Lesson 1
Did Jesus die for everyone?
The Position
Jesus died for all mankind. Not just for a select group chosen before the world began. The atonement, Christ's death on the cross, was sufficient for every person who ever lived. It becomes yours when you believe.
1 John 2:2
“And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”
John is writing to believers. 'Ours' is the believing community. 'The whole world' is the second group. The 'not only...but also' construction extends the propitiation beyond the believing community to the whole world. If the second group were just other believers, the contrast says nothing. The contrast only carries meaning if 'the whole world' reaches beyond the church.
Supporting Verses
1 Timothy 4:10
“who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe.”
All men is the provision. Those that believe is the application. The word 'specially' only works if 'all men' is wider than believers. You cannot have a special subset of a group already defined as only that subset.
2 Peter 2:1
“But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them.”
The Greek word is agorazo, marketplace redemption language. John uses the same word in Revelation 5:9 for those redeemed by the blood. The Lord bought even those who later denied him. Redemption language applied to the lost.
John 1:29
“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
Not the sin of the elect. The Passover language applied to the whole world.
What They Will Say
“If Jesus died for everyone, why isn't everyone saved? That sounds like universalism.”
What You Say Back
It is not universalism because not everyone believes. The provision is universal. The application is by faith. A doctor develops a cure that works for everyone. A patient who refuses it stays sick. The cure is real. The refusal is real. Both matter. John 3:18 says what condemns the unbeliever: 'he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed.' The condemnation is for refusing the remedy, not for the absence of one. Then run the amendment test on John 3:16. To make the verse teach the system, words must be added: whosoever he predestined, whosoever among the elect. The system cannot quote John 3:16 as written; it has to amend it, and the amendments are exactly the parts no manuscript contains. A doctrine that requires rewriting the verse to state it plainly has confessed it is not in the verse.
The One Line to Remember
“The cross accomplished everything. Faith receives everything. Those are not the same statement.”