GRACE FOR TODAY Radio Message #450
THE BLAPHEMIES OF
UNIVERSAL REDEMPTION
Pastor
Don Fortner
Grace Baptist Church of Danville
2734 Old Stanford Road
Danville,
Kentucky 40422-9438
Many suggest that we are too
dogmatic about the blessed gospel doctrine of particular, effectual redemption.
If you will carefully consider the blasphemies which must be embraced by all
who teach that Christ died for, made atonement for, and provided the
possibility of redemption to the whole human race, even those who perish under
the wrath of God in hell, you will, if you understand and believe the
Scriptures, see the reason for such dogmatism.
The teaching that Christ
died to save all men MAKES MAN
HIS OWN SAVIOR. If the Lord Jesus only made redemption possible, if he only
rendered men savable and put them in a savable condition, if he only made it
possible for man’s sins to be put away, then any who are saved are saved, not
because of what he did, but because of what they do!
If justification was not
accomplished at Calvary (John 19:30), then it must be accomplished by something
we do. If righteousness was not brought in by Christ’s obedience (1 Cor. 1:30),
it must be brought in by ours. If sanctification was not finished by Christ’s
blood (Heb. 10:10-14), we must find a way to make ourselves holy before God. If
our sins were not forever purged and put away by the sacrifice of our
Substitute (Heb. 1:3), then it is up to us to put them away. If the Son of God
did not actually obtain eternal redemption for us (Heb. 9:12), then we must do
something to secure it for ourselves.
The Word of God declares
that these things were done for God’s elect by their Savior. If they were not
in fact finished for us, we are all without hope forever. A spiritually dead
sinner, whose every thought is iniquity, can never make himself holy before
God!
The doctrine of universal atonement REDUCES THE LOVE OF GOD TO NOTHING. At
first glance some would say, “That cannot be right. The universal redemptionist
says God loves everyone. You say God only loves the elect.” My point exactly!
The Word of God highly commends the love of God displayed in the death of his
Son and in our redemption by his blood. We rejoice to sing…
“Could we with
ink the oceans fill, And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every
stalk on earth a quill, And every man a scribe by trade -
To write the
love of God above Would drain the oceans dry,
Nor could the
scroll contain the whole, Though stretched from sky to sky”.
We delight in the love of
God! But what kind of love is that which does not secure the salvation of its
objects when it has the power to do so? If God loves all men alike, what does
the love of God have to do with anyone’s salvation? Absolutely nothing! That is
not the teaching of Scripture.
The Word of God declares
that those who are the objects of God’s everlasting, predestinating love are
also the objects of his effectual call and the possessors of his eternal
inheritance (Jer. 31:3; Eph. 1:4-11). The Scriptures emphatically assert that
if God has sacrificed his darling Son for us he will not withhold any good
thing from us (Rom. 8:32). It is ridiculous beyond the point of absurdity to
imagine that God almighty sacrificed his Son for people and then sends them to
hell!
Amen.