Archive for February 22nd, 2012
XXIII. While Christ’s passion is minimized by the foregoing errors, those who teach that he died for all human beings [pro omnibus et singulis] broaden the object of his passion more than is allowable.
Of course, if we take into consideration the magnitude and worthiness of the merit, we admit that it would suffice for the redemption of ten worlds; but if we take the plan of God and the intention of Christ into consideration, then it is false to say that Christ died for every person. For this reason others say that his death was sufficient for all, but not effective for all;1 that is, the merit of Christ, because of his worthiness, is sufficient for all, but it is not effective for all in its application, because Christ did not die with the intention that his. death be applied to all. Why should he die for those for whom he would not pray? But he told us that he did not pray for the world On. 17 :9). Those who oppose us argue from passages in which there is reference to the whole world, or to all men, [ Timothy 2:4 and 1 John 2:2, in which all men in general are named. But in I John 2:2 the meaning of "the whole world" is, by metonymy, "the elect scattered throughout the whole world," and in 1 Timothy 2: 4 "all men" means men of every sort, whether gentiles or Jews, kings or private citizens, and so not individuals in a class, but classes of individuals, as the words that follow make plain. The word "all" is used in the same sense in Genesis 6: 19 and Joel 2:28.5
1. The other aspect of Christ’s satisfaction is the perfect righteousness which, by his conformity to the law and the perfect obedience which he performed, acquired for us the status of heirs of eternal life. 2. This righteousness is partly original and partly actual. 3. The original righteousness of Christ is the conformity to the law in which he was conceived and born.
Johannes Wollebius, Compendium Theolgiae Christianae trans. John W. Beardslee in Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1965), 105-106.
[Underlining mine.]