John Owen: — “Redemption is the freeing of a man from misery by the intervention of a ransom. Now, when a ransom is paid for the liberty of a prisoner, does not justice demand that he should have and enjoy the liberty so purchased for him by a valuable consideration? If I should pay a thousand pounds for a man’s deliverance from bondage to him that detains him, who hath power to set him free, and is contented with the price I give, were it not injurious to me and the poor prisoner that his deliverance be not accomplished? Can it possibly be conceived that there should be a redemption of men, and those men not redeemed? that a price should be paid, and the purchase not consummated? Yet all this must be made true, and innumerable other absurdities, if universal redemption be asserted. A price is paid for all, yet few delivered; the redemption of all consummated, yet few of them redeemed; the judge satisfied, the jailer conquered, and yet the prisoners inthralled! Doubtless, ’universal,’ and ’redemption,’ where the greatest part of men perish, are as irreconcilable as ’Roman’ and ’Catholic.’ If there be a universal redemption of all, then all men are redeemed. If they are redeemed, then are they delivered from all misery, virtually or actually, whereunto they were inthralled and that by the intervention of a ransom. Why, then, are not all saved? In a word, the redemption wrought by Christ being the full deliverance of the persons redeemed from all misery, wherein they were inwrapped, by the price of his blood, it cannot possibly be conceived to be universal unless all be saved: so that the opinion of the Universalists is unsuitable to redemption.”
The Father imposed His wrath due unto, and the Son underwent punishment for, either:
- Some of the sins of all men.
- All the sins of all men.
- All the sins of some men.
In which case it may be said:
- If the first be true then all men are lost and will forever be paying for the sins that Jesus did not pay for.
- If the second be true then all men will be saved. You may say, “No they may not believe.” But you said that all sins were paid for, so either unbelief is not a sin or you don’t really believe all sin were paid for which would be point one. Either way you have no Biblical support.
- That if the third 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.
Tweet
Jason Robertson is a husband and a father and a pastor. He is dedicated to leading and equipping his the Church with God’s word and biblical theology for life ministry, using a combination of pastoral, church planting and evangelism experience. He holds a Master of Divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He is experienced in church planting, evangelism, missions, and the training of pastors and Bible teachers.
Jason has been preaching the gospel since 1985, serving the first ten years of ministry as a Southern Baptist itinerant evangelist out of Milldale Baptist Church in Zachary, LA which ordained him in 1993. He has preached in hundreds of churches in over 30 States and 4 countries. He planted churches in Siberia, Russia in the summers of 1993 and 1994. He founded Murrieta Valley Church in California, which he planted in cooperation with the SBC NAMB in 2001. He also teaches ministry students at California Baptist University.
You can hear his sermons and read his manuscripts on sermonaudio.com. Just follow the link to "sermons" at the top of this page.
Could you please cite the source of that quotation? I’d like to link to your post from my blog.
Spank you very much,
Dan (admitted and unrepentant compulsive quotation-sourcer)
(c;
djp, I just checked the comments and saw your question. I will get you that source, but I am running out the door to a meeting. Check back this afternoon.
Jason,
With your permission, I can give DJP the information as I was about to post the same quote from Owen:
John Owen, “The Death of Death in the Death of Christ: A Treatise of the Redemption and Reconciliation That is in the Blood of Christ, The Works of John Owen, vol. 10, ed. William H. Goold, (London: Banner of Truth, 1967), 173-174.
Hope this satisfies DJP’s compulsive quotation disorder!
Ahh, thanks, Ken! I can breathe again.
And link!
Item 2 (“either unbelief is not a sin or you don’t really believe all sin were paid for”) is devastating to the position the Arminians try to hold on to. Thanks for posting this.
Didn’t Martin Luther say that logic was reason’s whore?
Unbelief is not necessarily a sin. It is your choice to reject Jesus Christ and forgo your eternal life in heaven. Jesus gave us a choice to either believe in him or not. All those who believe in hime will be redemmed. Those who chose not to belive will not be redeemed. Jesus’ death was redemption for all men’s sins but there was a condition on that redemption which was the belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.
John, what?
Anonymous, first, thank you for your comment, but, second, I would direct you to Hebrews 3:12,19; Mark 16:14; and Rev. 21:8. Third, are you a proponent of decisional regeneration? Do you believe men who are dead sprititually have the ability to believe? And you believe that the Cross actually did not secure the salvation of anyone in particular? Was it just a shot in the dark, a gamble?
I believe that Jesus’ death on the cross was for all of the sins of all men. I think the only thing he asked for to recieve this redemption was to believe in Jesus
Christ as Lord and Saviour.
I believe that people who are dead spirtually can change and learn to love the lord as their savior. I also believe that people can also give up their redemption by at a later time rejecting Christ. I don’t believe it was a gamble, I believe that God truly wishes everyone to come into heaven, but he gives people the choice to reject that invitation if they so choose. I was raised as a Christian and then completely rejected Christ in my 20′s and early 30′s, but now I am more of a Christian than I have ever been. I love the Lord with all my heart and I truly feel that he has forgiven me and received me back in his fold. But I do not in any way believe that there are selected people that are saved. I believe we have the free will to choose to be saved or not.
John, what?
OK, maybe I was being a bit oblique. The point is that there are dangers in using human logic to square divine-ordained circles. I used to find Owen’s logic in that section of The Death of Death – a book I’ve read cover-to-cover, whose preface by JI Packer converted me to Calvinism, and one which I still think has possibly the greatest title – utterly convincing, but now I’ve come round to the view that Scripture teaches three main propositions on this issue:
1. Christ died for the sins of all people (in opposition to the Calvinist teaching that he died only for the sins of some people). Owen’s exegesis of John 3:16 and similar texts are a gallant effort, but not in the end massively convincing.
2. Christ’s death did not merely achieve the possibility of salvation conditional upon repentance and faith (the Arminian error) – it actually achieved salvation for all people. (As the hymn quoted by JI Packer in his introduction to Owen’s work puts it, “He died that we might be forgiven,/He died to make us good,/That we might go at last to heaven/Saved by his precious blood”.)
3. Nevertheless, not all people will in the end be saved, because in their hardness of heart they reject the grace won for them by Christ.
I am fully aware of the paradox between 2 and 3 – a paradox that Arminians solve by saying that Christ’s death didn’t actually win forgiveness, only the availability of forgiveness to those who repent and believe, and that Calvinists solve by saying that Christ didn’t actually win forgiveness for all people – but that is a paradox that is taught by Scripture and it is not for us to smooth it out with a few syllogisms.
John H., I love the pic and thanks for the comment. But there are more than one major paradoxes in your argument. First, you rightfully admitted that you hold to a theology that is both true and false at the same, but in the end that makes it false. You believe that the Cross “actually achieved” but not actually. And such contradictory theology is not taught in Scripture as you assert; it is only found in your interpretations.
Second, you hold that a man must repent and believe in order to receive the savation purchased for him. Then ultimately then he is saving himself, and he must do so while dead to God. How can a dead man repent and believe? You must believe in Universal Prevenient Grace (which I did several post on recently); in fact, you say that the grace was won for them by Christ — that is a classic UPG belief. The Catholics believed that. The Arminians believed that. All reformers rejected UPG.
Third, you assert that people reject the grace of God due to their hardness of their hearts. This is true according to major passages in Romans and Hebrews. But then you are making the assertion that some peoples hearts aren’t hardened, that they are not hearts of unbelief. OK, so you are asserting that some people’s hearts are not as corrupted by sin and thus these better people get saved and the “bad” people do not. Problem. The Bible is full of the chief sinners getting saved. How is that possible? The Bible tells us, but you don’t want to believe that God will have mercy on whom he will have mercy.
In the end I will point you to Jonathan Edwards and ask you this simple question, “At the end of the day, does God try?” OK, maybe one more question, “At the end of the day, does God have unfulfilled desires?” You current theological positions would demand a “Yes” from you to both of these questions. So the ultimate problem in your theology is not in your Soteriology but your Theology Proper. You believe that there are powers more powerful than God, such as the will of man. Your theology was opposed by Paul, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Owen, Spurgeon, etc. I hope you rethink it. And in the end come to the understanding that the only paradoxes in the Bible are those that are between the Kingdom of God and the philosophies of this world, not paradoxes between God and Himself.
Again, thanks for your comments and please don’t think I am trying to be condescending in mine. I write in hopes that you are still studying and learning and coming to a better understanding of the God that saved you and me.
you hold that a man must repent and believe in order to receive the savation purchased for him. Then ultimately then he is saving himself, and he must do so while dead to God.
No I don’t believe that. Faith is the gift of God – people are utterly helpless to save themselves.
You must believe in Universal Prevenient Grace
Golly. Must I?
But then you are making the assertion that some peoples hearts aren’t hardened, that they are not hearts of unbelief.
Sorry, where did I “assert” that? I think you misunderstood my point – perhaps you think that because I’m not a Calvinist I must “really” be an Arminian somewhere along the line, as if the whole of Christendom could be positioned along a 16th Century Reformed axis.
Christ died for my sins, and I believe in him, not because I didn’t have a hardened heart, but because the grace of God overcame that hardness by the word of the Gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit. God gets all the credit for my salvation from first to last. But if I remained in my unbelief, that would be entirely my fault.
OK, so you are asserting that some people’s hearts are not as corrupted by sin and thus these better people get saved and the “bad” people do not.
No, I’m not asserting that. Not remotely. But let’s move on.
you don’t want to believe that God will have mercy on whom he will have mercy.
You believe that there are powers more powerful than God, such as the will of man.
No, I don’t believe that.
Your theology
it’s not my theology, it’s the Arminian straw man’s standing next to me.
Again, thanks for your comments and please don’t think I am trying to be condescending in mine.
That’s alright. I know you have my best interests at heart.
I write in hopes that you are still studying and learning and coming to a better understanding of the God that saved you and me.
As are we all.
Anyway, interesting discussion but limited atonement is never the place to start this sort of conversation, because the different positions between Lutherans and Calvinists on this stem from different root causes – in particular our understanding of the function of the Gospel.
Limited atonement precludes a pastor from declaring to his congregation in confidence that, as our pastor can declare week by week following the general confession, that our sins are forgiven because of Christ. Not simply giving us information about salvation, but actually declaring to us that our sins are forgiven. This transactional aspect to the Gospel is crucial – primarily it’s not about, “Do I believe in limited atonement or not?”, but “Do I believe this message saying, right here, right now, to me in this time and this place, ‘Your sins are forgiven!’ or not?”
The Gospel is principally a proclamation, not simply a set of facts (that’s not to deny the factual basis of the Gospel – to be precise, it is a proclamation of certain facts, but we shouldn’t lose that element of proclamation). Limited atonement makes it impossible to proclaim forgiveness unconditionally, making it possible only to give sinners information about where forgiveness can be found (admittedly something done very effectively by many Calvinist preachers – I am not saying that Calvinists cannot preach effecitvely to sinners)
I’ve gone on long enough, but I’ll close with some words from Luther that basically sum up what I believe:
I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity. This is most certainly true.
John, again thanks for the substantive debate on this important theological doctrine. For those who are reading, it should be clear that whether or not either are saved because of their position on this issue is not in question. What is in question is how we proclaim the gospel. Now, John, I found it quite interesting that you said the following in your comment above:
Limited atonement precludes a pastor from declaring to his congregation in confidence that, as our pastor can declare week by week following the general confession, that our sins are forgiven because of Christ. Not simply giving us information about salvation, but actually declaring to us that our sins are forgiven. This transactional aspect to the Gospel is crucial – primarily it’s not about, “Do I believe in limited atonement or not?”, but “Do I believe this message saying, right here, right now, to me in this time and this place, ‘Your sins are forgiven!’ or not?”
You were claiming that only a pastor who believes in Universal Atonement (UA) can make that statement and a pastor who believes in “L” cannot. I actually believe that you have that reversed and let me explain why. When a pastor who believes in UA he cannot make that claim because the actual forgiveness is NOT CERTAIN AND SECURE UNTIL the sinner makes a decision. He can only claim a hypothetical forgiveness, or a forgiveness IF… Am I right? If he says to everyone, “Your sins are forgiven” that statement may not be true; some in that audience may reject Christ and pay for their sins in Hell for all eternity. Right? At the most he could say, “Christ died for everyones sins but that doesn’t help you if you don’t believe.” So the sinner who is dead to God is told to believe in God.
If he does, you claim that it was because of God’s grace. Well what if he doesn’t, was God’s grace not given to him? Or was God’s grace not as powerful as his will? There is either different degrees of saving grace or different degrees of lostness, because you have promised salvation to everyone but not all are being saved.
As a pastor who believes in “L” I am able to say right now with all certainty that the sins of the elect have been completely paid for and forgiven and when that elect sinner believes in Christ the forgiveness is effectuated. In fact, last week I preached a sermon called “Whosoever Believes” and explained he double imputation that takes place in our salvation. I know that the sinner is not converted until faith and repentance, but I believe that God will by His grace regenerate the hearts of every elect, give them the gift of faith and repentance, so that which Christ did upon the cross will be completely successful. He will lose none!