CHAP. IV - OF REDEMPTION

Summary

Foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.

THE great fact of the New Testament is the redemption of the World; the saving of all men through Christ. Perhaps no single statement is so often repeated, or asserted in so many different forms. It would be of no avail to enumerate the passages; for the most part they are well known. We have rather to ascertain why they have been interpreted to mean the salvation of part of the world, and the final loss of the rest. What necessity has acted on our minds to compel us to that conclusion, not less against the apparent meaning of those passages, than against our own deepest hopes and wishes?

The reasons have been of two kinds: in part the apparent meaning of other passages of Scripture, in part the evident fact that so many men do not believe, but die without participating in religion. Of these two elements, the latter is that which truly determines our opinion. For no passages can be plainer, or more emphatic, than those which seem to declare the absolute salvation of all men. No words can be more direct, or apparently decisive, than such as these: ‘I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me’ ‘God sent not His son into the world to condemn the world, but that The World through Him might be saved’ If there be others which seem as directly to affirm that all are not saved, then it must be on other evidence that the interpretation is decided.