Objections to the Doctrine of Limited Atonement

These are 11 Bible verses commonly quoted as objections to the doctrine of Limited or Efficacious Atonement. This is taken from Ra McLaughlin's An Overview and Defense of the Reformed Doctrines of Salvation. Stalwart and anyone else who might be interested in this topic will find this analysis useful.

Since the moderation has asked me to abridge the topics, I'll be concentrating them all on this first one and I'll just provide the links to the exegesis of each verse instead of just typing it here. Just click on each respective verse to read McLaughlin's argument.


1. “The next day [John the Baptist] saw Jesus coming to him, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’” (John 1:29)

2. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through Him." (John 3:16-17)

3. "So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men." (Romans 5:18) (Page 7)

4. “For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. Therefore from now on we recognize no man according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:14-19) (Page 9)

5. “This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony borne at the proper time.” (1 Tim. 2:3-6)

 

6. “For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.” (1 Tim. 4:10) (Page 3)

7. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men.” (Tit. 2:11) (Page 7)

8. “But we do see Him who has been made for a little while lower that the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that by the grace of God He might taste death for every one.” (Heb. 2:9) (Page 8)

9. “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.” (2 Pet. 2:1) (Page 10)

10. “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” (2 Pet. 3:9) (Page 12)

11. “Jesus Christ the righteous...is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.” (1 John 2:1-2) (Page 12)

 

I hope this new abridged arrangement satisfies the moderation. I'd ask for the other two posts (objections 2, 3 and 4) to be erased then. I'd also like to change the title of this thread, if possible.

This exegesis is an excellent reference we can always fall back to when discussing the doctrine of Limited Atonement.