Who did Christ die for?

[Isaiah40:28]

Because God has placed conditions on His will. God had rather all come to repentence, but if they won't, He's not going to force them. God wants willing followers, not robots, not forced laborers.

Like this: I'm driving a bus down a rain swept highway and come upon a man walking. I stop the bus, open the door and ask "won't you come in?" Now I have offered him something. I would even like for him to come in from the rain. There's plenty of room on the bus. But if he says no, what then what happens? He stays wet, the seat on the bus stays empty and as much as I hate to leave him alone in the rain, I drive the bus on, what more can I do?

It seems like you forget that you believe that God's foreknowledge is perfect and complete. You've said that God already "knows from the foundation of the world which humans would accept Him".
Can you explain your bus driver analogy again, keeping in mind that if God is the bus driver, He already knows the man's eternal destiny?
Does He not already know how many seats will be filled and who will be filling the seats?
Of course He does, but He "desires" according to your interpretation of 2 Peter 3:9that more will get on the bus all the while infalliably knowing that is impossible.


So why does He tell His Son, who also knows the list of believers, "Now, not only will you die for our children's sins, but you will also die for the sins of Satan's children." "Just to make it fair and more loving of me", the Father says.
God then opens the door to hell and shows Jesus the souls of all who are there. "You're going to die for those too, okay?"

Why?

 

[Alex Quackenbush]

See you're not interacting with the argument either.
Why would Jesus die for all the human beings who were already in hell by the time He came?
What is the purpose of dying for them? How could He?
He could no longer save them, their destiny has been set.
His death could atone for those who believed, but was useless to the unbelievers.


Christ paid for the sins of all who believe and none of the unbeliever's sins.

You can't have it both ways.

From Adam onward God promised to humanity a Savior. God fulfilled His promise. Who eventually believes on Christ is irrelevant to our Lord fulfilling that promise. Your inability to understand why God would suffer for the sins of someone that would reject Him is not a problem of God or the gospel but a problem with projecting onto God your ideas as to what is or isn't reasonable regarding God, His determinations and His actions.

Jesus on one hand, knowing who every believer is from Person A to Person Z, yet on the other hand, dying to save to all the unbelievers from Person 1 to 10.

If you acknowledge that Jesus knows infallibably who the believers are, then you must acknowledge that He knew infallibably at the time of the cross who He had to atone for and who He did not. Therefore to insist that Jesus died for many sinners who he knew would not believe is to bring confusion into the Godhead and the plan of Redemption.

To you it might be unfathomable that God in His Divine capacity could simultaneously know infallibly who would and would not believe while suffering for both but that is exactly how God designed and executed the plan of salvation for mankind. YOU might be confused by such mechanics but I don't think your attempting to speak for the Godhead and state it would confuse or bring confusion to them is the same.

But how would it bring confusion anyway?

This is why Open Theism appeals to some non-Calvinists.

No one has presented the error of Open Theism here that I know of. Many oppose limited atonement without accepting the error of Open Theism. God's foreknowledge is exhaustive, it simply does not force what you are suggesting, that He only die for those in His foreknowledge He knows, would believe.

God in His foreknowledge knows that you won't always be filled with the Holy Spirit or yielded to Him yet he has deposited His Spirit in you and made Him available at all times for you to be filled with though often you and the rest of us do not always make that choice. According to you God wouldn't do that but He did quite clearly.

It takes away Christ's exhaustive foreknowledge, because it realizes that He could only suffer and die for everyone if He did not know who would believe or not believe. In order for Redemption to make sense, Christ could not know beforehand who His death would positively affect.

Again this is a case of you projecting onto God your idea of how foreknowledge must work and not the acceptance of the reality of exhaustive foreknowledge, Divine Sovereignty and Human Volition.

Many non-Calvinists cannot affirm what Open Theism teaches about God's lack of omniscience, but yet they cannot explain how Jesus can truly die for every person all the while knowing the final outcome of every soul.
Non-Calvinists who are not univeralists, limit Jesus death to only believers, yet cry out against the Calvinists who also only limit it to believers.
Calvinists do so because they recognize the purpose of Jesus' death, to save a people given to Him by His Father.

I am of course NOT a universalist nor accept the error of Open Theism and I gladly can explain how Jesus can truly die for every person while knowing the final out come. It's called being Divine. The end of your argument places God as an agent of His foreknowledge and unable to act outside of it but forced to acquiesce. This is where you err. To you, yes, if you had foreknowledge you might be forced in such a way lacking all the other necessities of Divinity to accommodate that capacity but God is not limited and in this case I believe you are imposing on God your limited ability to comprehend not just Divine foreknowledge but the remaining essence of God and its function.

*I appreciate your term Non-Calvinist instead of the usual presumptive and erroneous label of Arminian often automatically assigned to Non-Calvinists by Calvinist who sadly often can only see the world of theology in either/or contexts. I myself and neither a Calvinist or Arminian so your tact here is appreciated.

Non-Calvinists limit His death, because they realize that unbelievers are eternally lost and therefore Jesus' death does not apply to them.
Univeralists never limit Christ's death because God will eventually reconcile every person to Himself therefore Christ's death is necessary for all.
Non-Calvinists speak in contradictary terms: Christ's death is necessary for all, yet it does not save all.
Calvinists say: Christ's death is only necessary for believers and saves every single believer.

I've said alot, most of which will pass right through the eyegates of the non-Calvinist without causing a stir on the belief system.
But perhaps someone is trying to think these things through and for them I write.

Friend I am a FORMER LIMITED ATONEMENTIST so trust me, I have considered and held to that tenet. So the idea that your ideas or thoughts won't cause a stir (with me anyhow) are without warrant.

God provides many things for many people who do not partake. You are limiting God to acting only if one responds favorably to His effort, particularly in the context of Salvation. But more broadly, if one applies this idea of yours, that God only acts in view of favorable responses you are found theologically wanting and it simply is absent in the Scriptures. God may act at times knowing someone will respond favorably, in as much as a human can, but you are prescribing to God the necessity of this on every occasion. I know of no Evangelical Theologian advancing this.

Time and time again God provides where one, many or all reject His offer of temporal aid and in the case of salvation God acts as is consistently represented in the gospel, the offer for all, the sacrifice for all and whosoever will.

 

[Allan]

This doesn't make sense to me.
Our sins are paid for but we're not forgiven??

Has God not forgiven the debt that we owe? Isn't that what atonement is all about?

If our sins have been atoned for and justice has been met, then my sins are gone from my record, therefore I cannot die in my sins. Yet, the Bible says that some will die in their sins.

The Atonement according to the Law which Christ must satify to appease the Holiness of God MUST be done on behalf of all. We see this in the Atonement which was done on behalf of ALL of Israel (for their sins), and yet we know not all of Israel (every person) was saved due to the Atonment made for All Israel.
Why not? Because that sacrifice for atonement (propitiation - substitute) had to be received by faith. That propitiation is to be made for ALL in the OT just as it is in the NT, and is the reason you will read in scripture that Jesus death was a "propitiation for our sins, but not ours ONLY, but the sins of the Whole World. AND YET - Just because the act of atonement was done does NOT mean it was automatically given. Why not? Becuase it had to be receivedthrough faith just as in the OT and so it is the same in the NT. (Rom 3:24-26)

Rom 3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
Rom 3:25 Whom God hath set forth [to be] a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
Rom 3:26 To declare, [I say], at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

Notice the Atonement alone is not what justifies else we would have no need "to believe in Jesus" TO BE justified. But that the propitiation of the Atonement is applied ONLY when we receive it through faith.

I elaborated a bit better (though much the same) in another recent thread by TCGreek of Atonement and you can read it as well here:
http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=1110466&postcount=9

EDITED IN --> Another point is this: Can a person be saved if Atonement was never made for them? Answer: Of Course not! So does the Bible speak of any who are MOST DEFINATELY going to be unsaved, and at the same time speak of them as though they COULD HAVE BEEN SAVED but did not receive it? YEP! Look here:
http://www.baptistboard.com/showpost.php?p=1110486&postcount=11

 

[Helen]

Allan and Alex, thank you. Very good posts.

I would like to suggest one more thing about atonement. It was not just done for man, it was done for God. Justice could not be unsatisfied eternally. God is just. One sin unatoned for, one debt owed, and eternal justice would not have been satisfied. And it was only the Perfect Lamb who could do this. Each sin deserves death. Each of us sins many times, but we could only die once. That leaves debts unpaid even if we were to die for our own sins.

Jesus satisfied all justice for all eternity for all sin for all people. And only God could do that.

And now it is not because of our sins anyone suffers eternal death -- it is for lack of believing in Jesus Christ, either as the Promise to come or the Promise fulfilled.

 

[Allan]

Allan and Alex, thank you. Very good posts.

I would like to suggest one more thing about atonement. It was not just done for man, it was done for God. Justice could not be unsatisfied eternally. God is just. One sin unatoned for, one debt owed, and eternal justice would not have been satisfied. And it was only the Perfect Lamb who could do this. Each sin deserves death. Each of us sins many times, but we could only die once. That leaves debts unpaid even if we were to die for our own sins.

Jesus satisfied all justice for all eternity for all sin for all people. And only God could do that.

And now it is not because of our sins anyone suffers eternal death -- it is for lack of believing in Jesus Christ, either as the Promise to come or the Promise fulfilled.

I will disagree only slightly here Helen.

Though all sin is atoned for in Christ that atonement is not imparted to everyone because not everyone will receive that atonement through faith. Thus, THEY must pay the debt of sin THEMSELVES since they reject the propitiation or substitutionary death of Christ on their behalf. That is why they are 'condemned' (found guilty) and must pay themselves a debt that can never be fulfilled outside of Christ alone, thus eternally damned.

If atonement paid for it all (as in paid for all sin automatically), then all are justified because it has redeemed them to whom it was applied. Thus they are in a right standing with God and judged NOT GUILTY.
BUT if that redemption is not applied because they reject it, then that someone must satify THEIR sin debt STILL OWED of which unbelief is apart.

Remember - unbelief IS a Sin and if we are condemned by unbelief then it is sin that has condemned us.

 

[Helen]

Allan, when I go to John 3:16-18 and on, I find that it is unbelief that condemns a man, not his sin. The law was fulfilled by Jesus. Fully. All sin is atoned for, but not all forgiven. And, in fact, there is one that CANNOT be forgiven, atoned for or not -- the sin against the Holy Spirit. Jesus said the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth (and He is The Truth...). If we follow this through with referencing to Romans 1, we find that what a man does with the truth he is presented with in his life has everything to do with whether or not he will be saved. Wanting the truth, he can be led to the Son by the Father, which is salvation, or he can be given over to the lie, thereby allowing his evil to multiply in his life.

But all that evil has still been atoned for -- which makes their condemnation all the more fierce.

The idea of the 'application' of atonement is not found in the Bible. It is entirely a human idea. Hebrews says Christ died once for all and tasted death for EVERYONE. Either that is a lie or the truth.

 

[menageriekeeper]

Isaiah, I'll refer you back to Alex and Allan's posts (#102 and #103) for answers to your questions of me. They have done a very good job explaining what I believe.

Allan and Helen have gone deeper than I have gone before with their last discussion, so I'm not going to comment on that issue as I'm not sure where I stand. I'll watch and listen instead.

 

[webdog]

Allan and Helen have gone deeper than I have gone before with their last discussion, so I'm not going to comment on that issue as I'm not sure where I stand. I'll watch and listen instead.

Me too. I tend to agree with Helen more on that aspect of the atonement (Christ tasted death for every man, etc.)...but we'll see. This could be it's own thread.

 

[Jarthur001]

When does God stop loving the ones that go to Hell?

 

[webdog]

When it freezes over?

 

[Jarthur001]

When it freezes over?

That is a joke used by non-believers and means it will never happen.

Are you saying God will never STOP love anyone?

 

[Isaiah40:28]

Isaiah, I'll refer you back to Alex and Allan's posts (#102 and #103) for answers to your questions of me. They have done a very good job explaining what I believe.

So you believe that Jesus died for people who are in hell and because He is Divine it somehow works and should be accepted.

 

[webdog]

That is a joke used by non-believers and means it will never happen.

Are you saying God will never STOP love anyone?

It's a joke also used by believers...as I am one.

Can you supply Scripture stating God's love is ending?

 

[menageriekeeper]

So you believe that Jesus died for people who are in hell and because He is Divine it somehow works and should be accepted.

Not exactly, Isaiah. People can't be saved after they have died.

Christ died for all who would believe in Him during their life on earth, therefore, no one from the OT came up out of hell(notice I said hell, not hades) after He died and into heaven. If, during their lifetime, they had simply believed that God would provide a Messiah, that faith would have been rewarded with salvation. So, the potential was their for all OT people to be saved and Christ's blood could have/would have covered their sin even though it would be shed in their future.

So, though God intended Christ's sacrifice to be sufficient for all, all are not saved because of their own unbelief.

 

[Jarthur001]

It's a joke also used by believers...as I am one.

Can you supply Scripture stating God's love is ending?

No I cannot. I never said it would end. That would be the point. Gods love never ever changes does it? So we agree.

So what do we do with a verse like this.

Psalm 11:5, "The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, and the one who loves violence His soul hates."

?

Joh 3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

so when John writes..." We love him, because he first loved us."

I ask again...

When does God change and start hating people?

 

[Amy.G]

Christ died for all who would believe in Him during their life on earth,

That is limited atonement.

So, though God intended Christ's sacrifice to be sufficient for all, all are not saved because of their own unbelief.

This is general atonement or universal atonement.


Which do you believe, since you seem to be saying you believe both?

 

[Helen]

Actually, Amy, it does not matter what anyone here 'believes' about any given issue -- it matters what the Bible says. And the Bible says Jesus died once for all and tasted death for everyone. I assume you disagree....

 

[Jim1999]

It is clear in scripture that Jesus died for all, but instead of some. All the elect will be saved. The atonement is efficient for those chosen in the purpose of God for humankind.

I preach to all. God calls His own. I shall leave it at that. I will do my part, and I am certain God will do His.

Cheers,

Jim

 

[webdog]

I ask again...

When does God change and start hating people?

When do we change...and start hating our parents?

 

[Jarthur001]

When do we change...and start hating our parents?

It would be my guess that you are talking about .....

"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:26)

also you may want to look at...

He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me." (Matthew 10:37)

Notice in verse 33 of the luke passage it reads..

33So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.

I have read you on this verse before and I must say I disagree. You will have to know a bit about Hebrew culture to understand it. My Hebrew is lacking, but I did sit under two Hebrew teachers that helped me

The key idea to understand this is found in the subject matter. Consider this...

If a man come to me. "Come to me"...key phrase. Come to me is not as in seeking, but they have made up their mind to follow God.

Now look at the end of the verse...."My disciple"...same idea.

This is better understood if looked at by the culture point of view. Its talking about rejection of all things, a giving up if you will, of the things of this world in order to follow the things of God. 1st and foremost it is talking about teachings and doctrines that the hearers heard from their mother and father. You must leave behind and reject or hate the teachings of you mother and father, which in this setting was Jewish in nature, and have only one true teacher and that would be the One from God.

So to answer you...

When do we change...and start hating our parents?

In the context it it is when we become His disciples and follow Him.


and also we know..
" We love him, because he first loved us."...and this love for us will never change.
You and I agree...Gods love never changes.

So how do we address verses like...

When does God change and start hating people?

Psalm 11:5, "The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, and the one who loves violence His soul hates."

Joh 3:36 He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

If Gods love never changes...and I agree it never changes....when does he start hating, for it is clear you does?

11And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

12His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.

13And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.

14And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.

15And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

16And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.

17And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;

18That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.

19And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.

20And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.

21And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh.

How does God show love in His wrath? There is a way you know.