Universal Redemption

Here are more problems, as I see it, with the idea that God, through Christ’s atonement, has provided an opportunity for all men to be saved (Universal Redemption or Unlimited Atonement).

It means that God’s redemptive plan, far from befitting a sovereign Lord, is doomed to at least partial failure because, even if one accepts the Arminian position, then without question only a fraction of all men accept the gospel message. How does the Bible’s clear teaching on God's sovereignty jibe with His placing the ultimate responsibility for the success of His redemptive plan in the very hands of the utterly fallen creatures He seeks to redeem?

It calls into question God’s justice, because He will have punished the same sin twice. Once in Christ on the cross, to give the sinner the opportunity for redemption, and once again in the sinner himself, after he rejects the offer of eternal life and receives instead his just recompense of eternal damnation.

It means that the blood of Christ is not ultimately effectual, but merely enabling, it that in ensures nothing but only offers the possibility of salvation.

It would cast doubts on God’s immutability. On the cross, God loved all men enough for Him to require the ultimate sacrifice of His son. Later, God hates many of these same sinners enough to send them to hell. If He loved them enough to demand Christ’s torment, why does He then hate them enough to send them to hell? On this point it would appear that Universal Salvation is more self-consistent.

Finally, if is my own faith, which I generated myself, which saves me, how is that glorifying to God? After all our chief end is to glorify God, not to gain salvation. (See Psalm 86 ) The glory to God comes from the recognition that it is entirely by the blood of Christ that we are redeemed. If it is, even in small part, by our self-mustered faith, then there is something to boast of in ourselves, boasting which robs from His glory.