Atonement: Limited in scope but not in power (part II)

Okay, so then we looked at several passages which clearly display in context the doctrine of limited atonement. These were: John 10:15-26 (contrast between the sheep and non-sheep), Ephesians 5:25-27 (Christ gives up His life for the church not the world - who are the church? All God's elect people), Esau and Judas, John 6:37-40 (all the father has given the Son), 1 John 4:10 (the objects of God's love are the same as those for whom Christ died, the 'us' refers to those whose sins have been forgiven (2:12) and who are the children of God (3:1-2)...etc

If we say that Christ died for everyone in some sense, then the answer to the second question (what exactly was achieved by Christ's death) has to be that His death did not actually save anybody, but rather it made men savable. This is the idea that Christ potentially atoned for everyone and then it was up to man to accept or deny this offer of salvation. Unfortunately, many deny it and so they die in their sins and go to hell. Why is this an inevitable line of reasoning from a universal atonement point of view?

Well, because if Christ be God, He must be able to do all that He intended to do. If He intended to redeem the whole world then quite simply the whole world would be redeemed and nobody would go to hell. Yet we know people do go to hell (even the Arminian agrees). So now a line of reasoning is embarked upon. Christ must therefore have only made possible the salvation of every soul, but it's up those individual souls to accept, to commit, in short to redeem themselves! They must find the faith, they must accomplish their own new birth. This view won't allow God to be the administer of faith by grace (like the bible says - Ephesians 2:8,9) or else, either everyone would have to be saved and go to heaven (which clearly isn't the case) or Christ died and saved only a limited number of people (which is exactly what the arminian can't accept). We have to appease the wrath of God ourselves, we have to redeem our own lives from the bondage of sin, we have to make our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh, we have to do nothing less than breathe spiritual life into our own dead souls.

In reality very few Arminians have thought through their argument this far down the line. They simply can't accept that God might have chosen some people and not others and because they can't accept it they have to come up with another idea. This means theology has shaped God, instead of God shaping theology.

Continued in part 3...