In spite of recent revisionist
attempts to portray Limited Atonement (Particular Redemption) as being the
theology of the early Church[1], the evidence for Christ dying for all men, not
just individuals within all ethnic groups, is all over the literature of both
Scripture and early Christianity. As one representative example, take Eusebius
of Caesarea in his “Oration on the Thirtieth Anniversary of Constantine’s Reign”
(Migne, Patrologia Graeca: 20, 1315-51, translated by Hugo Rahner, Church and
State in Early Christianity [Ignatius, 1992], p. 126):
[God the
Father’s] pre-existent, only begotten Word, he who is in all, before all, and after
all, intercedes with him for the salvation of all.
Christ died for all men and intercedes
for all men, not just a select few based on an arbitrary decision in the
eternal past by God just to display his justice while actively (or passively;
there is an internal debate within Calvinism about this) reprobating the rest
of humanity. Such is not biblical, but Satanical (cf. Gal 1:6-9).
[1] For a thorough refutation of
Reformed understandings of Christ’s atonement, see Darrin W. Snyder Belousek, Atonement,
Justice and Peace: The Message of the Cross and the Mission of the Church
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2012).
