The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum MJM, 5-Point Calvinism and the Bible

(fred) Yes, these are Picirilli's categories if I can recall from his section in his book on the atonement. I would agree with his assessment of the use of Kosmos. However, he does not interact with the complete syntactical and grammatical nuiances of the text, or fully with those who would react to his conclusions. That leaves his position vunerable to significant criticism. There are two major ones I mentioned in my review of his book.

First is the word "propitiation." It has grammatical implications when understanding the word "world." Granted, I do not see the apostle John specifically equating "world" with the "elect only" as some Calvinist are want to do. Rather, I think it expresses the extent and scope of God's love and propitiation: it is to the whole world of men. But that is in comparrison with one small group that John is writing. That is his point. Picirilli never studies out fully the theological concept of propitiation in his work and in providing a fraction of the data, he leaves his theological conclusions of universality exposed to some fundamental flaws. If it is a wrath appeasing sacrifice, which all Arminians affirm (pre-Grotius), then that means all of God's wrath against the world has been satisfied. But we know that cannot be true from the totality of scripture. Many sinners still go to hell to endure eternal wrath. The position you advocated ulitmately implies a universalist conclusion, rather than one that is squarely biblical. You made allusion to arguing this way in the past during your Calvinist days. How would you argue now while holding to the biblical satisfaction view of the atonement? Unless you hold to Grotius governmental view?

An additional difficulty not considered by Picirilli is John's usage of world in relationship to his use of it when relating to Christ's death through out all his writings. The grammatical phrase in 1 John 2:2 reads verbatim as John 11:51-52. That is a significant passage that cannot be glossed over by the Arminian. In the same way that Christ was going to die for the children of Israel, he was going to die for all the children of God spread abroad. To say that John never implied the scope of Christ's redeeming death to be all gentiles of every nation only, but instead, extend the scope of kosmos to mean every person with out exception period, does violence not only to John's intentions in his Gospel, 3 epistles and Revelation, but to the entire theology of Christ's atoning sacrifice.

Fred