A Follow-up to the "L" Word

If you are a subscriber to HBO, the title of this post is sure to mislead you. I'm not going to address the HBO series here. L = Limited, not . . . what you might think it means.

In any case, I stumbled upon this excerpt from a book by D. A. Carson, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Wheaton, Il: Crossway Books, 2000). It is helpful in that (with the exception of his treatment of 1 John 2:2) it expresses my own view on this issue. Here is a short excerpt from the link. Click this link for the full thing:

"I argue, then, that both Arminians and Calvinists should rightly affirm that Christ died for all, in the sense that Christ’s death was sufficient for all and that Scripture portrays God as inviting, commanding, and desiring the salvation of all, out of love (in the third sense developed in the first chapter). Further, all Christians ought also to confess that, in a slightly different sense, Christ Jesus, in the intent of God, died effectively for the elect alone, in line with the way the Bible speaks of God’s special selecting love for the elect (in the fourth sense developed in the first chapter)."