Who's Sins did Jesus die for?

                                             

This may seem like a strange question to ask, but let me ask it another way, “Did  Jesus die for the sins of the whole world?” The answer to this question is yes. You may now be saying, “ Everyone knows that all ready, what’s your point?” Well, I need to explore another view the reader may have never considered.

When we say Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, does that mean he died for everyone that will ever live?

 If your answer is still yes then we have a serious problem.

To believe or teach that Jesus  died for every human being that will ever live is to say that Jesus died for those He knew would never believe in Him, who will die in their sins and go to hell. This type of belief says that what Jesus did for the elect; those whom the Father gave to Him before the foundation of the world, He also did for the non elect. I’ll say it another way, Jesus paid the price in full the sins of those in hell right now who died in unbelief, and are currently paying the price for their own sins; or what Jesus did for the occupants of heaven is the exact same thing He did for the occupants of hell.[i]

              

         

  A very disturbing scenario.

This type of belief system is tragic and heretical, and I will explain why.

1.       

This view is the belief of most of Christians.[ii] This view teaches that Jesus died for all inclusively. Basically, since salvation is a gift that God offers to all indiscriminately (Matthew 22), the sinner has to choose to accept the gift or reject it. If he accepts the gift, he’s saved, if he rejects the gift, he’s damned. It’s totally up to the sinner’s choice and not God’s. In this system, man is the initiator in redemption, and God is passive. It also teaches that somehow some men have more virtue than others in that some have the ability to “strengthen more resolve”  within themselves and somehow will  themselves out of unbelief into faith and believe. This predicates salvation on man and not God which means man gets the glory for salvation. God is left out in the cold.

2.       What this view also teaches is that God’s redemptive plan hinges on the sinner’s choice to make it succeed or fail. God started the plan, but salvation is not perfected until man exercises faith to believe and activate it to make it his own. God is reactive in this plan in that He gets to accept man once man chooses Him (God) first. That is essentially what most Christians believe isn’t it? In this scenario, God is depending upon man, pacing back and forth in heaven, wringing His hands (so to speak), hoping that man comes to his senses and accepts the offer to be saved.

So, what if man chooses to reject the call of God? Does that mean God salvation plan failed? Didn’t God know before hand who would accept His call to repentance and who wouldn’t?

The problem with the aforementioned mindset is man CAN NOT and WILL NOT ever choose God without divine intervention. Man can only freely choose to sin due to his perverted sinful nature (Romans 3:11, 23). 

We do what we are; we sin because we are sinners by nature.

In summation, most Christians believe in what is called a Universal Atonement. Meaning that Jesus died and paid for the sins of all men without exception. Some have rejected his sacrifice, and others have accepted it which make up the saved and the unsaved of the earth. God has laid out His salvation plan before all, man reviews it, and then decides on his own whether to accept it or not.

                

             This view is the polar opposite of what the Bible actually teaches.

Jeremiah 13:23 says this, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also can you do good who are accustomed and taught to do evil?”

The prophet clearly is telling Israel that you can not change your nature on your own. God has to interrupt our lives and do something for us we can never do for ourselves; that is give us a new nature.

Isaiah 55:11 says this, “So shall my word that goes forth from my mouth; it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”

The verse should be to the reader self explanatory. Whatever God determines his word will accomplish, that thing will happen. No man, demon or force can stop it. God’s purposes are never thwarted by anyone or anything-ever!!

                                                   The atonement is offensive to man

I need to explain what God’s plan is in redeeming mankind. As offensive as it may sound, God never intended to save everyone. Jesus did not die for every human’s sins.  Shocking statement, highly offensive? It’s true, and how do I know this? Because not everyone is saved. This is a hard doctrine to accept because it offends our sense of ethics.  Sovereign election is an emotionally painful doctrine to endure, and to most an affront to what they think is right.

Some replies would be, “ Some people are not saved because they have rejected Jesus Christ, the only way to salvation. They died in unbelief.”  You are right. But beyond that, they will also die in their sins because God elects some sinners and passes by others. To this offensive statement someone would declare, “That’s not fair!”  Why would God choose some and leave behind others? Another objection would be, “Why would a person ever be born if they are already condemned by God? Is God pre-determining that they go to hell since He knows they will never believe?”[iii]  These type of questions brings God’s fairness and justice into question for most.  We would rather get God “off the hook” and say He dies for everyone for that’s more palatable to our sensibilities than to realize that God chooses who He would save. The latter make God seem unfair in most people’s eyes.  Better question, why would God choose any of us since we all continue to sin against the Almighty?  The reply to that exclamation and questions before the writer’s question is Exodus 33:19, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” Paul repeats this same passage in Romans 9:15b.

What God does for one He does not have to do for another. Think about it naturally, would you do for  a stranger’s child the same you would do for own children? Since we don’t, why is God obligated to?

A perfect illustration of  sovereign election is recorded in Romans 9:10-13, “And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one man, by our father Isaac (for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him who calls), it was said to her (Rebecca) the older shall serve the younger” (Gen 25:23). As it is written, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated” (Mal 1:2,3).

This is how God has decided to deal with all of mankind. Before any of us were born, the Father had already determined our fate. He decides who will be in His kingdom, and who will never be in the kingdom. As we see from above Jacob was no better than Esau. For neither one of them were born when God decided their fates. Jacob was favored because it served God’s divine purpose to choose him over his brother. Strictly a divine prerogative by God. Esau is not mistreated by God, he received justice, and Jacob before he was even born received mercy, because it pleased the Lord (Eph 1:4).

Paul also said Romans 9:20, 21, “But indeed O man, who are you to reply against God?” Will the thing formed (man) say to Him (God) who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?”

Simply put just as the potter can’t question the potter about it’s form, man has no right to question the sovereignty of God in how He deals with His creation, mankind.

God always does whatever He wants to do (Psalm 115:3).

And since this is true all men have the following scenarios: Some men receive justice, others receive grace and mercy. No man is ever a victim of injustice from the hands of God.

What we have to remember is that none of us has never done anything to merit God’s favor. We all deserve eternal punishment from God. That indeed is just. God in his inexplicable love has decided in eternity past to place special saving love on some of humanity because it pleased him to do so (Eph 1:5b, 11-12).

That is a reality that’s hard for the writer to believe; that God would put up with any of us let alone love us so much that He pre-determined we would spend all of eternity with Him. What’s even more astounding is that the Father would punish His only begotten Son who was sinless, treat Him as guilty, lay our sins upon Him so that we could stand righteous and guiltless in His sight!

                

Who in their right mind would resist a love that sweet and powerful?

God doesn’t do this for us because we deserve it, He does this in spite of us. More importantly because He loves his Son and decided before the world began to express that love by giving Him (Jesus) a redeemed humanity which no man can ever number. These are the ones the Bible calls the elect or the chosen. These are the ones that will be brought from spiritual death to life (i.e. regenerated), granted repentance and faith to believe and be saved. This God does not do for every human being.

God has chosen to leave the majority of humanity in their sins because this is what they want and love (Romans 1:18-32). This is the behavior of the unsaved  even after they have been exposed to the gospel and have a general revelatory knowledge of their creator. When man continues to harden himself in sin against the truth and God, God then hardens him by abandoning him to his ungodly passions which will eventually lead  to his just destruction which he deserves.

The reality is even the chosen do not desire to repent until God gives them the ability to do so. This is the power of God’s love; he makes the unwilling elect sinner willing to do what He commands him to do; that is to repent and believe. When God chooses man, he will come to Christ because The Father has chosen him before the foundation of the world and will draw him by love to the Son (John 6:44,65). This drawing will be too irresistible for the chosen of God to deny leading to repentance and salvation (i.e. Irresistible grace); a wonderful thing. Jesus reiterated this truth to the disciples when He said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you”  (John 15:16a). Simply put, no one has the ability or willingness to choose God on his own initiative (Romans 8:7).

When we look at the atonement this way, it’s an effective limited/unlimited atonement[iv] because God chooses who He will save, and rest assured everyone God has determined to save will be saved. These are the ones that the Father God sent Jesus to earth to come and redeem. All  the chosen of God will never be lost because they are preserved to the end (Philippians 1:6). This is the world that God so loved that He sent  Jesus to come and save; not everyone that will ever live (John 3:16: 1 John 2:2; I Tim 4:10).           

                          The atonement has always been limited yet totally effective to the elect

Once again to believe that Jesus paid the price for everyone sins indiscriminately means He died for those whom the Father did not command Him to save; means Jesus shed his blood needlessly for those who died in their  sins and our being rightfully punished in hell. This group includes perhaps millions of souls already suffering in hell for their sins before Jesus was even born! Can someone honestly tell the writer that the Lord died for them also when they have no hope of redemption? No way! Now you tell me, what good is an atonement that can not save?

Those who die in their sins will never believe unto salvation. Notice what I did not say, I did not say they would not believe; some will believe, but just not unto salvation.[v]  Their profession will be superficial, fleshly, not from God.

Those that actually believe have been given the ability by God to believe, because it’s the will of God that they do (John 1:12,13). God’s sovereignty and human responsibility always works in tandem in the salvation process. God sovereignly elects who He wants to save before time, and at the precise moment God wants to actualize His plan in the life of the chosen sinner, the elect will believe in time. This makes salvation glorious because it predicates salvation on God alone, and not on men. Salvation was a gift designed by God before time again[vi], and we have been chosen by God for salvation before the earth was created so it only makes sense that He receives all the praise and glory for it.

When God saves us, we are not saved against our will, but according to God’s will. Our will is made free through God’s power in us to say yes to Jesus at the preaching of the gospel and be reconciled to the Father – a miracle!

And, since God is infinitely more powerful than man, God will circumvent man’s will, render man’s will null and void so that He does to man whatever He wants to do. God has never violated man’s will, man always violates God’s will. In predestination, God’s will dominates all man’s resistance so  those whom He has chosen for salvation will believe. It has to be this way or else none will ever be saved. If we are left to ourselves without God’s power to believe the gospel, it will never happen, because we are dead in our trespasses and sins, and we can not do what’s right (Ps 14:1-3; Ps 53:1-3; Rom 3:10-13; Eph 2:1; Col 2;13). God will not leave His redemptive plan in hands of wicked men to destroy it; to approve or deny it rendering it weak and ineffective. God began and finished His plan in eternity past. He put flesh and bone to it once he created man so some would be benefactors of it; an enumerable number.

Finally, a proof text that God predetermined who would be saved is Jesus said to the Father in John 17:2, “as You have given Him (the Son) authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as you have given Him.” (italics added). Once again Jesus is making clear that only those whom the Father gave to Him are the ones that He grants eternal life to. Them and them only (John 6:37-40; 10:27-30). Everyone else is excluded from the kingdom.

The elect are a love gift from the Father to the Son. Since Jesus loves His Father, He will cherish most dear any gift from His Father. So you see why Jesus was so eager to save His own? Because He knew it would please His Father to the point that the Bible said He was made sin who knew no sin that we could become the righteousness of God in Him (John 8:29; II Corinthians 5:21).

Because of the love Jesus has for His Father, He paid the ultimate price to save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21).

`None of the chosen of God will be left out of His kingdom. All of this world (i.e. the world of the elect) will have their sins fully paid for and be saved for God predetermined before time began that it would be so (Romans 8:28-30;Eph 1:4; I Thess 1:4; II Thess 2:13).

NOTES

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[i]  The writer believes that some may believe it may be more condemning  and emotional debilitating to the non believer when they face the Great White Throne Judgment for Jesus to say “I died for you” which heightens the sinner’s guilt and further justifies their damnation than to accept the fact that Jesus did not die for them at all. That statement to most people seems blasphemous. It seems emotionally unfair to accept the fact that Jesus didn’t die for all mankind. Most will never accept that reality. Man is righteously condemned once he rejects the gospel (John 3:18,36).  We are used to the belief that Jesus died for all men’s sins; even those who go to hell and pay the price for their own sins. One thing is for sure, all sins will be punished and paid for, either by Jesus or by man.

[ii] Some will say this view describes the Arminian. The Arminian says that Jesus paid the price for all mankind’s sins, but admits that due to non belief, many will go to hell which renders the atonement for them null and void. Which begs the question, “What good is a sacrifice that can not save?” It’s only a potential or virtual atonement/salvation not an actual one.

[iii] God never predetermines damnation before a person is born. That would make God unjust. God condemns man in real time when he rejects the gospel. God pre-ordains and chooses those he saves before time. That explains why some believe the gospel others don’t. Those that believe are given the power by God to believe where the non elect do not. That proves that God chooses man, and man does not choose God.

[iv] The reason the writer says the atonement is limited/unlimited because it is indeed both. The atonement is limited to whom it extends, but it is unlimited to it’s effect of those chosen. Another way to say it is, the atonement is only for the elect, and for them it is a complete definite atonement saving them from their sins forever. This is the Biblical/Calvinist view. The Arminian view is the other way around, for them it is unlimited/limited; the atonement in their view has Jesus dying for all; unlimited in extent, but actually saving no one; limited as to it’s effect which is an ineffective atonement; for Arminians depend upon sinful dead in trespasses man to activate his own salvation which can never occur.

[v] For more information on false conversions, read the kingdom parables in Matthew 13.

[vi] The doctrine of pre-destination; God determining beforehand who would be recipients of His saving grace.