This piece is an extract from my book, The World of John 3:16, which explains why a Calvinist interpretation of the John 3:16 is fully consistent with the a sincere and free offer of salvation in the gospel to all sinners.
One of the main arguments against a Calvinist interpretation of the Bible in general and of John 3:16 in particular, is the claim by many that only if God loves everyone without exception (with the saving love of John 3:16) and only if Christ died to save everyone, can it be possible for us to make a free offer of salvation to all sinners without exception. This is the stark claim of Arminianism: Calvinists have no gospel to preach except to elect sinners.
It is a claim that is totally refuted not only by the actual views of Calvinists over against the straw men set up by Arminians, but by the plain historical evidence that Calvinist preachers have been at the forefront of evangelistic ministries and missions from the time of the Reformation onwards. We need look no further than the Reformers themselves—who had a Calvinistic view of salvation to a man—yet who took the gospel to the four corners of Europe and changed the world by their preaching. This is not to mention others such as Edwards, Whitefield, Spurgeon, Lloyd Jones and countless others since. It is simply not the case that Calvinist theology leads to truncated or hampered gospel preaching.
On the contrary, the interpretation of John 3:16 offered by Calvinists as a whole, and as we have outlined, strongly supports evangelistic efforts and the free offer of the gospel because of what it affirms about God and also because of what it actually teaches about Christ’s atonement and the free offer.
The starting point for a discussion of John 3:16 and the free offer of the gospel lies in the interpretation of ‘world’ or kosmos that we have advocated, that kosmos refers to the elect world of believers. This electing and redeeming love that God the Father has for a world he has chosen to save is the impetus for all our evangelistic efforts. Because God has chosen a multitude of people for salvation from every nation, class, race and language, we can be certain that our work, in preaching the gospel to sinners, in spreading God’s word all over the world, and in drawing people to Christ by our love and care, is never in vain. God’s word will always accomplish God’s purposes for it. The prophet Isaiah says this very clearly:
As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.[1]Preaching the gospel will lead to the salvation of the world, because we know that Christ’s mission to save the world will be completely effective and successful.
No one except a Calvinist can truly agree with that. Every other position regards those who are saved as a mere subset of the totality of the world loved and which God would like to save but cannot manage to save. The Calvinist alone can appeal to sinners to be reconciled to God with boldness and confidence that God’s word will not fail and not one of those people for whom Christ died will be lost. Quite simply, that makes for powerful evangelistic preaching. It is the fuel that inspires us to go out into the world to save sinners.
The fact that we identify the world of John 3:16 with the elect may explain the zeal with which a Calvinist can preach the gospel, but the gospel he can preach to sinners also relies on the definition of ‘world’ that we have advocated.
Since ‘world’ is such a general term, we can offer Christ to every sinner without exception. As we noted at the beginning of our discussions, though the saving purpose of God is toward his elect only, Calvinists do not deny that there is also a design in the atonement to bring salvation to everyone who hears the gospel on the condition of faith in Jesus Christ. These twin intentions, to save the elect and to make a genuine offer of salvation to the non-elect are not in conflict. In fact, they are in total harmony.
We can preach this gospel to everyone in the human race, no matter where they come from in the world and no matter what they have done in their life. It is precisely because God loves ‘sinners from all the nations’ that it is good news for any sinner from any nation. All need the Saviour and all who repent and believe in Jesus Christ will have that need met. Christ is the crucified Saviour for any sinner who wants him. The Calvinist can and does say to anyone and everyone ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.’ (Acts 16:31).
The fact that the gospel offer is genuine to the non-elect serves a grim purpose of leaving them without excuse and ultimately increasing their guilt.
This is exactly the evangelistic line that no less a Calvinist than John Calvin himself took concerning John 3:16. Calvin writes:
He has used a general term, both to invite indiscriminately all to share in life and to cut off every excuse from unbelievers. Such is the significance of the term ‘world’ which He has used before. For though there is nothing in the world deserving of God’s favour, He nevertheless shows He is favourable to the whole world when He calls all without exception to the faith of Christ, which is indeed entry into life. Moreover, let us remember that although life is promised generally to all who believe in Christ, faith is not common to all. Christ is open to all and displayed to all, but God opens the eyes only of the elect that they may seek Him by faith.[2]
There is a tendency to misrepresent what the Calvinist doctrine of limited atonement (or particular redemption) actually teaches. It is not the case that Calvinists simply state Christ died for the elect and no others without any qualification or explanation. On the contrary, although we Calvinists maintain that Christ died intending to save only the elect, we also maintain—in line with the Bible although perhaps not with mere human logic—that Christ did indeed die in some sense for the non-elect also.
In Reformed theology, it has long been recognised that although the saving benefits of Christ’s atoning work are intended by God for the elect only, there is a sense in which certain benefits also accrue to the non-elect because Christ died. No less a Reformed theologian than Charles Hodge states: ‘There is a sense, therefore, in which He died for all, and there is a sense in which He died for the elect only.’[3]
We wholeheartedly agree with this statement.
This understanding is spelt out clearly by another Reformed theologian, R. B. Kuiper:
The Reformed faith also insists that in other important respects [the atonement] is universal. It can be shown without the slightest difficulty that certain benefits of the atonement, other than the salvation of individuals, are universal. That being the case, it follows of necessity that God designed that this should be so...Therefore the statement, so often heard from Reformed pulpits, that Christ died only for the elect must be rated a careless one. To be sure, if by ‘for’ be meant in the place of, the statement is accurate enough, for those in whose stead Christ suffered the penalty of sin will not themselves have to suffer that penalty, and therefore their salvation from that penalty is assured. If, however, by ‘for’ be meant in behalf of, it is inaccurate, to say the least. Certain benefits of the atonement accrue to men generally, including the non-elect.[4]Although we agree with Hodge and Kuiper, we are clear that the way in which John 3:16 speaks of God’s love and Christ’s death, it is not referring to these non-saving benefits that flow to every human being. But that does not mean we reject that such benefits do accrue to all of humanity without exception.
The views of Hodge and Kuiper are shared by the vast majority of Calvinist theologians whether in the Presbyterian or Continental Reformed traditions.
Evangelicals do not believe in a commercial type of atonement, but in penal substitutionary atonement. The difference between these two views is marked. In the first, to save a million people, Christ would have had to suffer on the cross twice as much as he would have to save half a million people; in the second view (the one we hold), Christ would have had to suffer on the cross exactly as much to save every human being as he would have to save one individual sinner.
Christ’s person is of infinite worth, and so the atonement rendered by his death is infinite in value. It could not be otherwise. The cross is sufficient to save every human being without exception in this or ten million other worlds. The difference between the authentic Calvinist view and the Arminian view of universal redemption lies not in the sufficiency of the atonement, but only in its intended application. The Arminians argue that the intent was to save all equally; the Calvinists argue that the intent of this infinite, sufficient-for-all atonement, was nevertheless to save only the elect while allowing the free offer of salvation to be made to everyone without exception.
Charles Hodge explains it well and is worth quoting at some length:
It is a gross misrepresentation of the Augustinian doctrine to say that Christ suffered so much for so many; that He would have suffered more had more been included in the purpose of salvation. This is not the doctrine of any Church on earth, and never has been. What was sufficient for one was sufficient for all. Nothing less than the light and heat of the sun is sufficient for any one plant or animal. But what is absolutely necessary for each is abundantly sufficient for the infinite number and variety of plants and animals which fill the earth. All that Christ did and suffered would have been necessary had only one human soul been the object of redemption; and nothing different and nothing more would have been required had every child of Adam been saved through his blood.[5]Reformed orthodoxy strongly maintains that although Christ’s atoning work was only intended to save the elect and does only save the elect (and hence our understanding that God’s saving love is only for the elect), yet the atonement is sufficient and suitable for all and is freely offered to everyone without exception. As Hodge put it very well, just as for God to give light to Adam he decided to create a sun that gives light to billions in his extravagant provision, so in saving his people through the cross, he gave a Saviour who made an atonement sufficient to save this and a million other worlds entire, now in his extravagant saving grace.
It does not follow from the assertion of [the atonement] having a special reference to the elect that it had no reference to the non-elect. Augustinians readily admit that the death of Christ had a relation to man, to the whole human family, which it had not to the fallen angels. It is the ground on which salvation is offered to every creature under heaven who hears the gospel...It moreover secures to the whole race at large, and to all classes of men, innumerable blessings, both providential and religious. It was, of course, designed to produce these effects; and, therefore, He died to secure them.[6]
Augustinians do not deny that Christ died for all men. What they deny is that He died equally, and with the same design, for all men. He died for all, that He might arrest the immediate execution of the penalty of the law upon the whole of our apostate race; that He might secure for men the innumerable blessings attending their state on earth, which, in one important sense, is a state of probation; and that He might lay the foundation for the offer of pardon and reconciliation with God, on condition of faith and repentance. These are universally admitted consequences of his satisfaction, and therefore they all come within its design.[7]
A. A. Hodge in his excellent book The Atonement, outlines what the Calvinist doctrine of the atonement does and does not state regarding sufficiency, suitability and the capability of Christ’s atoning work being offerable to everyone without exception.
The question [of the extent of the atonement]...does not relate to the SUFFICIENCY of the satisfaction rendered by Christ to secure the salvation of all men. The Reformed Churches have uniformly taught that no man has ever yet perished, or ever will perish, for want of an atonement. All Calvinists agree in maintaining earnestly that Christ’s obedience and sufferings were of infinite intrinsic value in the eye of the law, and that there was no need for him to obey or suffer an iota more nor a moment longer in order to secure, if God so willed, the salvation of every man, woman, and child that ever lived...We all heartily believe that after eighteen hundred years the stream of Atonement is found unexhausted alike in its volume and its virtues...It will be none the less true after eighteen millions of years.[8]
The question [of the extent of the atonement] does not relate to the APPLICABILITY of the satisfaction rendered by Christ to the exact legal relations and to the necessities in order to the salvation of every lost sinner in the world. Christ did and suffered precisely what the law demanded of each man personally and of every man indiscriminately, and it may be at any time applied to the redemption of one man as well as to another, as far as the satisfaction itself is concerned…The death of Christ did remove all legal obstacles out of the way of God’s saving any man he pleases. In this sense, if you please, Christ did make the salvation of all men indifferently possible, a parte Dei.[9]It is interesting that no less a proponent of limited atonement than John Owen, often castigated by non-Calvinists as a Protestant scholastic and often horribly misrepresented as a man who put his rigid Calvinistic system over against Scripture, is happy to make the point that not only is the value and sufficiency of Christ’s atonement the truth, but being the truth it must also be the case that it was God’s purpose and intention that it should be so.
The question [of the extent of the atonement] does not relate to the UNIVERSAL OFFER in perfect good faith of a saving interest in Christ’s work on the condition of faith. This is admitted by all. Since, then, the work of Christ is exactly adapted to the legal relations and need of each, and since it is abundantly sufficient for all, and since, in perfect good faith, it is offered to all men indiscriminately, it necessarily follows that whosoever believes on him, non-elect (if that were subjectively possible) just as truly as the elect, would find a perfect atonement and cordial welcome ready for him when he comes.[10]
Nor does the question relate to the design of Christ in dying as it stands related to all the benefits secured to mankind by his death. It is very plain that any plan designed to secure the salvation of an elect portion of a race propagated by generation, and living in association, as is the case with mankind, cannot secure its end without greatly affecting, for better or worse, the character and destiny of all the rest of the race not elected...Hence all that happens to the human race other than that which is incidental to the instant damnation of Adam and Eve is part of the consequences of Christ’s satisfaction as the second Adam.[11]
The question does truly and only relate to the design of the Father and of the Son in respect to the persons for whose benefit the Atonement was made; that is, to whom in the making of it they intended it should be applied. We contend that the following heads absolutely exhaust every possible question as to what is called the extent of the Atonement: (a) Its essential nature, involving its exact adaption to the legal relations and necessities of each and every man indifferently; (b) its intrinsic sufficiency for all; (c) its honest and authoritative offer to all; (d) its actual application; (e) its intended application. We defy our opponents to show that this statement does not exhaust the case. The first three, all agree, are without any limit, thank God; the fourth, all agree, is limited to believers; the fifth all Calvinists must believe to be limited to the elect.[12]
Now, such as was the sacrifice and offering of Christ in itself, such was it intended by his Father to be. It was, then, the purpose and intention of God that his Son should offer a sacrifice of infinite worth, value, and dignity, sufficient in itself for the redeeming of all and every man, if it had pleased the Lord to employ it for that purpose; yea, and of other worlds also, if the Lord should freely make them, and would redeem them. Sufficient we say, then, was the sacrifice of Christ for the redemption of the whole world, and for the expiation of all the sins of all and every man in the world.[13]Owen was a far better exegete and biblical theologian than most of his opponents. His point is critical to the discussion. We must not think that because God intended to save the elect and only the elect that he does not then also have other intentions. Yes, those intentions do not mean that God intended to save everyone without exception; but it would seem to follow that God therefore has other intentions no less real in providing an atonement sufficient for all. We need not speculate much on what those intentions are. Suffice to say that when a non-elect person rejects Christ and the gospel offer, and in doing so rejects an atonement that was sufficient and able to save him, his guilt and wickedness are all the more magnified and clarified for all to see, rendering the final judgment all the more clearly right and just.
It is important to realise that the free offer does not rely on forcing an Arminian interpretation of John 3:16 or any other verse for that matter. As A. A. Hodge explains in these excerpts the gospel can be preached to all because the atonement is sufficient for all, suitable for the needs of all and offered to all, just as the bronze snake in Numbers 21:4-9 was available to save anyone who looked upon it in faith. In the same way, Christ is available to any sinner who wants him and desires to be saved. As Revelation 22:17 (KJV) says, ‘Whoever will, let him take the water of life freely.’
Our definition of the world in John 3:16 is fully consistent with this.
For both these reasons—the sense in which the atonement is sufficient for all, suitable for all and is offered to all and the all-inclusive sense of world indefinitely and generally—the understanding of kosmos put forward in this book is not only fully consistent but hugely supportive of the free offer of the gospel.
[1] Isaiah 55:10–11.
[2] John Calvin, The Gospel According to St John 1-10 (1553) (Calvin’s Commentaries, ed. David W. Torrance & Thomas F. Torrance, Saint Andrew Press, Edinburgh 1959): 74–75.
[3] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. III (1871-73) (Eerdmans): 546.
[4] Kuiper, For Whom Did Christ Die?: 78.
[5] Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. III: 544–545.
[6] Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. III: 545.
[7] Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. III: 558.
[8] A. A. Hodge, The Atonement (1867) (Evangelical Press, London 1974): 355–56.
[9] A. A. Hodge: 356–57.
[10] A. A. Hodge: 357–58.
[11] A. A. Hodge: 358–59.
[12] A. A. Hodge: 359–60.
[13] John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ: 183–84.
