God takes great pleasure in the salvation of men (Luke 15:4-7). It is His passion, and the sacrifice of His Son is the measure of it (John 3:16; 1 John 4:10). The fact that He offered His Son for some and not for all misinterprets divine concern for the lost (Mt 23.37; Luke 5.31, 32; 15.1-7; 19.10). Scripture states that God has done and is doing all He can do wisely and righteously to save men (Isaiah 5:1-7; 53; John 3:14-17; Rom. 3:24-26). He simply will not tolerate the insidious notion that less saved is better, which is an inevitable implication of Calvinist theology. Limiting God's saving interest to only some men is a troubling feature of Calvinism and should concern all who share God's passion for the lost. . Thus, the dispute between limited and unlimited atonement is no small matter, as past atonement controversies have demonstrated. The fact that God unconditionally assigned some to salvation and others to damnation, before or after the fall, finds no sanction in Scripture. However, Calvinists claim that God limited the work of Christ to a select few or limited the Spirit's application of Christ's work to a select few. In both cases they limit the atonement unconditionally. The Scriptures say that God desires the salvation of all men (1 Tim. 2:4-6; 2 Pet. 3:9) and that He has provided for all. «Everything is ready» (Mt 22,4). When it comes to salvation, He stands in the same relationship with all men. He is the Creator of all (Jn. 1:1-3; Col. 1:16) and the Savior of all (Jn. 4:42). To say that He undertook for some and not for all is the voice of Limitarian theology and not of Scripture. By taking our nature (Hebrews 2:14-18)), Christ has provided an atonement for all who wear it. He died for each particular man (Hebrews 2:9; 1 Jo.......middle of paper...more on that later). They cannot conceive that God works with a generous margin, that He provides anything more than just enjoying it. Over the years Calvinists have struggled to give their system a friendlier face, a more congenial and universal appearance. One plan has been to say that the atonement is sufficient for all but effective only for the elect. However, this "universality" is merely theoretical and does not make the non-elect any more saveable. In this scheme the atonement is sufficient for all in the sense that, if God had wanted to save all men, the death of Christ would have been sufficient to do so. However, because He never intended to save everyone, He never included everyone's sins on the cross. So the atonement is sufficient (theoretically capable) to save all but is efficient (i.e. actually saves) for the elect only because only the sins of the elect have been atoned for.