Shultz:

2 Corinthians 5:14-15

In the first seven chapters of 2 Corinthians Paul is defending the integrity of his gospel ministry.⁷¹ Second Corinthians 5:11-21 is a significant passage in this first part of the letter, as Paul is here hoping to persuade the Corinthians that his ministry is a credible apostolic ministry (vv. 11-12).⁷² In verses 14-15, Paul explains why he was devoted to serving God and the Corinthians (v.13). Second Corinthians 5:14-15 reads, “For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.” The reason that Paul ministered to the Corinthians was because the love of Christ compelled him to do so.⁷³ The reason that Paul was convinced of Christ’s love was because he died for all.⁷⁴ After expressing this conviction Paul then states two consequences of Christ’s death for all. First, the consequence of Christ dying for all is that all died; his death involved their death (v. 14).⁷⁵ Second, the purpose of Christ’s death was so that those who live in him should live for him (v. 15).⁷⁶

The pertinent interpretive question in this passage for the extent of the atonement is how extensive the term “all” (pantes) is. Does Paul use “all” to refer to all people without exception, or does he use the term to refer to all believers?⁷⁷ A related question is who is included in the group “they who live.” Are “they who live” the same group as the “all,” or is Paul referring to a different group of people here? Advocates of particular redemption understand all four expressions (the three uses of “all” and “they who live”) as referring to believers.⁷⁸ The “all” that died are those who died to sin when Christ died for them on the cross.⁷⁹ The “all” are the same people as “they who live” because Christ’s death and resurrection are a unity, and all for whom Christ died are the same people for whom he rose.⁸⁰ This understanding is supported by an appeal to Romans 6:4-8, which asserts that those who died with Christ in the likeness of his death are also made to live with him in the likeness of his resurrection.⁸¹

The other possible meaning for pantes is that it refers to all people without exception, or the whole of humankind. The phrase “they who live” may then refer to all people without exception as well, or it may refer to those in Christ. It seems clear that the phrase “they who live” refers to believers.⁸² This is so for three reasons: because this is how Paul describes believers elsewhere (Rom 6:4), because this would be an odd way to refer to all human beings, and because if this were true, universalism would result.⁸³ If “they who live” are believers, however, then it strongly suggests that pantes refers to all people without exception, and not to believers. Paul introduces a new category of people with the phrase “they who live,” and this category is distinct from the “all.”⁸⁴ If Paul had meant to indicate that “all” and “they who live” were the same group of people, then why did he not simply continue to use the word “all?” Paul in these verses states that Christ died for all so that all died,⁸⁵ and so that those who live (believe in him) should no longer live for themselves, but for him, the one who died and rose on their behalf.⁸⁶ These verses therefore affirm Christ’s substitutionary death for all people without exception.

Shultz, Gary L. “A Biblical and Theological Defense of a Multi-Intentioned View of the Atonement” (Ph.D diss., Southern Baptist Theologican Seminary, 2008) 121-125. [Bold original, italics original; footnotes and values original; and underlining mine.]

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Chambers:

The relation of faith to Christ’s death in Scripture.

From our brief survey we see that when faith is related to Christ’s death that death is predominantly presented as an object of faith, as trust is placed in Jesus the Christ who was crucified.⁵⁵ Where it is related causally to people’s coming to faith it is as the content of what is preached, not as a guarantor of a right purchased from the Father.⁵⁶ Faith comes through hearing and what is heard is the gospel of Christ crucified for sin, buried, and risen.⁵⁷ The gospel of the cross is also the focus of the Spirit’s illuminating work.⁵⁸ Coming to faith seems to occur in the creation of a compelling relational context in which, by the presentation of the object of faith, Christ clad in the promises of His gospel,⁵⁹ and the revealing of the certainty of the reality of that object by the Spirit, the illuminated hearer can do no other than freely turn to God in the genuinely and thoroughly human response of believing.⁶⁰ Thus the scriptural mode of relation contrasts with that of Owen whose talk of the purchase of faith stresses the eternal and efficient in the causation of faith. The Scriptures, however, are seen to stress the sufficiency of Christ’s death as presented in the gospel and its temporal application by the Spirit in relation to coming to faith.

Some of the references to faith contained in scripture create positive difficulties for the notion of purchase. These are those references which indicate the weakness or incompleteness of the faith of believers. If the faith which is purchased is a weakness of faith [Rom. 14: 1 who in context are specifically those for whom Christ died, 14: 15] or a lacking in faith [1 Thess. 3: 10] is that the result of a deficiency in acquisition or application? Is it because He dies for some or applies to some in ways different to others? This Owen cannot allow. He specifically rejects the idea that Christ can die for some in one way and for others in another, and he insists that what is obtained must be applied, for that is the purpose of its obtaining.⁶¹ Owen’s language has difficulty in accommodating itself to the reality of Christian faith as it is presented in the scriptures. Making a slightly different point, Clifford elaborates on the consequences of this variability of the subjective Making a slightly different point, Clifford elaborates on the consequences of this variability of the subjective experience of faith amongst Christians for Owen is position.

First he observes that

in Owen’s view the sufferings of Christ not only deal with the guilt of the believer’s pre-conversion unbelief, they are causally related to the removal of unbelief.⁶²

Then, noting that

doubting believers fail to participate fully in the subjective blessings Christ’s death purchased for them

he concludes that Owen’s

argument applies as much to supposed believers as it does to unbelievers, with interesting consequences. For if partial unbelief in a Christian hinders him from enjoying the fullness of those blessings Christ has died to purchase for him, this is no different in principle from saying that total unbelief in a non-Christian hinders him from ‘partaking of the fruit’ Christ’s death makes available for him too.⁶³

That is, if Christ can be said to have died for one who has a relative lack of the subjective benefits of that death, why can He not be said to have died for one whose lack of those benefits is greater, when the barrier in both to fullness of blessing is unbelief.

Chambers, N.A. “A Critical Examination of John Owen’s Argument for Limited Atonement in the Death of Death in the Death of Christ,” (Th.M. thesis, Reformed Theological Seminary, 1998), 221-224. [Some reformatting; old style title emphasis converted to italics; italics original; underlining for side-headers original; and inline underlining mine.]

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Dabney:

But there are others of these passages, to which I think, the candid mind will admit, this sort of explanation is inapplicable. In John 3:16, make “the world” which Christ loved, to mean “the elect world,” and we reach the absurdity that some of the elect may not believe, and perish. In 2 Cor. 5:15, if we make the all for whom Christ died, mean only the all who live unto Him—i. e., the elect it would seem to be implied that of those elect for whom Christ died, only a part will live to Christ. In 1 John 2:2, it is at least doubtful whether the express phrase, “whole world,” can be restrained to the world of elect as including other than Jews. For it is indisputable, that the Apostle extends the propitiation of Christ beyond those whom he speaks of as “we,” in verse first. The interpretation described obviously proceeds on the assumption that these are only Jewish believers. Can this be substantiated? Is this catholic epistle addressed only to Jews? This is more than doubtful. It would seem then, that the Apostle’s scope is to console and encourage sinning believers with the thought that since Christ made expiation for every man, there is no danger that He will not be found a propitiation for them who, having already believed, now sincerely turn to him from recent sins.

Dabney, Lectures, 525.

Pohill:

3. Christ suffered this punishment in our stead, he died huper emon, for us, (Rom. v. 8), and which is more emphatical, anti pollon, instead of many, (Matt. xx. 28), the particle, huper doth sometimes in scripture signify only the utility or benefit of another, but anti properly imports a subrogation or substitution of one in the room of another; and so Christ, as our surety, died in our room or stead. Hence the apostle argues thus: If one died for all, ara hoi pantes apethanon, then all died, (2 Cor. v. 15), all died in the death of one, in as much as that one died as the surety of all. Hence our sins were condemned in his flesh, (Rom. viii. 3), and so condemned there, that upon gospel terms they are remitted to us. But unless he had stood in our room, divine justice could neither have adjudged him to punishment, nor yet have admitted us to an absolution from sin.

Edward Polhill, “The Divine Will Considered in its Eternal Decrees,” in The Works of Edward Polhill (Morgan, PA.: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1998), 154.