Unconscious participation in the atonement of Christ, by virtue of our common humanity in him, makes us the heirs of much temporal blessing. Conscious participation in the atonement of Christ, by virtue of our faith in him and his work for us, gives us justification and eternal life. Matthew Henry said that the Atonement is “sufficient for all; effectual for many.” J. M. Whiton, in The Outlook, Sept. 25, 1897—“It was Samuel Hopkins of Rhode Island (1721-1803) who first declared that Christ had made atonement for all men, not for the elect part alone, as Calvinists affirmed.” We should say “as some Calvinists affirmed”; for, as we shall see, John Calvin himself declared that “Christ suffered for the sins of the whole world.” Alfred Tennyson once asked an old Methodist woman what was the news. “Why, Mr. Tennyson, there's only one piece of news that I know,—that Christ died for all men.” And he said to her; “That is old news, and good news, and new news.”
If it be asked in what sense Christ is the Savior of all men, we reply:
(a) That the atonement of Christ secures for all men a delay in the execution of the sentence against sin, and a space for repentance, together with a continuance of the common blessings of life which have been forfeited by transgression.
If strict justice had been executed, the race would have been cut off at the first sin. That man lives after sinning, is due wholly to the Cross. There is a pretermission, or “passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God” (Rom. 3:25), the justification of which is found only in the sacrifice of Calvary. This “passing over,” however, is limited in its duration: see Acts 17:30, 31—“The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked; but now he commandeth men that they should all everywhere repent: inasmuch as he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained.”
One may get the benefit of the law of gravitation without understanding much about its nature, and patriarchs and heathen have doubtless been saved through Christ's atonement, although they have never heard his name, but have only cast themselves as helpless sinners upon the mercy of God. That mercy of God was Christ, though they did not know it. Our modern pious Jews will experience a strange surprise when they find that not only forgiveness of sin but every other blessing of life has come to them through the crucified Jesus. Matt. 8:11—“many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.”
Dr. G.W. Northrop held that the work of Christ is universal in three respects: 1. It reconciled God to the whole race, apart from personal transgression; 2. It secured the bestowment upon all of common grace, and the means of common grace; 3. It rendered certain the bestowment of eternal life upon all who would so use common grace and the means of common grace as to make it morally possible for God as a wise and holy Governor to grant his special and renewing grace.
(b) That the atonement of Christ has made objective provision for the salvation of all, by removing from the divine mind every obstacle to the pardon and restoration of sinners, except their wilful opposition to God and refusal to turn to him.
Van Oosterzee, Dogmatics, 604—“On God's side, all is now taken away which could make a separation,—unless any should themselves choose to remain separated from him.” The gospel message is not: God will forgive if you return; but rather: God hasshown mercy; only believe, and it is your portion in Christ.
Ashmore, The New Trial of the Sinner, in Christian Review, 26:245-264—“The atonement has come to all men and upon all men. Its coëxtensiveness with the effects of Adam's sin is seen in that all creatures, such as infants and insane persons, incapable of refusing it, are saved without their consent, just as they were involved in the sin of Adam without their consent. The reason why others are not saved is because when the atonement comes to them and upon them, instead of consenting to be included in it, they reject it. If they are born under the curse, so likewise they are born under the atonement which is intended to remove that curse; they remain under its shelter till they are old enough to repudiate it; they shut out its influences as a man closes his window-blind to shut out the beams of the sun; they ward them off by direct opposition, as a man builds dykes around his field to keep out the streams which would otherwise flow in and fertilize the soil.”
(c) That the atonement of Christ has procured for all men the powerful incentives to repentance presented in the Cross, and the combined agency of the Christian church and of the Holy Spirit, by which these incentives are brought to bear upon them.