This is an argument I read recently from a baptist theologian from Spain.
Christ diead for the world, not for any specific person (Christ did not die specifically for anyone). Thus, people need to accept Christ’s sacrifice, personally, to be saved. The only ones who will not receive righteousness by faith are the ones who do not acept Christ’s sacrifice personally.
Please help me answer this argument. Thanks
Hi Ricky. I don’t really understand where he gets this idea from. If Jesus dies for the world, surely that means he died for ‘all specific persons’, not ‘no specific person’. Where does the restriction of salvation to those who ‘accept Christ’s sacrifice personally’ come from? Having said this, I do believe that everyone will accept Christ’s sacrifice eventually, even though for many people this acceptance will only come after death and some process of revelation/healing/refining.
Spot-on, Drew.
Ricky,
Let’s suppose that “the world” is represented by a smaller subsection of it. Let’s say it’s your church, which is on fire. If you rescue everyone from that fire, you could call yourself the savior of that church (with reference to the fire). But when you say “church”, you don’t mean the building, but rather everyone in it. You saved every specific person, but collectively refer to them as “the church”. The same goes for Christ dying for and being the savior of the world.
If you had died saving everyone from that fire, you still would have died for everyone there, even if they didn’t recognize your sacrifice.
The person’s issue is that he says that Christ died for humanity as a whole, but not for specific individuals, who need to accept Christ personaly to be saved. Thus, he can say that, even though Christ died for the whole world, he died speficically for the ones who accept Him.
Well he can say that, but it isn’t true.
The problem, as Drew and I have pointed out, is that is not logical.
If I die for everyone, I die for everyone (including all the specific individuals that make up the “everyone” or the whole) whether those specific individuals accept me or not.
I’d ask him if he thinks Matthew 15:24 (by that same logic) means that Jesus was only sent to die for the lost sheep of Israel.
Clearly it cannot mean that, because that wouldn’t be the whole world either.
Edited to add: His line of thought also flies in the face of 1John 2:2 “and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins ; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.”
Ricky, so this person believes one can only be saved by doing probably two actions aka works–accepting Jesus as their personal saviour and probably praying some type of sinner’s prayer?
How then does he answer Paul’s comments thruout the New Testament that salvation is by grace alone?
There is nothing wrong with becoming aware of Jesus this way—its how I became aware of Him in my life—but it is not the only way for God to reach people. I believe that to say it is is to limit God.
If Jesus had not saved everyone (and I mean everyone–those born before He came, those in countries that would not hear the Gospel for centuries) why did He say “It is finished.” as He was dying on the Cross.
This belief makes me more likely to speak to others about Him because He did such a great, huge thing for all of sinful Humanity and my life is much better being aware of it.
I also believe very strongly that torture is wrong under any circumstances—therefore, why should I believe in a God that sends people to Eternal Conscious Torment? Indeed, I was away from active belief for a time because of trying to reconcile this contradiction, thats why I was so glad to find out about CU.
Ok. So let me get this straight.
Jesus died for the physical planet earth. He died for the trees, the mountains, the oceans, the oil, the grass… but not the people.
Is sarcasm allowed here?
Well certainly; especially if it makes a good point! 
if i pick up a bucket of water, and i’m so skillful i spill nothing, then i have picked up every molecule of water in that bucket.
if i suddenly am Jesus, and i save the world (all of it, because of aforementioned l33t mad skillz), then i have saved everyone and everything IN the world.
game set and match.
next question?
sorry flippant mood today 
Even though the joke was funny, which it was, it had seriousness in it. As I read the post on th emeaning of the word in greek used for "world, it just hit me, world (cosmos), does not only mean humanity, or a group of people, but the whole of creation. If God will redeem creation as a WHOLE, then the whole of creation will be redeemed. Besides, it is also true that, if God asks us to love, even our enemies, and He does not do the same, then He is contradicting Himself.
Thanks for the answers, that is why I love this forum.
"If Jesus had not saved everyone (and I mean everyone–those born before He came, those in countries that would not hear the Gospel for centuries) why did He say “It is finished.” as He was dying on the Cross.
This belief makes me more likely to speak to others about Him because He did such a great, huge thing for all of sinful Humanity and my life is much better being aware of it.
I also believe very strongly that torture is wrong under any circumstances—therefore, why should I believe in a God that sends people to Eternal Conscious Torment? Indeed, I was away from active belief for a time because of trying to reconcile this contradiction, thats why I was so glad to find out about CU."
This comment is also good. One of the main points for me to become a CU was the theme of Theodicy. How could a person who could not know God be rejected and hated by God for eternity (This can also apply for the person who was abused in a cult and became an atheist, or the person who was abused by a leader of a church and does not want to know about Christianity eny longer.)?
If God is Love, then, he would be illogical if He did hate these persons who can not love Him for reasons that are out of their reach (Being born Muslim, or Hindu, or having been abused by a church leader). Besides, Love should always win over everything and everyone, according to the Gospel. Jesus’ death, and resurrection, won over His enemies.
Again, thanks.
I don’t have much to add, Ricky, except that your correspondent sounds like a particular kind of Calvinist: one who realizes the Arminians have a point about Christ having died for all people, but who also realizes the Calvinists are correct that whoever Christ died for we can trust Christ to competently and surely save from their sins.
Thus, Christ has to have died for all people (“the world”) collectively in some way (not only for the “elect”); but also not to have died for all people individually (or else He would save all sinners from sin, and that would be Christian universalism!)
What’s weird is that he doesn’t just take the line of other Calvinists that Christ didn’t die for the whole world but only for the elect (even though His sacrifice was sufficient to save the whole world); thus Christ did not die for all people individually but only for all kinds of people across the world (distributively, as it’s called, not collectively). Or else take the Arminian line that Christ died for the whole world including for all individual sinners collectively, but Christ fails in some cases due to the choices of sinners.
Hopefully someday he’ll take the Pauline line instead, that God was pleased through the blood of the cross to reconcile all things to Himself, things in the heaven as well as things on the earth, the same all things that He created and which depend on Him for continuing existence, all things whatever that need reconciliation to Himself (i.e. all things which have rebelled and so are alienated and hostile in mind toward Him, engaged in evil deeds, whether in the heavens or on the earth, whether thrones or powers or principalities, visible or invisible)–and that if God reconciles and justifies us (the helpless, the ungodly, still sinners) to Himself through the death of His Son, how much moreso, having been reconciled, shall we be saved in His life!
Those God dies for will be surely justified and reconciled; the God Most High upon whom all things depend (in the fullness of deity) was pleased to die for all things in order to reconcile them; sinners are who need to be reconciled, so the all things whom God dies to reconcile to Himself must be all sinners in creation; and if reconciled they shall surely be saved into the life of Christ.
The logic couldn’t get much more direct. 