Rev. David Holwick F T.U.L.I.P. #5
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
February 12, 2012
Colossians 1:19-23
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I. A criminal’s last words.
Lee Taylor, a white supremacist who belonged to an Aryan Nation
gang, was executed in Texas by lethal injection in 2011.
While he was in prison he had fatally stabbed a black prisoner
multiple times with an 8-inch shank (home-made knife).
When given an opportunity to say his last words, he said,
“Mom, I love you.
For all of you people, I defended myself when I killed your
family member.
Prison is a bad place.
There was eight against me.
I didn’t set out to kill him.
I am sorry that I killed him, but he would not have been in prison
if he was a saint...
Texas is carrying out a very inhumane injustice.
It’s not right to kill anybody just because I killed your people.
Everyone changes, right?
Life is about experience and people change...
I hope you don’t find satisfaction in this, watching a human being
die.”
#63566
A. Executions are a serious matter.
1) Most nations don’t do them any more.
a) New Jersey outlawed them just four years ago.
2) A popular argument is that they don’t accomplish much.
a) They are not swift enough, or frequent enough, to
be a deterrence to criminals.
b) Lee Taylor was executed 12 years after the crime.
B. Was the execution of Jesus any different?
1) On the surface, it was much like our worst executions.
a) The trial was rigged, rules were bent.
2) But most Christians say it had a positive result that no
other execution could - salvation for mankind.
3) Jesus’ death is so important to us that millions of
Christians still wear its symbol, the cross.
4) But what, exactly, did his death bring about?
a) Who benefits from it?
b) How do we gain this benefit?
II. We like to think that Jesus died for everyone.
A. Many Bible verses give the cross a world-wide application.
1) John 3:17
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the
world, but to save the world through him.
Romans 5:18
Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was
condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act
of righteousness was justification that brings life
for all men.
1 John 2:2
He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only
for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
1 Timothy 2:3-6
This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men
to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
For there is one God and one mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for
all men...
(also John 1:29, 1 Corinthians 15:22, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19)
2) Note the emphasis on the “whole world” and “all men.”
a) In Colossians 1:20, atonement seems to go beyond people
to include everything in the universe.
b) The death of Jesus was that powerful!
B. Do these verses teach universalism? (Everyone gets saved)
1) Some people take the language that way.
2) It is positive and seems to remove the unpopular doctrine
of judgment.
a) Everyone wins in the end!
b) It is like the “Judgement Free Zone” slogan at the
Planet Fitness gym I just joined - no one will
criticize my flab.
C. In reality, universalism is just as difficult as judgment.
1) It would mean Jesus saves everyone whether they like it
or not.
2) This would be similar to the unusual Mormon practice of
getting baptized for dead people, even Jews who were
murdered in the Holocaust.
a) The Mormon reasoning is that it gets non-Mormons into
their version of the Kingdom of God.
b) Jews see it as forced conversion and asked the
Mormons to stop doing it for them, which they did.
3) Universalism is pretty much the same thing.
a) Not only so, but there is abundant testimony in the
Bible that everyone faces an eternal option.
b) Jesus himself was especially strong on this - the
way to heaven is narrow and many won’t find it.
III. Limiting the cross of Jesus.
A. Calvinists limit redemption to the elect.
1) In other words, Jesus only died for those God has chosen
to save.
a) He did not die for non-Christians.
b) Therefore we should not universally invite people
to believe in Jesus.
2) Many called this “Limited Atonement” and it is the “L”
in T.U.L.I.P.
a) Lots of Calvinists don’t like this term because it
seems to belittle Christ’s death on the cross.
b) They prefer to call it “Particular Atonement.”
B. Most Baptists reject Limited Atonement.
1) There are too many Bible verses that go against it.
a) John Calvin himself also rejected it (at least at
certain times.)
b) It is very clear in the Bible that Jesus went to the
cross for everyone.
2) So why isn’t everyone saved, like universalists teach?
IV. The cross is for all, but salvation is for those who believe.
A. This is the standard Arminian approach (and Baptist).
1) Jesus died for everyone, but it is only effective for those
who believe and repent.
2) Just as there are many verses that say Jesus died for
everyone, there are just as many that say we must believe
in him to be saved.
3) Salvation is available to all, but appropriated by faith.
B. All Bible believers limit the atonement in some way. #30881
1) Calvinists limit it to those who are chosen to be saved, and
Arminians limit it to those who believe and are saved.
2) Either way, the cross only works for those who are going
to heaven.
V. There is a more important issue.
A. What does the cross mean to YOU?
1) Jesus’ death for us is personal.
A few years ago, Trevin Wax volunteered to be a counselor
at a youth camp.
During the bus ride to camp, he had a conversation with
one of the other counselors.
The young woman told him the story of how she came to
faith in Christ.
She said, “I grew up going to a religious school and
church.
I knew who Jesus was.
I had an awe and fear of God instilled in me.
I believed that Jesus Christ died on the cross for the sins
of the world.”
Then she stopped, her lip quivering, “But I never really
understood that Jesus died FOR ME.”
She went on to tell Trevin about how she had attended a
Christian concert where she heard the message of the
Gospel.
All of her Christian knowledge about Jesus became personal.
Her heart was captured by the glorious truth that Christ
died for her.
#63172
2) This is so important that many Christian traditions have
special spiritual practices that focus them on the cross.
St. Ignatius of Loyola, who founded the Jesuits, had them
meditate extensively on the cross until they could feel
it, not just know it.
B. The cross is strong enough to save anyone.
1) There is nothing you have done that cannot be washed clean
by the blood of Jesus.
a) Even Lee Taylor, the racist who killed a black man in
prison, could be made clean by Jesus.
1> His original life sentence was for beating an
elderly man and woman while he robbed their home.
The 78-year-old man died from his wounds.
2> Lee Taylor was not a nice guy. He was evil.
But he wasn’t beyond the power of Jesus.
b) Lee’s last words mention that people can always change.
1> Taylor probably thought that more time would turn
him around.
2> He could make himself a better man.
3> But it rarely works out like that.
2) None of us is good enough.
a) We are not murderers, perhaps, but we are still bent.
b) Only the power of Jesus can straighten us out, only he
can save us.
c) Has he saved you?
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
#30881 “‘TULIP’: Divine Sovereignty, Human Responsibility,” by
Dr. Daniel L. Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist
Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., Baptist Press,
www.baptistpress.org, April 4, 2006.
#63172 “Christ Died For Me, For Us, For God,” by Trevin Wax, Baptist
Press, www.baptistpress.org, June 27, 2011.
#63566 “A Criminal’s Last Words,” by Rev. David Holwick, with material
from “The last testimony: The final words of Texas death row
prisoners,” by Clare Dwyer Hogg, October 15, 2001,
<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-last-
testimony-the-final-words-of-texas-death-row-prisoners-
2369470.html>, and the Texas Execution Information Center,
<http://www.txexecutions.org/reports/469.asp>.
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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