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Certainly it must be admitted that the word world rarely if ever menas all men without exception. So with that in mind I must ask which world was John talking about. The world of his day? The world that we live in? The world that Abraham lived in? Which world? Now if you answer that he intended all of them then another question must be asked. Why then, if Christ took away the sin of all men in all ages for all time, does God send anyone to Hell? If you answer that He sends them to Hell because of unbelief then you must answer the question as to how that can be so for many lived and died before Christ came and had no declaration of His coming or even an inkling of who He would be and no chance at faith who are in Hell now. Did He die for them as well?
I did a quick search on the greek word "kosmos", which is used in John 1:29 and is translated "of the world". And it is often used to refer to the broader world "in general". So I am not sure what argument you are making here.
I do not see a problem here. I do not wish to speak for fds, but I suspect he is saying that the gift of "sin forgiveness" is indeed available to all, both this side of the cross and before, but that people must "freely" accept the gift. As for the people before Christ, I am not sure how this "timing" issue is any less problematic for your position than for that of we "free will" types. Yes, Christ dies at a specific moment in history. Yes many people died lived and died before Jesus was born. But there is no reason to presume that the "free will" position forces one into concluding that those born before Christ are lost.
Adam represents all who are in him, which is the whole of humanity. That is why Christ is called the seed of the woman. When Adam sinned you and I and all those born of Adam sinned which is why infants die, verse 14. Christ represents all who are born of Him in exactly the same way that the first Adam did. The number is a multitude which no man can number and are as the stars of the sky and the sand of the sea. The number of those represented has no bearing or influence on the outcome or power of the representation. Your congressman may reprresent a bajillion people and mine only ten but both have the same quality of representation.
The number of people affected neither adds to nor diminishes the quality or intent of the act. Adam's sin plunged all he represented into a state of condemnation and Christ's life and death accomplished an even greater work for all He represented. Not by virtue of the amount of folks represented but by virtue of who He is. The work of Christ is greater because of who He is not because He did it for the same amount of people.
Paul's point here is that by one both were accomplished. Notice that Paul doesn't say that by one all men are dead and by one all men are made alive. He used the word many in both cases because the comparision isn't about the amount but about the result and the means by which that result has taken place.
Again the comparison isn't about the amount of people affected but the result. How many makes no difference the effect of what was done is in view.
I would agree with the first two but the last is something you are imposing on the statements of Paul. It has nothing to do with the universality of the accomplishment but the effect of the accomplishment. See my earlier post as to the meaning and use of the word world.
I believe I have rebutted this assertion in the above.
Agreed.
Not at all. It is superior because of the one affecting it not because of the amount affected.
Yes but never without qualification as those who hold to the universal extent of the atonment wish to promote. The argument is that the word requires a qualifier. If I say the word world without qualifying it you have no idea exactly who I am talking about. I could mean the world of short people or the world of stupid people, like myself, or the world of almost anyone. When Ceasar commanded that the whole world be taxed, Lk. 2:1, were the Chinese taxed? No they weren't because the word world is qualified by the understanding that it was the Roman world that was taxed. It is the same in every instance the word is used in the Scriptures. The Scriptures clearly qualify the use of the word in every instance it is used though not directly. It does so by means of the analogy of faith, the teaching of the Scriptures as a whole. It nowhere means all men without exception. Since that must be admitted by any serious student of the Scriptures my statement stands.
I understand that you don't see a problem but that is why I am here to pont it out to you. Wink wink. The context and the argument of Paul in Rom. 5 has nothing to do with availability but of effect as I stated in my previous post.
It is less problematic for us because we understand how the atonement of Christ effected an atonement from before the foundation of the world by virtue of eternal electing grace. Chrst is the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. Now I do fully expect the argument of foreknowledge but I would remind you that every time the word foreknowledge is used it is used in respect to people never things. There is another Greek word which is used in connection with things. Election isn't according to what He foreknew but whom He foreknew.
Certainly there is. The free will foundation is a decision to believe on Christ is it not? How can one believe on Him who has never heard of Him? Rom. 10:14. What of those folks even in Paul's day whom the Spirit wouldn't allow Paul to preach to, Acts 16:6?
I would disagree. He was not justified by an act of faith but by the object of faith, Jesus Christ.
Without any doubt.
I think I have already answered this in the above. But just in case I didn't or it was missed somehow I will say it again: Christ is the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world.
My postion has no problem with the before simply because it starts with Christ in the promise of Gen. 3:16 which is derived from Christ in the eternal covenant of grace made before the foundation of the world.
Not true. One can legimately use the expression "the world" to refer to all people in the world without qualification. Example: "The aliens came in 2057 and gave lollipops to the world." Given the eminently reasonable pre-supposition that only humans get lollipops, this is a perfectly reasonable way to claim that everyone gets a lollipop.
Well of course not. No one is denying that sometimes the expression "the world" denotes a subset of all humanity. But there is simply no truth in a claim that "the world" cannot, in some contexts, be essentially a "universal" term.
Simply not true.
I took the time to honestly answer all of your post and you dismiss it so easily as to not even interact with it? The best you can do is to ignore what I have said and infer that I could be talking about Martians? The reality is that you have no real answer to what I have posted. If you did you would offer it.Why would John be talking about any other time than his own? Perhaps the next argument from you will be "Maybe John was talking about Mars...?"
Please. If this is your defense, there is no point in continuing. It sounds awfully silly.
Jesus' redemptive act is MORE POWERFUL than the sin of Adam, to include the extant of who is effected by it.
Do you think for an instance that when Jesus was dying and said "Father, forgive "THEM", for "THEY" don't know what they were doing", that Christ was talking about Martians, or people in Abraham's time or some other time and NOT the people right there? Or that His death COULD NOT BE redemptive for ALL? His act of redemption is offered freely to EVERYONE, to include those who nailed Him to the tree, all of us, since all of us have the guilt of Adam - and so all of us have been offered redemption, as Christ is the second Adam - who, as the first Adam, the work is applied universally.
Regards
This does not make the case. You still have a situation where an act at "33 AD" needs to somehow "be applied" to those who were pre-destined to be saved and yet lived and died before Jesus was born. Surely you believe that Jesus had to actually "go through with it" and die on the cross. So there is still the challenge of dealing how something that happens thousands of years after a person has died can be "retro-actively applied" to that person.
Now I see where you are coming from but I do not think you have a workable position here.
Here is what Paul says:
Obviously you didn't think this through before you posted it. I seriously doubt that every person in the "world" got a lollipop. Surely someome missed it. If that is even the remostest of possibilies than the word "world" cannot mean all without exception. Your analogy would require the qualification of all who actually got lollipops.
Give me one honest place in the Scriptures that it means all men without exception. I won't hold my breath until you find it. Wink.
Is that the best you have? Jesus is simply saying that He is leaving the physical and entering the spiritual. He is leaving that which is seen into that which is unseen. It has nothing to do at all with an amount of people. The qualifier is that He is leaving a specified place not a specified number.
Even if you think that the statement refers to the world in a general sense the passage will not allow it as it qualifies the use of the word. You have admitted this in your own words.
Please do not condescend. You will find that it will not deter me (you can ask others about this if you like).
No. I may not have given all the details of the scenario, but the scenario can can be framed where the aliens have perfect knowledge and can ensure everyone gets a lollipop. The point is that it is entirely legitimate for a writer to use the expression "the world" to denote all of humanity without explicitly qualifying his statement to this effect.
