Basic HTML Version
382
declarative will as expressed in the universal offer of salvation. He is simply an official
ambassador, whose duty it is to carry out the will of the Lord in preaching the gospel to all men
indiscriminately. (5) Dr. Shedd says: “The universal offer of the benefits of Christ’s atonement
springs out of God’s will of complacency, Ezek. 33:11.... God may properly call upon the non-
elect to do a thing that God delights in, simply because He does delight in it. The divine desire is
not altered by the divine decree of preterition.”[Dogm. Theol. II, p. 484.] He also quotes a very
similar statement from Turretin. (6) The universal offer of salvation serves the purpose of
disclosing the aversion and obstinacy of man in his opposition to the gospel, and of removing
every vestige of excuse. If it were not made, sinners might say that they would gladly have
accepted the gift of God, if it only had been offered to them.
5. THE WIDER BEARING OF THE ATONEMENT.
The question may be raised, whether the
atonement wrought by Christ for the salvation of the elect, and of the elect only, has any wider
bearing. The question is often discussed in Scottish theology, whether Christ did not die, in
some other than a saving sense, also for the non-elect. It was discussed by several of the older
theologians, such as Rutherford, Brown, Durham, and Dickson, but was answered by them in
the negative. “They held, indeed,” says Walker, “the intrinsic sufficiency of Christ’s death to
save the world, or worlds; but that was altogether irrespective of Christ’s purpose, or Christ’s
accomplishment. The phrase that Christ died sufficiently for all was not approved, because the
‘for’ seemed to imply some reality of actual substitution.”[Scottish Theology and Theologians,
p. 80.] Durham denied that any mercy bestowed upon the reprobate, and enjoyed by them,
could be said to be the proper fruit of, or the purchase of, Christ’s death; but at the same time
maintained that certain consequences of Christ’s death of an advantageous kind must reach
wicked men, though it is doubtful whether these can be regarded as a blessing for them. This
was also the position taken by Rutherford and Gillespie. The Marrow-men of Scotland, while
holding that Christ died for the purpose of saving only the elect, concluded from the universal
offer of salvation that the work of Christ also had a wider bearing, and that, to use their own
words, “God the Father, moved by nothing but His free love to mankind lost, hath made a deed
of gift and grant unto all men of His Son Jesus Christ.” According to them all sinners are legatees
under Christ’s testament, not indeed in the essence but in the administration of the covenant
of grace, but the testament becomes effectual only in the case of the elect. Their position was
condemned by the Church of Scotland. Several Reformed theologians hold that, though Christ
suffered and died only for the purpose of saving the elect, many benefits of the cross of Christ
do actually — and that also according to the plan of God — accrue to the benefit of those who
do not accept Christ by faith. They believe that the blessings of common grace also result from
the atoning work of Christ.[Cf. Witsius, De Verbonden II, 9.4; Turretin, Loc. XIV, Q. 14, Sec. 11;
Cunningham, Hist. Theol. II, p. 332; Hodge, The Atonement, 358 and elsewhere; Grosheide in
the Evangelical Quarterly, April, 1940, p. 127. Cf. also Strong, Syst. Theol., p. 772.]