In the "Cause of God and Truth" John Gill points out that the attacks that Arminians have launched against the doctrine of limited atonement have basically been centered around the same argument that the Roman Catholics have against justification by faith alone. That is, because the Bible certainly does not add the word "only" or "alone" for both doctrine, then it is wrong for us to add it. From studying the question personally, I came to the conclusion that the doctrine of justification by faith alone was actually harder to prove from Scripture than that of Christ dying for the elects alone. Compare the following passages, and tell me which ones appear more paradoxial:

28Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. (Rom. 3:28).

1Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:1).

24Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.
(James 2:24).

15just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. (John 10:15)

25Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; (Eph. 5:25)

2And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:2)

Because the words "world" and "all men" in the Bible are quite ambiguous, and definitely more so than the word "works", the doctrine of limited atonement is actually easier to prove (at least in my perception) from Scripture than that of justification by faith alone. And yet, Arminians and those Bible thumbers who have thrown these "universal" passages in opposition to Christ dying for the elect only have completely disregarded the same problem that they could have had by applying their same arguments to justification.

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Jean-David Jutras
URCNA
Alberta