The better question to ask is “Why did Jesus die?”, rather than “For whom did Jesus die?”, as the former entails no mystery or fiction; people do not tolerate heresy. The latter generally, “Well for me, of course! But perhaps not for you.”
Today, make sure you don’t kill anyone for all the correct reasons too.
That is all.
Rambling Thoughts 
Why did Jesus die does speak to the issue of intent. Which brings us back to the question, for whom? Did he die for every sin of every man to give them the possibility of being saved? Or did He actually save some people from their sin?
he died. people killed him. what is not clear is that it was planned or necessary. who’d he die for? everyone. how atonement and salvation work? no one knows.
I disagree. It was planned and necessary. It was prophesied in the OT. It was necessary because death was the punishment for sin and he was our substitute. He died for the sins of those who would believe in Him. That is the Elect.
the elect is a concept from manichaeism, the pagan religion of st. augustine before his conversion. this is also where the ideas of original sin and total depravity come from.
of course you’re going to disagree on christology, on eschatology, on soteriology, and atonement. but, these disagreements have existed since jesus first asked “who do you say that i am”. all we can say then is that certain beliefs are critical to one christian community to another and that among all communities, the only shared belief is that christ atones, and each community of believers has their own view of how that works.
the disagreement as to how it all works isn’t my concern. if you disagree to the historical development of christian thinking i’m laying out, then that’s something i’d be interested in hearing about and talking about.
Actually Election is directly in Scripture. You cannot be honest and deny that. Now, people have different definitions of election but you cannot deny election. It’s written there plain and simple. Acts 13:48 Romans 8:29-30 Ephesians 1:4-5,11 2 Thessalonians 2:13,
Original sin is also found directly within Scripture. Psalm 51:5 Ephesians 2:2 Genesis 8:21 Psalm 14:2–3
Total Depravity is as well. Romans 3:12
So it is dishonest to say that these ideas originated later. They were there from the start, including believed in the Old Testament.
not at all. none of the earlier fathers nor christian thinkers had any of those ideas until … st. augustine. so it’s rather a moot point whether you can find something like those ideas in scripture; none of it occurred to anyone to interpret things that way. it’s interesting to now think something critical in christianity was missing until the 4th and 5th centuries.
and don’t imply things about honesty, eh.
Steven I’ll look into the Church Fathers and get back to you later this week.
thanks. oddly, wiki has a fairly good read on manichaeism. plato.stanford.edu has fantastic papers on all things philosophy including theology.
i think one of the best reads for me has been hastings rashdall’s “ideas of atonement in christianity”, which is free, online, in pdf. lengthy, exhaustive, thorough. i’ve also enjoyed edward schillibeekx’ “jesus: an experiment in christology”.
anyway … i don’t fuss much about christian beliefs, one over another, but seeing its development and understanding things on a larger view.
Right, I plan on going back to the writings of the Fathers themselves. I have the whole collection in Logos, just gotta do some searching for ya and I don’t have that computer with me right now.
this is a fairly good read, skimming for the major themes: http://www.gospeltruth.net/menbornsinners/mbs03.htm