Cap. 3 Obj. 10: Scriptures restrict the giving of the Son to believers alone

Obj. 10. If Christ's death is to be conceived by us as a remedy applicable to all human beings, then the sacred Scriptures would not restrict the very giving of the Son to believers alone: But they claim for the faithful alone not only the fruit or real application, but the very giving of the Son. (John 3:16): So God loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. What is given to human beings under a condition, that condition being removed, is understood as given to no one. Since therefore this condition of believing is fulfilled by the elect alone, it follows that we should say Christ was offered for them alone: And accordingly this offering, or Christ's death, is not by God's ordination a remedy or lytron applicable to all and each human being.

Sol. We can consider a twofold Giving or offering of Christ. The prior is that by which he is understood as Given or offered to God the Father on the altar of the cross for taking away the world's sins: of which the Apostle, (1 Timothy 2:6): There is one God; one Mediator of God and human beings, the human being Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom-price of redemption for all, namely to God his Father, as is more clearly expressed in (Ephesians 5:2): He delivered himself for us an offering and sacrifice to God, etc. This offering is the foundation of a certain later offering, by which he is offered to human beings in the Gospel, that being grasped by faith he may bestow eternal life on them from the merit of this sacrifice; Of this offering the same Apostle speaks, We are justified freely through the redemption made in Jesus Christ: Whom God set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, etc. If we look to the prior offering, I deny that Christ offered himself as a victim or gave himself as a lytron to God the Father for expiating the world's sins under the condition of human faith, as if under this formula, I offer myself to you as a victim for the sins of the human race, provided he has believed in Me. But he offered himself to God the Father simply, not conditionally. And this is proved from the fact that the Father himself, according to whose will the Son offered himself in sacrifice, did not establish with himself to give a Redeemer to the world under this hypothesis, If the world should believe; but God gave his Son to the world, and the Son gave himself to the Father as a lytron for taking away the world's sins, freely and absolutely. A condition indeed is annexed in Gospel preaching, not to the giving itself, but to the eternal life that will follow from the fruitful application of the thing given. As for the later offering, therefore, by which Christ offered to God for human beings is now offered to human beings themselves in the Gospel, I deny also that a hypothetical and conditional offering or giving of Christ is to be thought even from this Gospel preaching. For the Savior did not say in the place alleged above, So God loved the world that he gave the Son for it if it should believe: but after he had pronounced him given absolutely to all from God's love of humankind, he showed that he would not nevertheless profit all unto eternal life absolutely and simply, but conditionally, namely all, if they have believed, or all who have believed. We too, if ever we should preach the Gospel to unbelievers, say Indians or Americans, would not set about instructing them thus, Christ the Son of God died for some of you who are going to believe in him, for others not at all; but, Christ died for taking away the sins of the whole world, and gave himself a lytron to God the Father, yet so that neither Christ who offered himself a redemption-price for all, nor God the Father to whom he was offered, wills any of you to be freed from your sins before you believe in God, and in him whom he sent, Jesus Christ. As for what is urged last, That what is understood as given or promised under the condition of faith, that condition not being performed, is supposed given or promised to no one; and therefore Christ is truly affirmed given to the elect alone, who perform the condition; to this I answer, Nowhere in the Scriptures do we read that Christ, or Christ's death or sacrifice, was given or promised to the human race under a condition, although salvation or eternal life is everywhere promised to be given under the condition of faith. Although this too can be added, That even a thing promised under a condition somehow looked to those who never fulfill the condition, namely as to the right of claiming the promised benefit if they had fulfilled it. Which Christ himself seems to hint at in (John 3:18), Where he teaches that unbelievers are condemned, because they did not believe in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. They therefore had the death of the Son of God applicable to themselves even who did not believe, although they did not have it applied, because they did not believe. And for this reason the elect alone find life in Christ's death, because by God pitying them they alone believe.