first takes into account the context of Paul’s instruction to pray (vv. 1-3). What is the nature of the prayer? It is ultimately not for the good of kings, nor the peace of our lives, that is being requested. These are relative goods. These are prayed for so that the gospel will go forth, not only among the Jews or those small nooks of the Roman Empire where the Christian faith had already taken root. Rather we are to pray that the message of salvation will go unmolested to the ends of the earth. Thus when verse 4 grounds this passion in God’s own desire for “all to be saved,” this all has a referent to all people groups, not each and every individual. So the Apostle is certainly not trying to suggest that God’s saving hands are tied and that he has a desire that will be frustrated. Surely every true monotheist would concede that if the Omnipotent One wanted everyone to be saved, he would not have to break a sweat to make it happen.
And that brings up a second way to handle 1 Timothy 2:4. This way makes a distinction among God’s desires. To do so conceals more profound distinctions that theologians ought to make about God’s decree being singular. Nonetheless we can speak in a relative way about divine desires because, after all, this very text does so. Now both Calvinists and Arminians are particularists. That is, neither believes that all will in fact be saved. Yet here it says God has such a desire. So the dilemma is presented to both sides.
Both sides must hold to some priority that God has which is higher than this benevolent desire toward all. Arminians say that this higher desire is his respect to man's free will. Calvinists say that this higher desire is a care to his own glory. The only question left is which one is actually taught in Scripture.
Nothing more needs to be said when put in such light. And while we are in Paul’s first letter to Timothy another passage is instructive as well.
1 Timothy 4:10. If we start with the full set of assumptions within historic Calvinism, far from being an embarrassment to our position, this verse wonderfully makes our point: “God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.” He holds himself out as the Savior for all mankind, but he is also Savior of those who believe in some special way. Nothing more needs to be argued, as this is precisely our position. If someone wants to object to the genuineness of such an offer, we refer again not to the text but to critique the philosophical assumptions behind such a claim. The objection says that the offer to all cannot be genuine if the effect is for the elect alone. There are multiple presuppositions here about the root of moral worth of ends outside of ourselves, and again concerning the freedom of the will. Such requires a separate writing.
“But,” someone may reply, “are there not texts that refer to the work of Christ in particular as something that has universal application?”
John 1:29. “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” Here is a statement both of the necessity and the sufficiency of the work of Christ for the sins of all. No Calvinists would deny this about this necessity of the cross. And thus for John to point to the Lamb in this way and say this to the world is purely evangelistic. There is no other way of salvation but that of the Substitute, and if anyone who hears would turn to him for the forgiveness of their sins they would have it. So all Calvinists agree with all Arminians that the necessity of the cross is for all. Now some Calvinists would go even further concerning its sufficiency. The Reformed were very much in the whole catholic tradition with formula that Christ's death was sufficient for all, but efficient for the elect alone. However, some of the delegates at the Synod of Dort, such as John Davenant, insisted that to say the cross is sufficient in some abstract way makes double-talk of the genuine offer.
In commenting on those articles, Daniel Hyde makes a distinction between mere sufficiency and ordained sufficiency.2 All those statements from Augustine or Peter Lombard or Thomas Aquinas, all the way down to Owen and later Reformed thinkers, who would use the language of Christ’s blood being sufficient to atone for the sins of all men in the whole world and a million worlds besides—if God had so intended—such language may still beg the question about the sense in which that blood is sufficient. Is it merely a hypothetical sufficiency? Can we point the unbeliever to the blood of the Lamb and say that this takes away sins? Behind this is that Christ's death “enables God to be reconciled to sinners.” Lombard had said, “he did so for all with regard to the sufficiency of the price, but only for the elect with regard to its efficacy, because he brought about salvation only for the predestined.”3 Calvinists may debate that, but in either case the bar of John 1:29 is already cleared.
1 John 2:2. “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” If propitiation is what it is, then the Arminian interpretation of this verse really proves too much. Propitiation has two components. It implies a substitute, such as those animals were in the Old Testament sacrifices. It takes the place of the sinner. It also implies the appeasement of God’s wrath. The two ideas come together in that divine wrath is indeed fully exhausted and absorbed in the substitute. Christ bears the full weight of divine justice for all of our sins. Now to set up our problem, consider the so-called “universalist dilemma,” as set forth by John Owen.
“God imposed his wrath due unto, and Christ underwent the pains of hell for, either all the sins of all men, or all the sins of some men, or some sins of all men. If the last, some sins of all men, then have all men some sins to answer for, and so shall no man be saved … If the second, that is it which we affirm, that Christ in their stead and room suffered for all the sins of all the elect in the world. If the first, why, then, are not all freed from the punishment of all their sins? You will say, ‘Because of their unbelief; they will not believe.’ But this unbelief, is it a sin, or not? If not, why should they be punished for it? If it be, then Christ underwent the punishment due to it, or not? If so, then why must that hinder them more than their other sins for which he died from partaking of the fruit of his death? If he did not, then did he not die for all their sins.”4
Consequently, any straightforward reading of the “propitiation” of 1 John 2:2 as universal would imply not hypothetical universalism, but actual universalism. If Christ’s sacrifice actually removed all of God’s wrath for every sin, then by resistless logic, all would in fact be saved. But not all are.
Romans 5:18. Some may be content to compare verse 19 with 18 and point out that where one statement says “all” the other says “many.” But this is very unsatisfactory since all of something may still be very many. What is more to the point is to show how this great many do indeed make up an “all.” But when Christ was sent as the Second Adam, there was a new all in the world because there was a new human race. And it just so happens that this is Paul’s whole point in Romans 5:12-21.
He is giving us the big picture of “federal” or covenant representation. An analogy is made between the First Man of the old human race and the First Man of the new human race. They are like each other in one sense and not like each other in another. Their likeness is what concerns us here.
“Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men” (v. 18). This “act” being spoken of is the obedience of Christ on behalf of his whole race. Just as Adam had his sin imputed to his whole race, so Christ’s righteous work was imputed to his whole race. As with 1 John 2:2, so here, except that now instead of propitiation it has to do with justification. As a one-to-one universal application of the propitiation proved too much in that verse, so here a one-to-one universal application of Christ’s righteous act would prove too much in Romans 5:18. All would indeed be declared righteous and live. But of course all are neither born again believers nor are justified.
2 Corinthians 5:14. This flatly says, “Christ died for all.” There you have it! But we will notice the same thing going on as in Romans 5. Two humanities are in contrast. Then there is the additional clue. It seems to me that the very next words, “therefore all have died,” are as crystal clear as the first part of the sentence. If not, on what grounds would we say so? Note the logical connective therefore. This death of Christ for “all” was in some way the ground of all dying. But what does that mean? Surely it cannot mean that all have physically died. All of the people alive at the time had not physically died, and all who will eventually die physically were already going to die physically quite apart from Christ’s death. So then does it mean our spiritual death in Adam? Again, it would seem not, for we are already dead in our sin in Adam (cf. Rom. 5:12, Eph. 2:1). This is the death that the believer is said to have died in union with Christ. Thus, “I have been crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20), and, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (Rom. 6:3). So yes, this is a universal class of human beings for whom Christ died. But it does not mean all in Adam, but rather all in Christ. As one more massive clue that this is the correct interpretation, the very next section begins with the conclusion, “From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh” (v. 16). Is this true about all in Adam? Of course not! And yet he says that we regard no one this way. If we going to play “all means all” and “none means none,” we cannot have it both ways.
2 Corinthians 5:19. “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” This can be interpreted in three ways on a spectrum. This could be universal in the Arminian sense of “sins is general” or every sin except for the sin of unbelief. This could be particular in the Calvinist sense of every sin paid for, but in this case, the term “the world” would be the relative term. But there is one more option that works within the standards of Dort. It could be universal with respect to the sufficiency of the sacrifice for all, so that Paul is only speaking about a “not counting sins against them” that buys all mankind time to repent. Such a view of this text still makes the effect of sins actually forgiven apply only to the elect. The sufficiency of the sacrifice is ordained to be held open to all. So this text is not teaching something other than what we call limited atonement, but rather is not a text about that limit.
There are of course other passages appealed to, most famously the two warning passages in Hebrews (6:4-6; 10:25-31). Since I am presently only halfway through my own teaching series through the Canons of Dort, I will devote a Part 2 to those texts that seemingly contradict our inability to choose Christ and others that may seem to show that people are falling away from God's saving grace. These will suffice for now.
1. John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries, Volume XVII (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 123, 125.
2. cf. Daniel Hyde, Grace Worth Fighting For (Davenant Press, 2019), 192.
3. Peter Lombard, Sentences, III.xx.5.1
4. John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2007), 61-62; cf. 137.
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