I continue to reposts Mike Ratliff TULIP Series, I do like the clarification of the word Limited.
For the first half of my Christian walk which began back in 1968 or 1969. (I know the place and circumstance, but I’m not actually clear if I was a Freshman or Sophomore.) I did not think about these things. It was only about 25 years ago listening for the first time to a number of Dr. S. Lewis Johnson’s sermons that I began to understand what the Scriptures were actually saying.
Any Mike’s article is long. And worth reading.
As a followup I would recommend digging into any number of Dr. Johnson’s sermons. His discussion of “World” in John 3:16 is valuable. And my wife and I are reading/listening to his sermons of John 6, where I’ve observed my now three days in a row has made the point of Jesus saying these words not once but twice:
Jhn 6:65 And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.
Here is a bit of AI research on my Dr. Johnson point.
Yes. One of the clearest places where Dr. S. Lewis Johnson argues that Christ’s death was intended to actually save a particular people—and was not a merely potential salvation for people who never come to faith—is in his series “The Design of the Atonement: For Whom Did Christ Die?”.
In Part IV he states the issue this way:
“Did he die to make the salvation of all men possible and nothing more, or did he die to certainly and actually save through faith his elect people?”
A few paragraphs later he sharpens the contrast:
“My atonement secures the salvation of the elect. Your salvation which you say is intended for all, does nothing more than secure the salvation of the elect… You don’t even get one more person into heaven by your atonement than I do by simply saying… Christ died for the elect.”
Then he summarizes what he sees as the central question:
“Did he die to save those he does save or does he die to save some he doesn’t save as well?”
That statement gets very close to the wording you are remembering. Johnson repeatedly argued that if Christ bore the guilt of a person’s sins in a substitutionary way, then that person must ultimately be saved. Therefore, Christ’s death was not an attempt that fails, nor a payment made for people who finally perish.
Another strong statement from the same sermon is:
“Jesus Christ died, not simply to remove legal obstacles out of the way of all sinners indifferently but to save his people from their sins through faith.”
And in Part VIII he describes the doctrine of particular redemption this way:
“Particular atonement teaching claims that those for whom Christ died are infallibly saved.”
So while I have not yet found the exact phrase “Christ’s death was not wasted on those who never believe,” Johnson’s argument is essentially that very point: Christ died with the intention of actually securing the salvation of His people, not merely making salvation possible for people who may never be saved.
Rainbow Trout 