Bill Fitzhenry's Thoughts For Today…

Understanding important truths from the Bible…. 

What He Did and When

Acts 20:28  NASB

²⁸ Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. 

The hope and confidence of every Christian is what Jesus has done for him or her.  Our faith is in Him.  Our knowledge of God is by Him.  We look for His return.  And it is an eternity with Him we eagerly anticipate. 

We believe that our righteousness is His life and His death freely given to us by the Holy God.  We are not our own, we are bought with a price.  He, by His death, has purchased for the church her righteousness; gained the right to pour out His Spirit upon the church; become the single head and sovereign over the church; and claimed once more for man what Adam lost - absolute kingship over the world. 

All of this Jesus has done by His life and death.  But the question seems to remain.  Did He in His death save none, save all, or save some?  Of course saved as I use it here is the crux of the issue.  The Reformed student is very secondarily referring to number when he considers the Atonement.  At issue for him is how effective is Jesus’ death.  Did it in and of itself save anyone?  If something must be added to it - be it faith or any other contribution - then His death is not efficient.  The actual efficiency lies in whatever triggers its effect.

Paul in his address to the Ephesian elders said that the “blood of God” purchased the church.  This is a bald and bold statement.  There is no other blood that can be considered but that which Christ shed in His death.  He therefore is God. 

First it is important to consider who has done the act referred to in Paul’s statement.  Very boldly he claims God has a part in this death to such an extent that it can be called His blood.  This was man because there was blood by which we must understand His bloody death. 

Having said this it is clear that what is done in this transaction is done by God.  Whatever the effect is or isn’t can be understood only in the light of Divine activity.  The question is “has God really done something or not?”.   If He has, then our attention should be drawn to Ecclestiastes 3:14 NKJ.

¹⁴ I know that whatever God does,
It shall be forever.
Nothing can be added to it,
And nothing taken from it.
God does it, that men should fear before Him.

The activity is described as a purchase.  A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, pg 353, “First aorist middle of an old verb, to reserve, to preserve (for or by oneself in the middle)”.  The one whose blood is the price has by Himself bought, purchased, or reserved an entity called “the church”. 

It does not matter how broad or how narrow the word “church” is made to be.  Whether it is all those who have a saving interest in Christ’s death on earth and in heaven, or whether it is those described as the holy flock in Ephesus – those described belong to Him by virtue of His purchase.  His deed – and that alone - has efficiently secured His ownership. 

Whatever “the church” described here does, it does not accomplish or change the fact of what the death accomplishes.  The death has an effect.  This is a completed fact.  The aorist of “purchase” assures us of that. 

There are Biblical references which give one pause in understanding this truth.  John 3:16 is not one of them.  That reference has nothing to do with this discussion one way or another.  There is one passage that is the best example of those which would indicate any kind of universalism.  This is I John 2:1-2.

My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

² And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.

It would be easy to answer this with the common universalism of John.  His use of world can be usually understood as inclusive of both Jews and Gentiles.  But his wording, “the whole world” seems to me to mean something other than his normal universalism.

It seems to me 2:2 is a reference back to 1:7.

⁷ But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

 His concern is not the number who are cleansed whether it be every individual, both Jews and Gentiles, or elect.  His concern is the fact of forgiveness that comes from the death of Christ. 

In chapter 2:1 he sets forth the first principle of holiness.  Do not sin.  But if you do - and you will, I have already dealt with this - be aware there is a means of gaining God’s forgiveness.  There is a covering for sin Jesus Christ the Righteous.  And let me tell you, John continues, wherever there is sin “in the whole world”, that covering will extend.  Distance, time, ethnicity, degree of guilt, or past unbelief, this one, “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son,” will cleanse the one who believes from all sin. 

As Paul could tell us the chief of sinners had been saved.  John tells us there is no place in this world where this will not work. 

There is no better commentary than this stanza from Charles Wesley’s hymn,

Arise, My Soul Arise.

Five bleeding wounds He bears
Received on Calvary;
They pour effectual prayers
They strongly speak for me;
Forgive him, O forgive they cry
Nor let that ransomed sinner die!