Through Christ to God: universal

Thursday, July 9, 2026

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.

JOSEPH AGAR BEET

J. A Beet (1840-1924) was a leading British Methodist exegete and systematic theologian of his day, Joseph Agar Beet was born at Sheffield on September 27, 1840. He was professor of systematic theology in Wesleyan College, Richmond, 1885-1905. He was also a member of the faculty of theology in the University of London 1901-1905. He was the author of several books, including commentaries on the letters of the apostle Paul, books on systematic theology, and books on other Biblical and theological topics. Some of his views on eschatology were controversial in his own lifetime. Sympathetic to the late nineteenth-century Holiness Movement, he produced an updating of Wesley's teaching on Christian perfection: Holiness: Symbolic and Real (1910). He died on May 25, 1924.