To the extent that enjoying watching all four hours of this debate is a sin, I am guilty. This format served as an excellent way to provide a synopsis of the soteriological question of the breadth of Christ’s atonement. Both of the speakers demonstrated command of the Bible and showed deference to each other as fellow believers.

I enjoyed Steve’s closing remarks and, prior to that, felt the quote of the debate was that, “Jesus was not a Calvinist” — since Steve showed Christ’s own words can’t seem to reconcile with the concept of limited atonement. Nevertheless,I would have liked to see Steve answer Ephesians 1 and the Jacob and Essau example directly rather than simply suggesting that the doctrine of election was outside the scope of the debate. Larry scored more than a touchdown in his final argument by suggesting that Steve simply dodged his point that, if election be true, Christ’s atonement must have been limited.

All and all, this ballot goes to Steve since he brought home the litany of verses which seem to settle the question [e.g. who wants all men to be saved, I John 2:2, I Tim. 2:4, John 3:16, and John 5:51] and characterized Larry’s efforts to change the plain meaning of words in these texts as linguistic gymnastics.