Adam Clarke on the Universality of the Atonement

        He died for every human soul, for all who are partakers of the same nature which he has assumed; the merit and benefits of his death must necessarily extend to all mankind, because he has assumed that nature which is common to all. Nor could the merit of his death be limited to any particular part, nation, tribe, or individuals of the vast human family. It is not the nature of a particular nation, tribe, family, or individual, which he has assumed, but the nature of the whole human race; and “God has made of one blood all the nations, for to dwell on all the face of the earth,”[1] that all those might be redeemed with “one blood;” for he is the kinsman of the whole. The merit of his death must, therefore, extend to every man, unless we can find individuals or families that have not sprung from that stock of which he became incarnated. His death must be infinitely meritorious, and extend in its benefits to all who are partakers of the same nature, because he was God manifested in the flesh; and to contract or limit that merit, that it should apply only to a few, or even to any multitudes short of the whole human race, is one of those things which is impossible to God himself, because it involves a moral contradiction. He could no more limit the merit of that death, than he could limit his own eternity, or contract that love which induced him to undertake the redemption of a lost world.
        If the many, that is, all mankind, have died through the offence of one; certainly, the gift by grace, which abounds unto the many, by Christ Jesus, must have reference to every human being.[2] If the consequences of Christ’s incarnation and death extend only to a few, or a select number of mankind, which, though they may be considered many in themselves, are few in comparison of the whole human race, then the consequences of Adam’s sin have extended only to a few, or to the same select number: and if only many and not all have fallen, only that many had need of a Redeemer. For it is most evident that the same persons are referred to in both clauses of the verse. If the apostle had believed that the benefits of the death of Christ had extended only to a select number of mankind, he never could have used the language he has done here; though, in the first clause, he might have said, without any qualification of the term, “Through the offence of one, many are dead;” in the second clause, to be consistent with the doctrine of particular redemption,[3] he must have said, “The grace of God, and the gift by grace, hath abounded unto some. As, by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation; so, by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon some to justification. As, by one man’s disobedience, many were made sinners; so, by the obedience of one, shall some be made righteous.[4] As in Adam all die; so in Christ shall some be made alive.”[5] But neither the doctrine nor the thing ever entered the soul of this divinely inspired man.[6]

Adam Clarke, Christian Theology (repr., Salem, OH: Convention Book Store, 1967), pp. 117–8, emphases in original

Notes

        1. Acts 17.26.
        2. See Romans 5.17–19.
        3. The doctrine of particular redemption is sometimes referred to as limited atonement, particular atonement, or definite atonement. The essence of the teaching is that Christ died with the intention of securing spiritual and eschatological salvation for a portion of humankind, not the whole. According to this view, those for whom Christ died salvationally will inevitably become partakers of salvation; those for whom he did not, will not.
        4. Contra Romans 5.17–19, Berean Literal Bible (BLB): ‘For if, by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one, how much more will those receiving the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ! So then, just as through one trespass, it is unto condemnation to all men, so also through one act of righteousness it is unto justification of life to all men. For as indeed through the disobedience of the one man, the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the One, the many will be made righteous.’
        5. Contra 1 Corinthians 15.22 (BLB): ‘For as indeed in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.’
        6. Namely Paul the apostle.  —J. D. Gallé

Notes copyright © J. D. Gallé, 2019. All rights reserved.