For Whom Did Christ Die?

In our discussion of Faith and Works, we noticed a passing statement from Paul in Rom. 2:4: "Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" That statement suggests that God is working on all people with influences that lead toward salvation, influences that will actually save everyone who responds to them. We also found strong support for this idea in Jesus' words recorded in John 6. 44, 65. We have now seen from Paul that God gave Christ to die so that the justification of believers would be consistent with His own justice. This means that without the death of Christ, salvation — and therefore these divine influences leading toward salvation — would have been impossible. If that is true, then these influences, and the salvation that comes through them to all who believe the Gospel, were part of the purpose for which God gave His Son to die. In other words, the purpose of Christ's death included the entire human race.

There is much more teaching in the New Testament that confirms this universal purpose in the death of Christ.

In 1 Cor. 15. 22, and even more fully in Rom. 5. 12-14, Paul says that through Adam's sin all people die. In other words, the punishment threatened to Adam is actually carried out on all his children, even apart from any disobedience of their own. Paul then says that through Christ comes a salvation intended for "all" and actually experienced by "many." [Compare the express assertion involved in the future indicative in Rom. 5. 17, 19, "will reign," and "the many will be constituted righteous," with the universal purpose asserted in 5. 18 but without an assertion of actual result, "for all men, for justification of life."] In upcoming posts, I will try to show that Paul's teaching means that through Adam's sin all people not only die but are born in spiritual bondage, and that through the death of Christ all who believe the good news announced by Him receive spiritual freedom.

Here we see a striking parallel. Two men stand facing one another, and each becomes a channel of influence reaching the whole human race. No one can escape these influences, but their lasting effect depends on each person's own response. Through Adam, all people inevitably go down into the grave. Through Christ, real influences reach every person, influences that will raise all who obey them from the grave into endless and blessed life. In both cases the influence is real and universal; but in both cases the lasting result depends on the person.

This parallel shows how immensely important the death of Christ is in Paul's thought. It removes a calamity as wide as the human race and almost as old. It also reveals an important principle in God's government of humanity: the solidarity that makes each person a channel of benefit or harm to others. In the two great crises of the world's religious history, one man became the avenue through which death came to all, and another man became the avenue through which life came to all. 

Moreover, Paul's teaching about the death of Christ removes what would otherwise be a serious objection to an ancient and legitimate conclusion drawn from the Old Testament. If all people die because their father sinned — that is, if the punishment threatened to Adam is inflicted on all his children, many of whom have not sinned in the same way Adam did — then, if that were the whole story, it would contradict our sense of divine justice. The solidarity of the race would be unfair to individuals. But Paul teaches that this is not the whole story. We gain more through Christ than we lose through Adam. More precisely, no one is permanently harmed by Adam except through personally rejecting the salvation offered by Christ. Seen in the light that shines from His cross, the solidarity of our race, despite the suffering it involves, is an immense blessing to the race as a whole and to every individual member of it, except those who persist in sin. The fact that salvation through the death of Christ removes a serious objection to another doctrine with its own secure foundation apart from the Gospel of Christ — the death of all people through one man's sin — is no small confirmation of the abundant proof already given that the former doctrine is true. Paul's argument in Rom. 5. 12-19, which implies that the aim of Christ's death was as wide as the result of Adam's sin, also supports our inference from Rom. 2. 4 that the benefits purchased by Christ were intended for all humanity.

Paul directly states the universal purpose of salvation through the death of Christ in the third group of his letters. In Phil. 2. 9-11, we read that because Christ was obedient even to death on a cross, God exalted Him beyond measure so that at His name every knee should bow and every tongue confess. Similarly, in Col. 1. 20, we read that God was pleased "to reconcile all things to Himself through Christ, having made peace through the blood of His cross." And in Eph. 1. 9, 10, we read that God's purpose, "in reference to the administration of the fullness of the seasons," is to gather all things together under one Head in Christ. These passages clearly describe a purpose of salvation, and they clearly imply that this purpose includes all people. This purpose is the eternal source of the influence that, as we inferred from Rom. 2. 4, God is exerting on all people. Other abundant teaching from Paul says that this purpose is actually accomplished in individuals only when they themselves embrace it.

The universal purpose of Christ's death is stated even more plainly in the last group of the Pauline Epistles. In 1 Tim. 2. 1-5, Paul urges that prayer be made for "all men," including kings and those in authority, and he gives this reason: God "desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." He supports this by pointing to the "One God and One Mediator of God and men who gave Himself a ransom for all." Similarly, in chapter 4. 10, Christ is called the "Savior of all men, especially of believers." Christ is especially the Savior of believers because His saving purpose is actually fulfilled in them. And if He is called the Savior of all people, that means His saving purpose includes all people. In the same sense, in Titus 2. 11, the grace of God is said to be "saving towards all men": σωτήριος πᾶσιν ἀνθρώποις. These last words, all men, also found in Rom. 5. 12, 18, I Tim. 2. I, 4, 4. 10, are much more definite than their English equivalent and plainly include the entire race.

The same universal purpose of salvation is clearly stated in the words of Jesus recorded in the Fourth Gospel. In John 3. 16, 17, the Teacher from God declares that God's gift of His only-begotten Son was prompted by love to "the world," and that its aim was that "every one who believes in Him may have eternal life," so that "the world may be saved through Him." The Son will give His flesh "for the life of the world:" chapter 6. 51. He came that He "might save the world:" chapter 12. 47. In chapter 1. 29, the Baptist teaches that Christ is "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." Consequently, in i John 4. 14, He is called the "Savior of the world." Still more definitely, in chapter 2. 2, "he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world." These passages, like those quoted above from Paul, clearly imply that God's purpose of salvation through the death of Christ included all people. Therefore, those who perish do so not because God excluded them from His saving purpose, but simply and only because they refused the salvation offered to them.

There is nothing in the Bible that stands against what has just been said.

In Eph. 5. 25 and Acts 20. 28, we read that Christ loved the Church, gave Himself for it, and purchased it with His own blood. In John 10. 11, 15, Christ says that He was about to lay down His life for the sheep; and in chapter 15. 13, He compares His love for His disciples to the love of a man who lays down his life for his friends. In chapter 11. 52, we are told that He was about to die so that the scattered sheep of God might be gathered into one. But this limited view of the purpose of Christ's death does not contradict the universal purpose stated in the passages quoted above. In fact, the limited and unlimited aspects of the purpose of salvation are stated together in I John 2. 2, 4. 9, 14, I Tim. 4. 10. In His eternal purpose of salvation, Christ foresaw its fulfillment in the actual salvation of all those He foresaw would accept salvation. These people were therefore, in a special sense, the objects of His purpose. But because God resolved to bring influences to bear on all people — influences that, if yielded to, would lead each one to salvation — both Christ and Paul speak of the purpose of salvation as universal.

When speaking about the foreseen results of Christ's death, we must be careful not to suppose that man's foreseen faith prompted the gift of Christ. The Bible gives us no hint of this. In fact, it is ruled out by Paul's teaching in Rom. 4. 4, Eph. 2. 8, 9, and Titus 3. 5 that salvation is by grace, not by works. If man's foreseen faith moved God to save, then faith itself would be a meritorious act. The teaching of the entire New Testament is that God's purpose of salvation was prompted simply by His pity for ruined humanity. But in resolving to save, God resolved to save not all people indiscriminately, but only those who would accept salvation. Therefore, salvation is entirely the work and gift of God, while the destruction of the lost is caused only by their own refusal of salvation. Moreover, Paul has now taught us that, in order to harmonize this purpose with His own justice, God gave Christ to die. If so, Christ died in a special sense for the Church, which He had chosen to be His spotless bride; and, in a very real sense, for all mankind.

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This post is based upon Lecture XXIII from J. A. Beet's book Through Christ to God: A Study in Scientific Theology (1893), re-written with the assistance of Microslop CoPilot. The original text may be found at the Internet Archive here: Through Christ to God.