Featured On God Loving And Christ Dying

From a sermon by Rolfe Barnard : Why we preach the Gospel and Particular Redemption. [Modified slightly]

The issue is whether or not we are proclaiming the Gospel. They say if you do not preach universal redemption and tell everybody that God loves them, and that Christ died for them; if you don't preach that, you don't have any Gospel. And I contend that if you do preach that,you do not have any Gospel.

...And we contend that those of us who refuse to get up before a public audience or a private individual and say :"My friend, God loves you and Christ died for you." We cannot possibly say that; we know that is not the Gospel. We do not believe that is any business of the preacher or the hearer. God's Word says He does not love everybody. [ And then he quotes Malachi 1:2b and 3,Romans 9:11-13, Psalm 5:5b, Deuteronomy 32:19, Psalm 11:5b and John 14:21.]

Do you believe what the Bible says?

What does it mean to preach the Gospel of the grace of God in Jesus Christ? In order to preach the Gospel to all people, we do not mean that we are to tell people God has set His love on each of them and that Christ died to save each of them. Now I labor on this because that is what is being preached today. I've heard and you've heard preachers who say we must assure sinners that God loves them, and that Christ died for them in their stead. When we tell sinners that God has set His love on them, that simply means that if that is true, all of humanity must be saved. It absolutely impossible to tell someone that God has set His love upon them and that Christ has died to save them, to then say that there is anything wrong with them. If God has set His love upon you, and Christ has died to save you, then praise God the joy of salvation, the assurance of salvation, the victory of salvation is yours, as you look to somebody who possibly saves; but the One who does.

 

Continuing his message

Now will you follow me? The knowledge of being the object of God's eternal love, and the knowledge of being the object of Christ's redeeming death; this knowledge belongs to the assurance of the one who has already believed. This knowledge that Christ died for me, that God loves me individually is to be inferred from the fact that one has believed. And it is not to be proposed as a reason why one should believe. These things are just not true. No one can know that God loves them until after they have believed.

 

The Old,Old Story by CHS 3/30/1862

He took every sin of all His people, and suffered every stroke of the rod on account of those sins. He had compounded into one awful draught the punishment of the sins of all the elect. He took the cup...till he had exhausted the very dregs, and turning the vessel upside down he said, "It is finished!" and at one tremendous draught of love the Lord God of salvation had drained destruction dry.

Tell out the story that Christ died for the ungodly.

 

Death of Christ by CHS on 1/24/1858 --a Snip

They [Arminians-Rip] believe that Judas was atoned for just as much as Peter; they believe that the damned in hell were as much an object of Jesus Christ's satisfaction as the saved in heaven;...that in the case of multitudes, Christ died in vain, for he died for them all, they say; and yet so ineffectual was his dying for them, that though he died for them they are damned afterward. Now, such an atonement I despise --I reject it...I had rather believe a limited atonement that is efficacious for all men for whom it was intended, than an universal atonement that is not efficacious for anybody, except the will of man be joined with it.

 

Particular Redemption by CHS on 2/28/1858 --a snip

The Arminian holds that Christ, when He died, did not die with an intent to save any particular person; and they teach that Christ's death does not in itself secure, beyond doubt the salvation of any one man living. They believe that Christ died to make the salvation of all men possible...They hold that there was no particularity and speciality in the death of Christ. Christ died, according to them, as much for Judas in Hell as for Peter who mounted to Heaven. They believe that for those who are consigned to eternal fire, there was a true and real a redemption made as for those who now stand before the throne of the Most High...[But--Rip] We do not believe --- that Christ made any effectual atonement for those who are for ever damned.

 

Another Snip from Particular Redemption by CHS

Now, who is it that limits the death of Christ? Why, you. You say that Christ did not die so as to infallibly secure the salvation of anybody...We say Christ so died that He infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude that no man can number, who through Christ's death not only may be saved but are saved, must be saved, and cannot by any possibility run the hazard of being anything but saved. You are welcome to your atonement; you may keep it. We will never renounce ours for the sake of it.

 

It's very difficult to have a position on election that is neither Arminian nor Calvinistic. Just what do you believe is biblical election Steaver?

Well, I guess you met some hardcore Arminians then. Most Arminians believe in OSAS but it is a watered-down version of the Calvinistic perseverance of the saints. And since Arminians deny so much of what Calvinists believe in soteriologically, for them to even hold to OSAS doesn't make any sense --it depends on their own ability --not Christ as the Preserver.