Did Jesus Die on The Cross for The Just/Elect/Saved Whose Names Are Written in The Book of Life OR

it's why i can't post day after day in a thread like this. after a while, i'd become discouraged and frustrated and my goal would shift to be more about me and less about others. until He corrects that in me, i avoid the temptation.

well, my poetic sister, i'd put you in the first group, and myself in the second.

it's why i can't post day after day in a thread like this. after a while, i'd become discouraged and frustrated and my goal would shift to be more about me and less about others. until He corrects that in me, i avoid the temptation.

i believe our Lord cares about WHY we do what we do. motive matters, you know?

Heresy comes from haireO, to choose.

world:
οἰκουμένη

The original question....
Who did Jesus die for?

Everyone, all

His blood covers everyone, no limit to the number.
But we are only covered if we accept by faith the gift He gives.

If ever human that has ever lived are judged as saved then the blood of Jesus would save them all.
If only a few are judged as saved then the blood of Jesus will cover them.

We are judged and the blood applied or not applied depending on the verdict.

Jesus wants to save all.

If the unconverted sinner was permitted to enter heaven, with so much unselfish love around them, they would feel like an alien (out of harmony). They would be a discordant note in the melody of heaven. Heaven would be to them a place of torture; They would welcome destruction, that they might be hidden from the face of Jesus who died to redeem them.

It is our choice... Jesus has done all to save all.

2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

In logic, the law of excluded middle or the principle of excluded middle states that for every proposition, either this proposition or its negation is true.

This means something is either dead (by some definition), or not dead (by the same definition). Or something is alive (by some definition) , or not alive (by the same definition).

It does not mean something is either dead (by some definition), or alive (by some definition), unless one chooses to define dead as not alive. However, dead can have a range of meanings some of which are not diametrically opposed to alive. Being dead to the world does not mean one is not alive biologically.

Red is not blue. Something that is red cannot be also blue. Saying that it therefore follows that something that is not red must be blue, is the fallacy of the excluded middle/false dichotomy.

In common language. to qualify as bad, someone or something does not need to be completely bad: it can be partially damaged, but unsuitable for some particular function as it is. And to qualify as good, they may be partially damaged, but of sufficient use to do a job sufficiently well. It is the case that something being bad (in some sense), means it cannot be not bad (in the same sense). And something that is good (in some sense), cannot be not good (in the same sense).

But something bad (in some sense", can be partially good. And something good, can be partially bad. That's just how language is used. Jesus was speaking to ordinary human beings, not nit-picky theologians and philosophers. What did He expect His commoner audience to understand His words to mean? That is the meaning I am looking for to understand His statement. You seem o be looking for confirmation of the foundational theological premises of your system.

Wisdom in knowing one's limitations.

Matthew 24:14: And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.

By the time Jesus Christ returns, everyone in today’s world will have heard the Gospel of the Kingdom.
—Selah

Salvation is reconciliation with God, which God has already shown His desire to provide, through the demonstration of His love and mercy and desire for fellowship toward sinners through the cross. In the cross, propitiation has been made for all people, whether they knowit or not. And since God reckons faith toward Him as righteousness, any person can achieve peace with God through acknowledging His invisible deity and power and trusting in His benevolence, even if they don't know the details of the mechanism for reconciliation as revealed in the gospel. They need the gospel to experience salvation from their personal lostness and anxiety, by receiving objective assurance of salvation through the revelation of the cross. They can be reconciled, without realising it, by trusting in God according to the light they have.

So, I disagree with you, God has always made it possible for people to get saved. I just think your opinions about what salvation is and how it is achieved are blinding you to that fact.

"God saves any for their own sake! "

What does that mean to you? For their own sake???

Great OT passage! One of my favorites. I think, generally, there is a big assumption in the Church today that God didn't work effectually with his OT saints to bring them to faith and repentance. But that isn't the sense I get from the OT scriptures, generally, and certainly not from the passage you quoted. And there is a very intriguing and interesting passage in the Gospel of John that adds weight to and justifies my beliefs in this area.

John 14:16-17
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
NIV

I think many of us gloss over this kind of passage, forgetting that Christ and his disciples up until the Cross were under the Old Covenant. Jesus very plainly told his Old Covenant disciples that they KNEW the Holy Spirit because He lives WITH you -- which in some sense (that I admittedly don't understand) must differ from the Holy Spirit actually indwelling them. But the point remains: His Old Covenant disciples were still under the influence of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God was actively working among Christ's disciples and very likely all God-fearing Jews.

Whaddya think <g>?

I find it hard to believe that everything God does is obviously God working. What scripture tells us that?

"A man has to know his limitations" -- Clint Eastwood.

More thoughts on how to understand the term "world" in scripture. Since there is a very large spiritual component to the biblical definition of this term, I thought I would "mathematically" express how this term very often talks of one of two very distinct spiritual groups. (Ms. Selahsays, maybe this will make it easier for you to understand.)

Group 1 = Non-Elect in Adam

This group is physically IN AND spiritually OF this world.

Group 2 = Elect in Last Adam

This group is physically IN this world but NOT spiritually OF it.

Therefore, in order to understand the term "world" in the distributive sense to mean each and every person, the context of the passage must make it crystal clear that it's talking about both groups simultaneously. The passage must be talking about the Elect and Non-Elect. So, with this understanding let's apply the "math" to Jn 17:9.

Jesus clearly prayed for two groups of elect: His Jewish disciples in his presence and, therefore, by extension all believing Jews. This group consist of his Jewish sheep. Likewise, the 2nd group he prayed for are his sheep from a different flock (Jn 10:16) -- the Gentile elect who would come to believe on him through the evangelizing of his Jewish flock, with the divine purpose being that both flocks would become one in the Body of Christ.

By Jesus explicitly not praying for the world, we can only understand this exclusion as referencing only Group 1. And since he did in fact pray for Group 2 who are also IN the world (along with Group 2), then their exclusion from the world means this term must be understood in the limited sense since both groups are most definitely not included in the term "world".

1Jn 2:2 has a little different twist to it since John is referencing both kinds of people in Group 2. He excluded the Jewish flock (to whom he was primarily writing) by clearly making a distinction between them and the Gentile flock also IN the "world" with "but". And it's not surprising that John did this because the ancient Jewish mindset was that the chosen covenant people of God were never a part of the pagan Gentile nations that comprise the rest of the world. Most ancient Jews were loathe to even enter the homes of Gentiles.

Someone might object and say it's arbitrary and convenient for me to assume that the Gentiles included in the term "world" don't include the non-elect Gentiles as well. My retort would be if this were the case, this would present more than few a theological problems. For example, why didn't Christ pray for the non-elect Gentiles of the world for whom he his is the "atoning sacrifice", according to John? Another problem are the many verses that limit the atonement to "many" versus all in the distributive sense. These would present many contradictions, etc.

Also, way back in my 2117, I exegeted 1Jn 5:19 which teaches that the "whole world is under the power of the evil one". I showed in that post how understanding the term world in that passage as consisting of both the aforementioned groups would present some serious contradictions, also. One of the major ones is that that kind of interpretation would immediately contradict v. 18 And also, it would imply that Jesus epically failed in one aspect of his earthly mission which was to destroy the works of the devil (1Jn 3:8). Therefore, the only logical and biblical way to understand the term "world" in 1Jn 5:19 in the limited sense in that John is referring only to Group 1. After all, it is the spiritually dead in Adam who love the things of this world.

As his undeserving children upon whom he lavished his precious love which motivated him to be merciful, compassionate and gracious to us for the sake of his Beloved Son. I have been born of God for over 40 years and to this day I still haven't found a text that says God saves any for their own sake! God does all things for his glory and for his Name's sake!

It's not unbiblical at all. First, you deny a well established law of logic -- The Law of Excluded Middle. If someone is dead, then they cannot be alive. If someone is in pain, then they cannot be painless. And in either of these cases, there is no middle! There is no third option. A person is either dead or alive. Or one feels pain or not. Period..

In other words, God doesn't save anyone because they deserve it. He saves all for his own Name's sake.