Calvin:

Commentary:

1) 2. And not for ours only. He added this for the sake of amplifying, in order that the faithful might be assured that the expiation made by Christ, extends to all who by faith embrace the gospel. Here a question may be raised, how have the sins of the whole world been expiated? I pass by the dotages of the fanatics, who under this pretense extend salvation to all the reprobate, and therefore to Satan himself. Such a monstrous thing deserves no refutation. They who seek to avoid this absurdity, have said that Christ suffered sufficiently for the whole world, but efficiently only for the elect. This solution has commonly prevailed in the schools. Though then I allow that what has been said is true, yet I deny that it is suitable to this passage; for the design of John was no other than to make this benefit common to the whole Church. Then under the word all or whole, he does not include the reprobate, but designates those who should believe as well as those who were then scattered through various parts of the world. For then is really made evident, as it is meet, the grace of Christ, when it is declared to be the only true salvation of the world. John Calvin, 1 John 2:2.

Tract:

2) Georgius thinks he argues very acutely when he says: Christ is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world; and hence those who wish to exclude the reprobate from participation in Christ must place them outside the world. For this, the common solution does not avail, that Christ suffered sufficiently for all, but efficiently for the elect. By this great absurdity, this monk has sought applause in his own fraternity, but it has no weight with me. Wherever the faithful are dispersed throughout the world, John extends to them the expiation wrought by Christ’s death. But this does not alter the fact that the reprobate are mixed up with the elect in the world. It is incontestable that Christ came for the expiation of the sins of the world. But the solution lies close at hand, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but should have eternal life (Jn 3:15). For the present question is not how great the power of Christ is or what efficacy it has in itself, but to whom he gives Himself to be enjoyed. If possession lies in faith and faith emanates from the Spirit of adoption, it follows that only he is reckoned in the number of God’s children who will be partakers of Christ. The evangelist John sets forth the office of Christ as nothing else than by His death to gather the children of God into one (Jn 11:52). Hence we conclude that the reconciliation is offered to all through Him, yet the benefit is peculiar to the elect, that they may be gathered into the society of life. However, while I say it is offered to all, I do not mean that this embassy, by which on Paul’s testimony (II Cor 5.18) God reconciles the world to Himself, reaches to all, but that it is not sealed indiscriminately on the hearts of all to whom it comes so as to be effectual.  John Calvin, The Eternal Predestination of God, p., 148-9.

Bell:

Because the extent of Christ’s work is universal, it is offered likewise to every person, as noted above. However, the most common doubt among men is that the benefit of Christ’s death, which is ‘available and ready for all’, is personally available for them.¹⁴ Although Christ is offered to all, we readily see that not all receive him. This, states Calvin, is due to their hardness and unbelief.¹⁵ However, Calvin teaches that those who so reject Christ are ‘doubly culpable’ since they have rejected ‘the blessing in which they could share by faith’.¹⁶ It would be inexcusable to argue from this that Satan and his demons, as well as the ungodly, benefit from Christ. Nevertheless, Calvin maintains, an important distinction exists between the demons and the ungodly, and that is that ‘the benefit of redemption is offered to the ungodly, but not to the devils.’¹⁷ Even the ungodly are included precisely because Calvin consistently teaches that ‘no one is excluded from this salvation’ wrought for all by the death of Christ, provided they believe.¹⁸

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Bell:

We are still left with Calvin’s statement concerning Christ’s flesh not crucified for the wicked. Again, we must refer to the context. In this context, Calvin is refuting certain arguments of Heshusius. The main differences centre around Heshusius’ claim that Christ is spatially present in the sacrament and that not only believers eat of his flesh, but also the wicked eat of Christ’s corporeal flesh ‘by the mouth bodily without faith’.Calvin rejects these ideas and teaches instead that Christ can spatially be in one place at one time and he is now seated in heaven at the Father’s right hand. Nevertheless, he is spiritually and really present in the sacraments so that by faith and ‘the secret virtue of the Spirit we are united into one body with him’.³⁷ It is absurd, writes Calvin, to think that ‘Christ is swallowed by the mouth so that he passes bodily into the stomach’.³⁸

Calvin argues that Heshusius has failed to see that the sacrament is a matter for faith. ‘Only those who are united by faith’ benefit from the sacrament; they alone ‘truly or in reality‘ can be said to eat Christ’s flesh.³⁹ It is a matter of the work of the Spirit, and therefore, of faith. The idea that the ‘unworthy’ or the ‘wicked’ or ‘unbelievers’⁴⁰ can’ eat Christ’ is ‘unworthy of refutation’.⁴¹ Calvin does not mean that only believers partake of the sacrament, that is, that it is only offered to believers. It is, indeed offered to all, even the wicked.⁴² However, unbelievers do not truly eat Christ, rather they receive only a ‘visible sign’ and so ‘eat only sacramentally’.⁴³

Calvin stresses continually the spiritual nature of the sacrament and the fact that only by faith does one benefit from it. Only through the Spirit can one eat Christ’s flesh. In this context, he notes Heshesius’ statement that ‘Christ is present to his creatures in many ways’, and then in rapid succession counters with his own questions: How can Christ be with unbelievers? How can he be ‘spiritual food’ for their souls? How can the wicked eat Christ’s flesh which’ was not crucified for them? Then he concludes with ‘my axiom, that Christ, considered as the living bread and the victim immolated on the cross, cannot enter a human body devoid of his Spirit’.⁴⁴

It is readily seen that throughout this debate, Calvin is not discussing the atonement, but rather, the necessity of the presence of the Spirit and faith for the efficacy of the sacrament. He definitely is not making a statement on the extent of the atonement. Rather he is maintaining that when faith is absent, there is no benefit for the one partaking of the bread and wine. If we accept Calvin’s statement concerning the wicked eating Christ’s flesh which was not crucified for them as a statement on the extent of the atonement, and that, therefore, not only the atonement but

the sacrament as well is only for the elect, then Calvin is, indeed, inconsistent in his thinking. For earlier, in this same discussion, he stated that the sacrament is offered to the wicked, but they reject it and so insult Christ’s body.⁴⁵ However, Calvin is not inconsistent in his thought. He has simply resorted to the use of hyperbole in his discussion of the spiritual nature of the sacrament. The series of questions posed by Calvin are rhetorical and actually represent views which Calvin himself A rejects.⁴⁶

Charles Bell, Calvin and Scottish Theology: The Doctrine of Assurance (Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 1985), 16-17.   [Underlining mine; original footnote values retained; and square brackets in footnotes mine.]

________________________

³⁷Ibid, 270, 276. [c.f. Theological Treatises, 270, 277.]

³⁸Ibid, 278.

³⁹Ibid. 281.

⁴⁰All three terms are used interchangeably by Calvin in this discussion.

⁴¹Theological Treatises, 282.

⁴²Ibid, 283, ‘. . . They insult the body of Christ, inasmuch as they reject the inestimable boon which is offered them.’

⁴³Ibid, 281.

⁴⁴Ibid. 285.

⁴⁵bid; 283.

⁴⁶Cf. Curt Daniel’s excellent discussion of this difficult passage, op.cit., 817-23.

Bunyan:

1)

CHAPTER X.

Seeing then that the grace of God in the gospel, is by that to be proffered to sinners, as sinners; as well to the reprobate as the elect; Is it possible for those who indeed are not elect, to receive it, and be saved? To this question I shall answer several things: but first I shall shew you what that grace is, that is tendered in the gospel; and secondly, what it is to receive it and be saved. First then, The grace that is offered to sinners as sinners, without respect to this or that person, it is a sufficiency of righteousness, pardoning grace, and life, laid up in the person of Christ, held forth in the exhortation a nd word of the gospel, and promised to be theirs that receive it; yea, I say, in so universal a tender, that not one is by it excluded or checked in the least, but rather encouraged, if he hath the least desire to life; yea, it is held forth to beget both desires and longings after the life thus laid up in Christ, and held forth by the gospel (John 1:16; Col 1:19,23; 1 John 5:11,12; Acts 13:38,39; Rom 10:12-14, 16:25,26). Secondly, To receive this grace thus tendered by the gospel, it is, 1. To believe it is true. 2. To receive it heartily and unfeignedly through faith. And, 3. To let it have its natural sway, course and authority in the soul, and that in that measure, as to bring forth the fruits of good living in heart, word, and life, both before God and man.

Now then to the question. Is it possible that this tender, thus offered to the reprobate, should by him be thus received and embraced, and he live thereby? To which I answer in the negative. Nor yet for the elect themselves, I mean as considered dead in trespasses and sins, which is the state of all men, elect as well as reprobate. So then, though there be a sufficiency of life and righteousness laid up in Christ for all men, and this tendered by the gospel to them without exception; yet sin coming in between the soul and the tender of this grace, it hath in truth disabled all men, and so, notwithstanding this tender, they continue to be dead. For the gospel, I say, coming in word only, saves no man, because of man’s impediment; wherefore those that indeed are saved by this gospel, the word comes not to them in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost; is mixed with faith even with the faith of the operation of God, by whose exceeding great and mighty power they are raised from this death of sin, and enabled to embrace the gospel. Doubtless, all men being dead in trespasses and sins, and so captivated under the power of the devil, the curse of the law, and shut up in unbelief; it must be the power of God, yea the exceeding greatness of that power that raises the soul from this condition, to receive the holy gospel (Eph 2:1-3; 1 Thess 1:5,6; Col 2:12; Heb 4:1,2; Eph 1:18,19, &c.). For man by nature, (consider him at best), can see no more, nor do no more than what the principles of nature understands and helps to do; which nature being below the discerning of things truly, spiritually, and savingly good, it must needs fall short of receiving, loving and delighting in them. ‘The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned’ (1 Cor 2:14). Now I say, if the natural man at best (for the elect before conversion are no more, if quite so much) cannot do this, how shall they attain thereto, being now not only corrupted and infected, but depraved, bewitched and dead; swallowed up of unbelief, ignorance, confusion, hardness of heart, hatred of God, and the like? When a thorn by nature bears grapes, and a thistle bears figs, then may this thing be (Matt 7:16-18). To lay hold of and receive the gospel by a true and saving faith, it is an act of the soul as made a new creature, which is the workmanship of God: ‘Now he that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God’ (2 Cor 5:5). ‘For a corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit’ (Luke 6:43-45). ‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin?’ (Jer 13:23). Bunyan, “Reprobation Asserted,” in The Works of John Bunyan, (Banner of Truth), 2:249-350.

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Augustine:

Classic Secondary Sources:

1) William Bridge (1600–1670):

And whereas he was charged by the Pelagians with denying that Christ suffered for the Redemption of all men, he plainly gave his sense therein thus. As for the greatness and sufficiency of the price, the blood of Christ is the Redemption of the whole world; but they that die without Faith and Regeneration, are aliens from Redemption. All men (saith he) are rightly said to be redeemed in respect of one nature of all, and the one cause of all, which the Lord did truly take upon him, and yet all are not delivered from captivity. The propriety of Redemption without doubt belongs unto them out of whom the Prince of this world is cast, who are not vessels of Satan, but the members of Christ. And herein Prosper doth totidem verbis concur with him. This ergo was the sense of the Orthodox (for by Augustin’s judgment you may measure the rest) in those times.

William Bridge, “To the Reader” in, John Brinsley, Gospel-Marrow, the Great God Giving Himself for the Sons of Men (London: Printed by S. Griffin for Richard Tomlines, and are to be sold at the Sign of the Sun and Bible near Pye-Corner, 1659), vii–viii. [No pagination; pages numbered manually from the beginning] [Credit to Tony for the find.]

2) Richard Baxter (1615-1691):

“As for Augustine and some Protestants, they oft deny that Christ redeemeth any but the Faithful, because the word Redemption is ambiguous, and sometimes taken for the price or ransome paid, and often for the very liberation of the captive Sinner. And whenever Austin denieth common Redemption, he taketh Redemption in this last sense, for actual deliverance. But he asserteth it in the first sense, that Christ died for all. Yea, he thought his death is actually applied to the true Justification and Sanctification of some Reprobates that fall away and perish, though the Elect only are so redeemed as to be saved. Read yourself in Augustine, Prosper and Fulgentius, and you will see this with your own eyes.”

Richard Baxter, Catholick Theologie (London: Printed by Robert White, for Nevill Simmons at the Princes Arms in St. Pauls Church-yard, 1675), 2:57-58. [Credit to Tony for the find.]

Primary Sources:

None of the elect can perish:

1) “None of the Elect and Predestinate can Perish.” Of such says the apostle, “We know that to those that love God He works together all things for good, to them who are called according to His purpose; because those whom He before foreknew, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified.” Of these no one perishes, because all are elected. Augustine, “Anti-Pelagian Writings,” in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, 5:477.

Sins of believers (sample):

1) 18. How is it, by the way, that you use the words temple, altar, sacrifice, for the purpose of commending your own practices? If such things can be spoken of as properly belonging to true religion, they must constitute the true worship of the true God. And if there is such a thing as true sacrifice to the true God, which is implied in the expression divine honors, there must be some one true sacrifice of which the rest are imitations. On the one hand, we have the spurious imitations in the case of false and lying gods, that is, of devils, who proudly demand divine honors from their deluded votaries, as is or was the case in the temples and idols of the Gentiles. On the other hand, we have the prophetic intimations of one most true sacrifice to be offered for the sins of all believers, as in the sacrifices enjoined by God on our fathers; along with which there was also the symbolical anointing typical of Christ, as the name Christ itself means anointed. The animal sacrifices, therefore, presumptuously claimed by devils, were an imitation of the true sacrifice which is due only to the one true God, and which Christ alone offered on His altar. Thus the apostle says: “The sacrifices which the Gentiles offer, they offer to devils, and not to God.” He does not find fault with sacrifices, but with offering to devils. The Hebrews, again, in their animal sacrifices, which they offered to God in many varied forms, suitably to the significance of the institution, typified the sacrifice offered by Christ. This sacrifice is also commemorated by Christians, in the sacred offering and participation of the body and blood of Christ. The Manichæans understand neither the sinfulness of the Gentile sacrifices, nor the importance of the Hebrew sacrifices, nor the use of the ordinance of the Christian sacrifice. Their own errors are the offering they present to the devil who has deceived them. And thus they depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and to doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy. Augustine, ‘The Writings Against the Manichæans and Against the Donatists,” in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, 4:26-261.

Lamb of God (sample):

1) They, then, who see their own mind, in whatever way that is possible, and in it that Trinity of which I have treated as I could in many ways, and yet do not believe or understand it to be an image of God, see indeed a glass, but do not so far see through the glass Him who is now to be seen through the glass, that they do not even know the glass itself which they see to be a glass, i.e. an image. And if they knew this, perhaps they would feel that He too whose glass this is, should by it be sought, and somehow provisionally be seen, an unfeigned faith purging their hearts, that He who is now seen through a glass may be able to be seen face to face. And if they despise this faith that purifies the heart, what do they accomplish by understanding the most subtle disputes concerning the nature of the human mind, unless that they be condemned also by the witness of their own understanding? And they would certainly not so fail in understanding, and hardly arrive at anything certain, were they not involved in penal darkness, and burdened with the corruptible body that presses down the soul. And for what demerit save that of sin is this evil inflicted on them? Wherefore, being warned by the magnitude of so great an evil, they ought to follow the Lamb that taketh away the sins of the world. Augustine, On the Holy :Trinity; Doctrinal Treatises; Moral Treatises,” in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, 3:223.

2) 37. But regard the troops of virgins, holy boys and girls: this kind hath been trained up in Thy Church: there for Thee it hath been budding from its mother’s breasts; for Thy Name it hath loosed its tongue to speak, Thy Name, as through the milk of its infancy, it hath had poured in and hath sucked, no one of this number can say, “I, who before was a blasphemer, and persecutor, and injurious, but I obtained mercy, in that I did in being ignorant, in unbelief.” Yea more, that, which Thou commands not, but only did set forth, for such as would, to seize, saying, “Whoso can receive, let him receive;” they have seized, they have vowed, and, for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, not for that Thou threatens, but for that Thou exhorts, they have made themselves eunuchs. To these cry out, let these hear Thee, in that Thou art “meek and lowly of heart.” Let these, by how much they are great, by so much humble themselves in all things, that they may find grace before Thee. They are just: but they are not, are they, such as Thou, justifying the ungodly? They are chaste: but them in sins their mothers nurtured in their wombs. They are holy, but Thou art also Holy of Holies. They are virgins, but they are not also born of virgins. They are wholly chaste both in spirit and in flesh: but they are not the Word made flesh. And yet let them learn, not from those unto whom Thou forgives sins, but from Thee Thyself, The Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world, in that Thou art “meek and lowly of heart.” Augustine, On the Holy :Trinity; Doctrinal Treatises; Moral Treatises,” in The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, 3:430.

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