Does the Blood of Christ cover the sins of all mankind? John 3:16

This is a lesson in answer to someone’s question to me some time ago as to whether or not I believe Christ died for everyone. I could put it another way, who did Christ die for? Or, Does the blood of Jesus Christ cover the sins of all mankind? I for one, think that the early church because of the teaching in the NT and even the OT teaches what is known as limited atonement. This was the teaching of the early church and Through Augustine against Pelagian, Luther against Erasmus and Calvin against Arminius. Pelagian brought brought this belief of the free will rejecting the Biblical concept of Grace in the middle 4th century. his teaching was condemned in the Council of Carthage in 418 and again in Ephesus in 431. He basically taught that original sin did not taint human nature and that a man is still capable fo choosing good or evil without divine aid. In other words no need of regeneration in order to be born again. This is where this unlimited atonement comes from was deemed a heresy by early church councils. The teaching of limited atonement actually comes down through the early church, Augustine, Luther and Calvin through the Baptist London confession of 1689; the Philadelphia confession of 1743 and is the traditional baptist foundation in America.(GTY, For Whom did Christ die?10/19/2008)

I think everyone, even those who say they do not believe in LA actually do. It is a matter of who does the limiting, God or man. When someone mentions LA many cringe and think that cannot be true. Doesn’t the Bible say that Christ died for all men? And they cite verses like

John 3:16 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

1 Timothy 2:4 ESV

who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

2 Peter 3:9 ESV

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.

in order to support their point.

However, lets take the first passover in Egypt recorded in Exodus. The command was to apply the blood of the lamb on the doorpost of the dwelling. Anyone who did that their firstborn did not die. Those who didn’t their firstborn did die. Now, I ask you, for whom was the passover lamb slain? It was not slain for those who did not apply the blood? It was only for those who applied it. If it was for all then the atonement was universal and no firstborn should have died. So you see, even there in the first passover, the atonement was limited to only those who applied it to their doorpost.

Now some would say that, It was the choice of those who applied the blood which is self limiting because only those who applied the blood did not see the death of the firstborn.

In the same way, it is in the NT as we shall see.

Some would say that the atonement was available to all but only effectual or effective for those who believe and they cite verses like the one above, 1 Tim. 2:4. So they might take offense when someone says they believe in limited atonement. As I stated earlier we all believe in LA, the issue is who does the limiting. I take offense at the suggestion that God somehow would not get what He desires. So for them, the man who doesn’t want to be saved, trumps the power of God and the desire of God to save him. That minimizes the Sovereign power of God. I suggest that it is absurd to think that God doesn’t get what He wants. God’s plans are never thwarted. He accomplishes His plan no matter what it is. No one is more powerful than God and can somehow stop His plan.

Psalm 115:3 ESV

Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.

Psalm 135:6 ESV

Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.

Speaking of those who would think they could resist God’s plans and purposes and succeed the psalmist declares this

Psalm 2:4 ESV

He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.

Now I ask you, do you not see that when God says that He desires all men to be saved that all men He desires to be saved will be? It is crazy to think that if God wanted someone to be saved that they would somehow not be saved.

I know your mind might be twisted a bit here, but lets work this out.

But let me just cite John MacArthur on this,

“Now the question might at first seem an easy one, For whom did Christ die? Most people, I'm confident, in churches would quickly answer, “Well He died for everyone.” Most people in the church believed that on the cross Jesus paid the debt for the sins of everyone because He loves everyone unconditionally and wants everyone to be saved. That is not what the church has historically believed, but that is what the present version of the superficial church believes. Sinners, all of them, have had all their sins atoned for potentially. And that's the key word. If they will acknowledge Christ and accept the gift. So we have then only to convince sinners to receive the salvation which has already been fully purchased for them at the cross. Since Christ died for everyone, everyone can believe and should believe and must believe if they'll only will to believe. And in a contemporary concept, we work on the sinner's will believing that the sinner has both the responsibility and the ability to activate a saving faith on his own and believe. If nowhere else, this is certainly indicated in the most popular of Christian books, The Purpose-Driven Life and The Purpose-Driven Church where Rick Warren says I can lead anyone to Christ if I can find the key to that person's heart. It's just a matter of moving their will.

That is the popular idea and that means that hell is full of people whose salvation was purchased by the death and resurrection of Christ. It means then that everybody in hell and everybody in heaven had the same thing done for them on the cross. The Lake of Fire will be filled with eternally damned people whose sins were actually atoned for on the cross, so the people in hell had the same atonement as the people in heaven. The difference was the people in heaven activated their will to accept that atonement. The people in hell did not.

Now if that sounds strange to you, it is...it is, that Jesus died for, paid for in full the sins of the damned, paid the penalty of divine justice for them just as He did for the redeemed is a very strange notion. And the sinner then determines whether that universally potential death is applied to him or not. This view would say Christ died to make salvation possible, not actual. He died to make it possible, the sinner then makes the choice. He didn't really purchase salvation for anyone, He actually died on the cross and in some way removed a barrier to make salvation a potential. You will not find such language anywhere in the New Testament or the Old. The message that this would send to sinners goes like this...God loves you so much that Christ died for you, won't you let Him save you? The final decision is up to you. In fact, God loves you so much that He gave His Son and hopefully when you see the sacrifice that Christ made, you will be moved emotionally to love Him back by accepting Him.”

To see how wrong that thinking is we have to go back to the true state of unbelieving man called total depravity,

We believe that man is totally incapable of coming to God on their own.

We can cite

Psalm 14:1–3 ESV

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.

Which is also Psalm 53:1-3;

Romans 3:11 ESV

no one understands; no one seeks for God.

Romans 8:8 ESV

Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Which we have seen before is not speaking of a believer in the context but an unbeliever.

1 Corinthians 2:14 ESV

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

Even Ephesians 2:1-10 make this clear.

So then unbelieving man, the natural man is totally incapable of responding to the call of the gospel. The cross is foolishness to them, 1 Cor. 1:18 . They wouldn’t if they could. But they cannot come to Christ on their own. They are dead.

So then how does one come to Christ. That is the thrust of our text in John 3 when Nicodemus comes to Jesus with that very question on his mind. And Jesus knows his mind so he doesn’t even get the question out verbally.

Thus we come to election. if a person cannot come to faith in Christ on their own, how do they come to Christ. It must be that God chooses them and gives them a new heart

Ezekiel 11:19–20 ESV

And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

We see it also in Ezekiel 36:26,27.

Ephesians 1:4 ESV

even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love

We can look at John 1:12,13; 6:44; 10:26-30; 17:2, 6, 9, 11, 12. My point is that God does the choosing. He does the electing. That is always the way it has been.

He elected Abram, then Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau, Israel over the other nations. We have the selection of Moses over Pharoah. He chooses whom He will to show mercy or not.

You see, because of total depravity we cannot choose Him, so He must choose us if we are to be saved.

And if He is the one who must choose us and not we choose Him, then you can see that the atonement is clearly limited by God to those who He has chosen.

So you see we do believe in LA because the atonement only applies to those who believe.

Why is this important?

Because those who would say that Christ died on the Cross for the world have shown that the atonement of Christ is limited in power, and effectiveness. Where will most of the people in the world end up? Hell. So then they show that the atonement is limited in potential. I cannot say with good conscious or biblical authority that anything God has purposed in life has limited potential. God accomplishes all that He intends. In point of fact, the contrary is true. God’s atonement through Christ is totally effective in accomplish the atonement for all who believe.

Thus, we can be confidently secure in our salvation because the Atonement of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is completely effective to save us. There is no limited potential. But it is limited to those who believe in Him.

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