D. wrote:

It is to my understanding that the sacrificial death of Christ, is that even though He was innocent, paid the price for mans failure to keep the law of God. IOW, He was unjustly condemned for our sake, that is man in general not just the elect.

But you are -assuming- what you need to prove. In my last post on this subject I quoted 8 verses that teach Christ dying for the elect only. You've shown only one that -seems- to teach otherwise (and that is due to our current conditioning in our churches). So what do we do? We should interpret the 1 in the light of the 8.

Three days later was raised from the dead, and later ascended into heaven next to God. When we see this process, I think in can be clear as to why the non believers are condemned.

But we don't need to see a process to know why they were condemned. We just need to read the verses:

1.They don't believe in the name of the one and only Son. (verse 18)
2. (And this is the root reason) They love to stay in darkness rather than come to the Light (verse 19).

They may believe that He was killed on the cross but do not believe that He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven.This is why, I think that John 3:16 is written they way it is " that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" and vrs 17 "but that the world through him might be saved." When you just keep the world to the elect only, especially in these two places, you have some of the elect being condemned.

Oy vey...Your main mistake here is that John uses "world" in different ways - even in this short passage. This is a mental block for many and I wish I knew how to remove it. We run to our Strong's or Young's and try to pin down words, as if that will be the end of the discussion. I showed in the last post how John uses "world" in different ways. An insistence on a single use of "world" is almost as if we would demand that the word "them" must always refer to the same people, yet "them" gets it's meaning from the referents around it. "All" gets it's meaning (whether it is universal or particular) from the referents around it. "World" gets it meaning from the referents around it.

You would not say that Christ would die for some body He wouldn't pray for, would you? You would if you insisted that "world" is always "world".

Another mental block is that we put too much emphasis on single words as a way of understanding the text. Phrases, syntax, context and cross-reference are all much more important. Those who see only the words (as trees) tend to see conflicts between the two supposed "faiths" (Paul's and James's). Those who broaden their understanding to factor in phrases, syntax, context and cross-reference are better prepared to see the forest for the trees.

In understanding John 3:16 with the above in mind, we should first of all get the whole picture. That means starting (at least) with the beginning of the chapter. This helps us to understand: Who Jesus was talking to, What He was addressing (what misunderstanding he was trying to correct) and so on.

We read "world" and we get a NASA image of the orb we know to be there. Or maybe the song "He's got the whole world in His hands".

Nicodemus was not thinking of this at all. As a Pharisee, he had a hard time understanding that God would be gracious to others outside of the chosen people - Israel. This was a lesson that was only slowly learned by the Jews. Just take a look at John 4:9, 35; Acts 10:28; 11:18; 22:21-22. So when Jesus tells Nicodemus that "God so loved the world", He was trying to combat this prejudice that was common to almost all Jews, as if to say that God has His elect even from among other nations. We 21st century Christians read the verse with scarcely a thought for this context.

...

In a way you can,as Christ even stated that He came and died for His sheep, that He laid down His life for the church. He had to die in order for us, His elect, can enter into heaven. As for those non believers can be righteously thrown into hell. What I mean by this is that, when an unbeliever dies and stands before God they can not hold this one over Him by saying, You can not throw me into hell because you did not provide a way for me to escape as you did for the others.

Once again, this is not the condemnation. The condemnation - the root of it - is that they hated the light and would not come to it. Romans 1 shows that even the light of creation is sufficient to condemn them. We are all in the same boat. Yet God chose some and didn't choose others.

But since we have the teachings of Christ from the old testament to the New. The ones that died (believers) before Christ came, knew that they had a savior that was to come. God makes himself known to every man so, as I continually say, they are left without an excuse. By saying that Christ atoning death was only for the elect only and not for the non-elect is leaving the non-elect with an excuse before God.

Read Romans 1 and 2 and you will see why they have no excuse - or why we would have no excuse. Whether or not Christ died for all has no bearing whatsoever on the guilt of all mankind.

Thus in turn will be able to [call?] God a lair. This is not what we want.

When writing these types of posts I often have to erase sentences that, upon further reflection, could be misinterpreted in an unfavorable way. Your sentence would have been one of those.

When we look at the justification aspect of the atonement of Christ, this is what we can see is limited only to the elect. The elect are justified by their belief in Christ as where the non-elect are unjustified because they believe not.

IF I were to outline on how I see this it would be something like this.

I. Atonement:
a.hearing (Rm. 10:17)
b. faith (Rm. 10:17)
d. justification (Rm. 3:28, 5:1, Gal 3:24)
1. regeneration (Titus 3:5)
e. life eternal

II. Atonement:
a. hearing
b. no faith (not believing)
c. condemned eternally in hell.

I disagree with both the order of the outline and, as you would expect, the fact that the atonement is for both elect and non-elect. In more detail.

I. Atonement:
a.hearing (Rm. 10:17)
b. faith (Rm. 10:17)

But take another look at Romans 10. Before your A or B comes the spoken Word (10:14). Also before A,B comes regeneration. Arminians tend to put regeneration -after- man's response, but clearly the initiative is with God.

d. justification (Rm. 3:28, 5:1, Gal 3:24)
1. regeneration (Titus 3:5)
e. life eternal

You cite Titus 3:5. But please note that there is no hint there as to why regeneration should be so far back in the order of salvation. There are many verses that substantiate this: "the Lord opened Lydia's heart" (Acts 16:14 or 15) "to respond to the things spoken by Paul" (from memory). First the opening of the heart. -Then- Lydia gets to your A and B. This is not a nitpicky point, but is a revealing look at two basic ways of understanding salvation, whether God is truly sovereign in this or not.

Titus 3:5 (actually 3: 4 -6) will bring us back to John 3:

"But when the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour,"

How did he save us? Washing and renewal by the Holy Spirit. These same two saving agents are found in John 3:3 - 5.

"In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no-one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." [Or born from above]

"How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"

Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no-one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit."

First: "Born of water" (John 3)/ "Washing of rebirth" (Titus 3) Second: "and the Spirit" (John 3)/ "and renewal by the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3)

You may have thought that I have rambled considerably in this post. But actually, I am convinced that when we pin down what Scripture says about salvation, the order of it and who is responsible for what (answer: "Salvation is of the LORD"), the side issues, like what the "world" means in John 3:16, solve themselves.

Many tend to think of Calvinists as "the frozen chosen", glad to be one of "the few" but bolting the door against all others, and certainly not beating the bushes compelling others to come in. But I am here to tell you that that is not the case. This new discovery of the love of God - and His sovereignty toward His own has been wonderfully humbling and encouraging. I wish I had the words and the grace to share the joy I have since had when I made these rich discoveries of God's wonderful grace.

It doesn't limit God's love at all.
It deepens it from Heaven all the way down to where we live.
It is not a shallow love, do-nothing love spread hopelessly thin.
It is a real love that goes after - and gets - every single one that the Son died for.
Awareness of this awesome love makes me want to love Him with all my heart and soul.

Originally written March 2003. Here is a more recent article on A.W. Tozer and the Ordo Salutis from 2005.

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