I think we’re on the same page, at least for that much.

Take care & God bless
WF

Yes I was trying to stay friendly so I put a little humor into the mix. Glad to see you’ve got a sense of humor.

And the direction you’re taking the conversation is directly where you would probably want to address an Arminian. Meantime, Lutherans part company with both Calvinists and Arminians before we even get to that point. Everything pertaining to salvation is mediated through Christ. That’s the point where we usually have trouble getting people to see what we mean, not for lack of trying but because you know how theological conversations go: everyone uses the same words to mean different things, and if a concept has a few similarities they may even think they have the same understanding of a word when they don’t.

Speaking of which, “world”. “Not only ‘us’ but also the ‘whole world’” could only have “world” meaning “all races” if “us” had meant one particular race. I can’t see “us” in that sentence being Jewish Christians. Who is the “us” John intends in that sentence? The same “us” in “if ‘we’ say ‘we’ have no sin ‘we’ deceive ‘ourselves’” (etc)? Looks like it’s Christians in general; I don’t see anything in the letter to link “us” and “we” to a specific race. If it’s Christians in general, then “the whole world” is everybody, not only Christians.

So back to Christ as the mediator. By that, we mean that there are certain spiritual blessing that come only through Christ. Forgiveness is found in Christ. Atonement is found in Christ. Eternal life is found in Christ. Or as our friend John puts it in his first letter, he who has the son has life and he who does not have the son of God does not have life. That’s the part we have the most trouble communicating to other groups: the centrality of Christ. The centrality of Christ as the mediator of all blessings seems to be fairly alien to the shared part of the Calvinist / Arminian paradigm, at least as far as what we Lutherans mean by it. Calvinists and Arminians both, as far as I can tell, look at Christ on the cross, say “How does that apply to me?” and start looking around for the answer: either in their own decision while still in dead in their sins (as if!), or in God’s election to bring them *to* Christ. But (per Ephesians 1) that’s got the cart before the horse. Election is another of the spiritual blessings that is found in Christ and comes through Christ. Election is not directly applied any more than forgiveness is; Christ is the mediator of that blessing, to go by Ephesians1.

So yes, Christ atoned for the sins of the whole world, and where Lutherans and Calvinists part company (as best I can tell) is whether a person’s atonement can be meaningfully discussed as a transaction in isolation from whether a person has Christ, or whether it is actually misleading — and a misunderstanding of Christ’s role — to separate those two things (namely, whether a person has received the blessing of forgiveness and whether a person is in Christ).

Take care & God bless
WF

Glad to see you’ve found me. I really enjoyed your comment about being a Lutheran. I really laughed–though not sure if you meant it to be funny.

You spoke of 1 John 2:2 and it is a very valid text to bring up in opposition. I wouldn’t play word games with κόσμου (world) until I have asked what one does with ἱλασμός (propitiation/atoning sacrifice). Did Christ actually satisfy God’s wrath upon the cross or not? If so, then do people go to hell? Some say that you have to believe. But then I have to ask that person if Christ’s death is not enough to get one into heaven. Also, does not Christ’s death remove God’s wrath against unbelief as well? These are important questions about ἱλασμός. Once one understands ἱλασμός then s/he can speak about κόσμου. I happen to believe that κόσμου here refers not to every single individual but rather is used against Jewish exclusivism to say that both Jews and Gentiles are part of the people of God (cf. John 11:51-52; John 10:16).

Found you through the Carnival.

On the previous 2 comments, I ask myself, “What do Calvinists do with John the Evangelist proclaiming that Christ is the atoning sacrifice for sins, not only for us but also for the whole world?” The Calvinists I’ve met start playing “what does ‘world’ really mean?” Which, y’know, “world” means the whole planet if it’s used geographically, and it means “opposition to God” if it’s opposed to heaven or spirituality, and it means “all the people in the world” if it’s used as a shorthand for people. But it doesn’t mean “the elect”.

Jeremy, I wonder if this (atoning sacrifice for the whole world) is part of what you mean by ‘potentiality’? I’ve never quite understood how the Calvinists of the non-hyper variety would see ‘potentiality’ in light of the Calvinist take on predestination.

(Full disclosure for those who don’t know me: I’m Lutheran. We think Calvinists and Arminians are both all confused. Consider the question ‘Have you stopped beating your wife?’”. Just because there are only two answers doesn’t make either of them right.)

Take care & God bless
WF

The objector I had in mind is the typical Southern Baptist from my experience. Most that I have run into contact with argue that Christ as already removed the sins of everyone whoever lived. Thus what is left to damn a person to hell is unbelief in Jesus Christ as Savior.

Tom, there’s something that hyper-Calvinists call limited atonement that’s much more than a deduction from the other four points. They mean that there’s no sense in which Jesus even potentially died for the non-elect. They don’t accept potentiality at all, and thus there’s no sense in which the atonement could have covered anyone’s sins besides those it does cover. If you mean limited atonement that way, then it certainly doesn’t follow from the other four points, and I’ve seen mainstream Calvinists slip into it. John Owen even has a famous argument for limited atonement that assumes this view of limited atonement, although a friend of mine who knows Owen’s thought better than I do insists that that famous argument was Owen on a very bad day. It really is a fallacious argument, so I hope so.