“The Father imposed His wrath due unto, and the Son underwent punishment for, either:
1. All the sins of all men, or
2. All the sins of some men, or
3. Some of the sins of all men.
In which case it may be said:
a. That if the last be true, all men have some sins to answer for, and so none are saved.
b. That if the second be true, then Christ, in their stead suffered for all the sins of all the elect in the whole world, and this is the truth.
c. But if the first be the case, why are not all men free from the punishment due unto their sins?
You answer, Because of unbelief. I ask, Is this unbelief a sin, or is it not? If it be, then Christ suffered the punishment due unto it, or He did not. If He did, why must that hinder them more than their other sins for which He died? If He did not, He did not die for all their sins!”
Dr. John Owen (1616-1683), Vice Chancellor of Oxford University (cf. “The Death of Death in the Death of Christ,” Works, vol. 10, pp. 173-174).
Augustine (354-430):
[1] “2. But alongside of this love we ought also patiently to endure the hatred of the world. For it must of necessity hate those whom it perceives recoiling from that which is loved by itself. But the Lord supplies us with special consolation from His own case, when, after saying, ‘These things I command you, that ye love one another,’ He added, ‘If the world hate you, know that it hated me before [it hated] you.’ Why then should the member exalt itself above the head? Thou refusest to be in the body if thou art unwilling to endure the hatred of the world along with the Head. ‘If ye were of the world,’ He says, ‘the world would love its own.’ He says this, of course, of the whole Church, which, by itself, He frequently also calls by the name of the world: as when it is said, ‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.’ And this also: ‘The Son of man came not to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.’ And John says in his epistle: ‘We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also [for those] of the whole world.’ The whole world then is the Church, and yet the whole world hateth the Church. The world therefore hateth the world, the hostile that which is reconciled, the condemned that which is saved, the polluted that which is cleansed. 3. But that world which God is in Christ reconciling unto Himself, which is saved by Christ, and has all its sins freely pardoned by Christ, has been chosen out of the world that is hostile, condemned, and defiled. For out of that mass, which has all perished in Adam, are formed the vessels of mercy, whereof that world of reconciliation is composed, that is hated by the world which belongeth to the vessels of wrath that are formed out of the same mass and fitted to destruction. Finally, after saying, ‘If ye were of the world, the world would love its own,’ He immediately added, ‘But because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.’ And so these men were themselves also of that world, and, that they might no longer be of it, were chosen out of it, through no merit of their own, for no good works of theirs had preceded; and not by nature, which through free-will had become totally corrupted at its source: but gratuitously, that is, of actual grace. For He who chose the world out of the world, effected for Himself, instead of finding, what He should choose: for ‘there is a remnant saved according to the election of grace. And if by grace,’ he adds, ‘then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace’” (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. VII, “Tractates on John,” Tractate LXXXVII, §2-3, John 15:17-19).
[2] “Hence things that are lawful are not all good, but everything unlawful is not good. Just as everyone redeemed by Christ’s blood is a human being, but human beings are not all redeemed by Christ’s blood, so too everything that is unlawful is not good, but things that are not good are not all unlawful. As we learn from the testimony of the apostle, there are some things that are lawful but are not good” (Works of Saint Augustine, Adulterous Marriages, Part 1, Vol. 9, trans. Ray Kearney, ed. John E. Rotelle, O.S.A, O.P., Book One, 15, 16 [Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 1999], p. 153).
Theodoret of Cyrrhus (393-466) on Hebrews 9:27-28: “As it is appointed for each human being to die once, and the one who accepts death’s decree no longer sins but awaits the examination of what was done in life, so Christ the Lord, after being offered once for us and taking up our sins, will come to us again, with sin no longer in force, that is, with sin no longer occupying a place as far as human beings are concerned. He said himself, remember, when he still had a mortal body, ‘He committed no sin, nor was guile found in his mouth.’ It should be noted, of course, that he bore the sins of many, not of all: not all came to faith, so he removed the sins of the believers only” (Commentary on the Letters of St. Paul, trans. Robert Charles Hill. vol. 2 [Brookline, NY: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2001], p. 175).
Hilary of Arles (c. 401-449): “When John says that Christ died for the sins of the ‘whole world’ [I John 2:2], what he means is that he died for the whole church” (quoted in Gerald Bray [ed.], Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament, Vol. XI, James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000], p. 177).
Bede (672/673-735):
[1] “The Lord intercedes for us not by words but by his dying compassion, because he took upon himself the sins which he was unwilling to condemn his elect for” (Comm. on I John 2:1, quoted in Gerald Bray [ed.], Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament, Vol. XI, James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000], p. 177).
[2] “In his humanity Christ pleads for our sins before the Father, but in his divinity he has propitiated them for us with the Father. Furthermore, he has not done this only for those who were alive at the time of his death, but also for the whole church which is scattered over the full compass of the world, and it will be valid for everyone, from the very first among the elect until the last one who will be born at the end of time. This verse is therefore a rebuke to the Donatists, who thought that the true church was to be found only in Africa. The Lord pleads for the sins of the whole world, because the church which he has bought with his blood exists in every corner of the globe” (Comm. on I John 2:2, quoted in Gerald Bray [ed.], Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: New Testament, Vol. XI, James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000], p. 178).
Gottschalk (c.808–c.867): “Therefore, it remains that we most certainly believe, understand, and most firmly confess and assert unto death that the Lord suffered for the elect alone and redeemed them through the blood of his cross from absolutely all sins, that is, from past, present, and future ones” (“On Predestination,” in Victor Genke and Francis X. Gumerlock [eds. & trans.], Gottschalk and a Medieval Predestination Controversy: Texts Translated From the Latin [Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2010], p. 139).
Remigius (d. 875): “Since only the elect are saved, it may be accepted that Christ did not come to save all and did not die on the cross for all.”
Martin Luther (1483-1546): “Christ did not die for absolutely all, for he says: ‘This is my blood which is shed for you’ (Luke 22:20) and ‘for many’ (Mark 14:24)—he did not say: for all—‘to the remission of sins’ (Matthew 26:28)” (Lectures on Romans, trans. and ed. Wilhelm Pauck [Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press, 1961], p. 252).
Zacharias Ursinus (1534-1583): “It may be granted that the ransom of Christ is, because of its own worth, sufficient for the redemption of a thousand worlds. Nevertheless, it is properly offered only for those for whom Christ prayed, that is, for the elect alone” (Explicationum Catecheticarum D. Zachariae Ursini Silesii [Neostadii Palatinorum: Matthei Harnisch, 1595], Part 2, p. 204).
John Owen (1616-1683): “Neither let any deceive your wisdoms, by affirming that they are differences of an inferior nature that are at this day agitated between the Arminians and the orthodox divines of the reformed church … you will find them hewing at the very root of Christianity … one church cannot wrap in her communion [Augustine] and Pelagius, Calvin and Arminius … The sacred bond of peace compasseth only the unity of that Spirit which leadeth into all truth. We must not offer the right hand of fellowship, bur rather proclaim … ‘a holy war,’ to such enemies of God’s providence, Christ’s merit, and the powerful operation of the Holy Spirit” (“A Display of Arminianism,” Works, vol. 10, p. 7).
Thomas Manton (1620-1677): “Election is ascribed to God the Father, sanctification to the Spirit and reconciliation to Jesus Christ. This is the chain of salvation and never a link of this chain must be broken. The Son cannot die for them the Father never elected, and the Spirit will never sanctify them whom the Father hath not elected nor the Son redeemed” (The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, D.D., vol. 10 [London, James Nisbet & Co., 1872], p. 256).
Francis Turretin (1623-1687): “It is gratuitous to say that Christ is the Saviour of some, for whom he has purchased salvation, but to whom it will never be applied. It is to take for granted what ought to be proved. The very expression to save denotes the actual communication of salvation. Christ is Jesus [i.e., Jehovah salvation], not only because he is willing and able to save, and because he removes all obstacles out of the way of salvation, but because he does in reality save his people, both by meritoriously acquiring salvation for them, and effectually applying it to them … To say that Christ, by his death, intended to save [all men], will not solve the difficulty, for we do not call a man a saviour who intends to save another, but him who does it actually” (On the Atonement, Willson edition, pp. 129-130).
Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892): “We are often told that we limit the atonement of Christ because we say that Christ has not made a satisfaction for all men, or all men would be saved. Now, our reply to this is, that, on the other hand, our opponents limit it: we do not. The Arminians say, Christ died for all men. Ask them what they mean by it. Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of all men? They say, ‘No, certainly not.’ We ask them the next question: Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of any man in particular? They answer, ‘No.’ They are obliged to admit this if they are consistent. They say, ‘No, Christ has died that any man may be saved if …’ and then follow certain conditions of salvation. Now, who is it that limits the death of Christ? Why, you. You say that Christ did not die so as to infallibly secure the salvation of anybody. We beg your pardon, when you say we limit Christ’s death, we say, ‘No, my dear sir, it is you that do it.’ We say that Christ so died that He infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude that no man can number, who through Christ’s death not only ‘may’ be saved, but are saved and cannot by any possibility run the hazard of being anything but saved. You are welcome to your atonement; you may keep it. We will never renounce ours for the sake of it.”
