Category: limited atonement

What Does God Want Me to Do?

Thursday, March 29, 2012

“For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13 KJV).

Someone recently asked, “What does God want me to do in life?” Well, what would God want us to do?

God wants to use us for His glory, but sin interferes: “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). So, in order to use us, God must first save us from ourselves (sin, death, and ultimately hell). This is why God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins, to shed His innocent blood for our forgiveness (to wash away our sins), and to resurrect the third day for our justification (to give us a right standing before God). That is Paul’s Gospel, the Gospel of the Grace of God (1 Corinthians 15:1-4).

God’s will is to have “all men saved” (1 Timothy 2:4a); God wants no one to go to hell forever (2 Peter 3:9). Do you want to do God’s will? Get saved! Trust Christ Jesus alone as your personal Saviour (Paul’s Gospel) and receive eternal life in heaven. God the Holy Spirit will then take you and place you into the Church the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:13). Salvation is that simple!

But, God’s will is to also have “all men… come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4b). Once a person is saved, God then wants him or her to learn why He saved them. God wants to teach us His overall goal for creation and our role in accomplishing that purpose (we learn this by studying His Word, the Bible). Do you want to do God’s will as a Christian? Follow the Apostle Paul as he follows Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1)! Learn about God’s will for you in this Dispensation of Grace by focusing on Paul’s epistles, Romans through Philemon.

As today’s Scripture teaches, God wants to accomplish a magnificent work in us, a work that will literally reverberate throughout the ages to come (eternity future). He wants to save us forever so He can use us forever.

To Give His Life a Ransom for Many?

Monday, August 1, 2011

“Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28 KJV).

Calvinists use today’s Scripture to argue “limited atonement,” the belief that Christ only died to save “many,” not “all.” Does God want “all” to be saved, or just “many” to be saved?

In Luke 1:68,69,77, the Holy Ghost speaks through Zacharias (father of John the Baptist): “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David;…to give knowledge unto salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins,”

Surely, the Holy Ghost is speaking of Israel here. According to the Old Testament, Israel had to be saved first, and then God would use that saved nation to bring salvation to the rest of the world (Exodus 19:5,6; Isaiah 60:1-3; Zechariah 8:20-23; et al.).

“He came unto his own, and his own received him not” (John 1:11). Jesus Christ came to Israel first because the Old Testament covenants were given to Israel’s patriarchs, not to the Gentiles. Christ came to fulfill Israel’s covenants (Romans 15:8), which explains why He restricted His earthly ministry to Jews. “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24; cf. Matthew 10:5-7; John 4:22). Salvation needed to be preached to Israel first (Luke 24:47; Acts 1:8; Acts 2:36-38; Acts 3:24-26).

When we come to Paul’s ministry, we learn: “but rather through [Israel’s] fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke [Israel] to jealousy” (Romans 11:11). Israel blasphemed against the Holy Ghost, and rejected the establishment of her kingdom. Consequently, God went to the nations, apart from Israel. Today, the Apostle Paul writes that Christ “gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time” (1 Timothy 2:6). Thus, limited atonement is foolishness.

Today, salvation is sent to the entire world (“all”)—not just to Israel (“many”)—through Paul’s Gospel.