Johnson:

7. God is Love or Infinite Benevolence. “He left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from Heaven and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness.” All the arrangements of God’s works are adjusted to promote happiness. For when he had ended his work of creation, he pronounced it all good. It is this love that prompts him to action. Of which the most ample proof is given in the death of his Son to redeem man. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to die for us.”

William Bullein Johnson, The Sovereignty of God and the Free Agency of Man: A Sermon Delivered Lord’s Day, May 30, 1842 (Published at the request of the Congregation, by William Bullein Johnson), 6. [Underlining mine.] [Note, Johnson was the first president of the Southern Baptist Convention.]

Samson:

They are right, then, who place stress on these declarations; for they are statements of fact. They certainly err who, from these and such like statements, infer that Christ’s Atonement has efficacy only for the redeemed. These are strong statements, indeed: “Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it” ( Eph. v. 25); ” He loved me, and gave himself for me (Gal. ii. 20); but they are not statements which exclude an efficacy that, reaches another end in another class. There are other declarations that assert a positive efficacy, though not a redeeming power, over others than the redeemed. Such are the declarations of Christ and of Paul and of John to this effect. Christ declares (Matt. xx. 28), “The Son of Man came . . to give his life a ransom for many,” which the Apostle Paul makes synonymous with the declaration (I. Tim. ii. 6), “He gave himself a ransom for all.” Again Paul (Heb. ii. 9), “We see Jesus, made a little lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man.” Yet again, John (I. John ii. 2), “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world;” in which expression the word rendered “world” is, in the Greek, “Kosmos,”  or universe. It is impossible to suppose that Paul and John used, without special design, these expressions of an influence exerted by Christ’s Atonement which reaches beyond the redeemed. They are right, indeed, who seek, in the connection of the statements just quoted for proofs that the redemption secured by the Atonement is limited to those who accept it; and yet the form of language chosen by the inspired writers is not by this qualification of the context made of no account in the writer’s design.

G.W. Samson, “The Atonement,” in Baptist Doctrines, ed., Charles A. Jenkens, reprint. (Wisconsin: Baptist Heritage Press, 1989), 497-498. [Italics orginal, underlining mine.]

SERMON XXII.

And he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for our ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

1 John II. 2.

WORDS amiable as beauty to the eye, harmonious as music to the ear, sweet as honey to the taste, and joyous as wine to the heart. Who can read them and not be affected? hear them and not be ravished? meditate on them and not be delighted? Believe them and not be comforted? Diligenter obserranda cordibusque inscribenda sunt haee verba, saith Ferus¹ aptly. These words deserve to be written, yea, engraven upon the tables of our hearts, as containing in them that which cannot but afford unspeakable joy to the wounded conscience. The person spoken of is Jesus Christ, whose very name is as a precious ointment; the thing spoken of is a pacification between God and sinners, than which no perfume can be sweeter. Finally, this benefit is set forth as obtained by this person, not for a few, but many, some, but all, and so like the light diffusing itself through the whole world; and therefore I trust, since we are all concerned in, we shall all be diligently attentive to, this precious scripture: ‘And he is the propitiation for our sins,’ &c. Having already unfolded the nature, we are now to handle the extent of this excellent benefit, which is expressed two ways:

Negatively, and not for ours only;

Affirmatively, but also for the sins of the whole world.

1. A word of the former, ‘not for ours only.’ It is that which lets us see the nature of faith. True faith applieth, but doth not appropriate; or if you will, it doth appropriate, but it doth not appropriate to itself. A believer so maketh Christ his own, as that still he is, or may be, another’s as well as his; and the reason of this is,

Partly in regard of the nature of the object, which is such that it is capable of being communicated to many as well as few; for as the air is a means of reconciliation, the sun an instrument of illumination, and the sea a place of navigation for the people of our country, and yet not ours only, those being things so communicative, that every one may have a share in them; nor is one man’s or people’s enjoying an hindrance to another; so is Christ a propitiation for the sins of St John and the rest of believers then living, but not for theirs only, he being koinon agathon, a common good, and his propitiation such as that the participation of it by some doth not at all impede others from having the like interest.

And partly in respect of the temper of the subject, this being the frame of a believer’s spirit, that he would have others partake of the same benefit with himself. The apostle St Paul saith of faith. Gal. v. 6, that it ‘worketh by love,’ and accordingly as faith brings Christ home to itself, so the love by which it worketh is desirous he might be imparted to others. To this purpose it is observable, that that holy apostle, when he speaketh of a crown which shall be given to him, 2 Tim. iv. 8, presently addeth, ‘and not to me only,’ as here St John, ‘ for our sins, and not for ours only.’

To wind up this. Whereas there are two objections amongst others made against the applying act of faith, as if it were a bold presumption in regard of Christ, and an uncharitable excluding of others from having the same benefit, to say he is ours, and that he is the propitiation for our sins, both will be found no better than calumnies; since, on the one hand, faith’s particular application is within the bounds, and according to the tenure of the gospel promise, and therefore it is no presumption; and, on the other hand, faith’s applying Christ to ourselves is not thereby to withhold him from any other, and therefore it is no uncharitableness; for whilst faith saith, ‘He is the propitiation for our sins,’ love addeth, and ‘ not for ours only.’ And so much, or rather so little, of the negative; pass we on to the,

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Fergusson:

8. As all men are guilty of their conception, Psal. 51:5, and therefore, in the course of divine justice, liable to the stroke of God’s vindictive wrath and justice, and this by nature also; So the misery of unregenerate men is never sufficiently seen, until it be traced up to this bitter root and fountain, even the sin and misery wherein they were born: for, saying they were children of wrath by nature, implies they were also sinners by nature; seeing wrath does always follow sin, and this he serves last, as that which was the root, fountain and head-stone of all their misery; And were by nature the children of wrath.

9. Though those, who are born within the visible Church, have a right to Church-priviledges even from their birth, and by nature, which others have not (See Gal. 2. Vers. 15. Doct. 1.), yet all men, whether born within, or within the Church, are alike by nature, sa to the point of original sin inherent in all, which wrath is due to all: for, says he, speaking fo the Jews, We were by nature the children of wrath, even as others, by which others he mean the unchurched Gentiles.

James Fergusson, A Brief Exposition of the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians, (London: Printed for the Company of Stationers, 1659), 89-90.