From a Facebook exchange:
Davenant cites Zanchi saying:
"It is not false that Christ died for all men: for the passion of Christ is offered to all in the Gospel. But he died effectually for the elect alone, because indeed they only are made partakers of the efficacy of the passion of Christ."
Hays
How is the passion of Christ offered to all in the Gospel unless all hear the Gospel?
Jorge
I don’t think that is the point of the quote (not the main one at least), but that when the gospel is offered at earshot, it is truly offered irrespective of election.
Hays
Perhaps, but that still wouldn't mean Christ died for all men.
Jorge
If the offer is real and objective, then he did. Even in a sense.
Hays
Well, the offer of the Gospel is conditional. If you repent of your sin and believe in Christ, you will be saved. Which doesn't entail universal atonement.
Jorge
What is being offered is there is nothing to give for some?
Hays
Again, it's conditional. Christ died for those who respond to the offer.
Jorge
Sure, it is conditional and all that, but what is he offering to those who don’t respond positively?
Hays
It's not a promise to those who don't respond. The offer is contingent on a receptive response.
Jorge
So, there is no offer until the hearer responds positively?
Hays
No, it has nothing to do with chronology. It's not like there's some leftover atonement for sin for those who refuse the offer. Christ never died to atone for the sins of those who refuse the offer.
Jorge
That is an affirmation. But I keep asking, what is being offered to those who will reject?
Hays
It's not an offer to those who reject it but to those who accept it.
Jorge
So, what is it for those who reject it?
Hays
It's a promise provided that the offer is accepted.
Jorge
So, it is an offer. You previously said it wasn’t.
Hays
No, it's a qualified offer. Why is that distinction so difficult to grasp? In one sense you could say those who reject it are promised nothing. Or you could say they are counterfactually promised something (if they were to accept it).
Jorge
So, if some reject it, do they reject nothing?
Hays
i) There's nothing in reserve for those who refuse to comply with the terms of the offer.
ii) You keep ignoring the qualified nature of the offer–as if it's either simply a promise or simply not a promise.
iii) The problem is looking for a shortcut formula to reconcile particularist passages of Scripture with universal sounding passages. It's a facile solution that doesn't work.
What's required is to exegete the more universal sounding passages to show that they are in fact consistent with the particularist passages.
Terry
The problem you have in seeing what is being said is your categories. You are falling into the error of thinking in terms of quantity rather than quality. Pecuniary rather than penal. Christ death was not a commercial transaction with the Father...so much suffering for so many sins plural.
Hays
i) To begin with, you're making ignorant assumptions about my position. I don't take the position that Christ died for x number of sins, but that he died for x number of sinners.
ii) In addition, "died for" is shorthand for "died with the intention of saving." Jesus didn't die with the intention of saving those who will never be saved.
Did Jesus die for the damned?
ReplyDeleteThat is an odd question that reveals the awkward tenseless worldview of Calvinists. I think I know what you mean by that question, but I would reply: Not-damned persons are in no need of a savior. They are not-damned. Jesus died for the damned, so that through His work they may be saved by grace through faith.
Perhaps I am being simplistic but I agree, I don't see what is so difficult to understand. If someone offers you a gift and you refuse it and walk away, why should you expect to have anything of the gift when you get hoome? And I really don't understand the confusion of quantity. Let's say that a teenager runs away from home. Do the parents now have an "excess" of love hidden in the back bedroom closet that is no longer being used? - Again, I'm no theologian nor am I trained in theology or philosophy but it seems rather obvious to me.
ReplyDeleteI think steve's interlocutor wants to say if someone rejects the Gospel that they've actually rejected *something*. That there was/is a bona fide offer contained in the Gospel such that's when it's rejected *something* was rejected.
ReplyDeleteTo maybe narrow the focus and clarify the language my take is the other party wants to say something like this:
The reprobate who hear the Gospel and reject it are rejecting a bona fide offer, and for it to be a bona fide offer that Christ must have died for *all* without exception such that there is a *true and bona fide offer* of salvation, or more precisely of Christ Himself such that if He did not die for *all*, but instead died for the elect who will and must be saved, and them alone, then the Gospel is not a bona fide offer to the reprobate, hence they're rejecting nothing when they reject the Gospel and more precisely Christ Himself because there was/is no true offer to the reprobate to reject in the first place.
At least this is what I think is being argued.
I think they fail to appreciate the nature of counterfactuals.
DeleteIt seems to me that you were on point when you kept repeating that the gospel is a contingent offer. It can and ought to be offered to all, but it's conditioned upon repentance which is available only to the elect.
DeleteI guess the if the person had been more precise in their thinking they might have asked how any gospel presentation could ever be considered a bona fide offer to the reprobate who have a predestined outcome determined by God such that there's no possible result but rejection of the gospel.
I've seen this type of complaint before of course, it's nothing new. Usually it takes on emotionally charged language such as "the Calvinist gospel offer isn't a sincere offer to all because some hearers are reprobate and God Who alone can grant the grace and faith necessary to respond to the offer witholds it from the reprobate so they never could have responded, thus it was an insincere offer", or something along these lines. Just before John 3:16 is trotted out as a prooftext.