1 John 2:2

1 John 2:2

I. The Christian world here presents to us opposite extremes of opinion, as well as diversities. If we except, on the one hand, those who put a limitation on the intrinsic value of the Redeemer's sacrifice, who, by a kind of arithmetical process, estimate the worth of atonement by the number of those whom it actually saves, and, on the other hand, those who infer universal salvation as a necessary consequence from the atonement of Jesus Christ, the remaining discrepancies are rather the result of misapprehension than of any opposition of view. The man who looks at the sacrifice of Christ in view of some secret purpose of God and of the actual results which shall flow from it becomes the stern and unflinching advocate of limited atonement, and seems to be directly at war with another who, looking at the intrinsic nature of the sacrifice of Christ and its adaptation to other, and larger, and more general results, becomes the no less stern and unflinching advocate of unlimited atonement.

II. All the laws by which God governs the different systems are general in their character; all His arrangements for our world are made upon general principles. The light of the sun is enough for all; the rains of heaven are enough for all. And if a man does not see the light, the reason is in himself, and not in the sun.

III. We cannot fail to be struck with the character of universality which marks the terms in which the Bible speaks of the sacrificial work of Jesus Christ. "Christ gave Himself a ransom for all." I confess I do not understand the Gospel if this is not one of its cardinal doctrines, if the indiscriminate offer of Jesus Christ, and of pardon and eternal life through Him, is not made to the race, and as truly, and honestly, and sincerely made to one individual as to another of the race.

E. Mason, A Pastor's Legacy, p. 271.

References: 1 John 2:2 . Homilist, 3rd series, vol. vii., p. 255; R. W. Dale, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 313.