For establishing this order of universal reformation, those things by which Prosper1 meets this objection of the Gauls—that the Savior was not crucified for the redemption of the whole world—contribute no less. He says:
There is absolutely no one among all men whose nature was not assumed in Christ our Lord; although he was born in the likeness2 of sinful flesh, while every other man is born in sinful flesh. Therefore God the Son of God, having been made a participant in human mortality without sin, conferred this upon sinners and mortals: that those who had become companions of his nativity might escape the bond of sin and death.
Therefore, just as it does not suffice for the renewal of men that the man Jesus Christ was born, unless they are reborn in that same Spirit from whom he himself arose; so it does not suffice for the redemption of men that the Lord Christ was crucified, unless they die together with him and are buried together with him in baptism. Otherwise, since the Savior was born in the flesh of our substance and was crucified for us all, it would not have been necessary that we be reborn and planted together3 in the likeness of his death.
But since without this Sacrament no man obtains eternal life, he who has not been crucified in Christ has not been saved by the cross of Christ. And he who is not a member of the body of Christ has not been crucified in Christ; nor is he a member of the body of Christ who has not put on Christ through water and the Holy Spirit. He therefore entered into communion with death in our weakness, that we might have fellowship in the resurrection through his power.
Therefore, although it is most rightly said that the Savior was crucified for the redemption of the whole world, on account of the true assumption of human nature and on account of the common perdition of all in the first man, it can nevertheless be said that he was crucified only for those whom his death benefited.
For the Evangelist4 says that Jesus was to die for the nation, and not only for the nation, but also that he might gather into one the dispersed children of God. For5 he came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them he gave power to become the sons of God: who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Therefore the lot of those who are numbered among the persons of whom it is said6, “The world knew him not,” is diverse from theirs. Thus it can be said in this respect: the Redeemer of the world gave his blood for the world,
and the world was unwilling to be redeemed, because the darkness did not receive the light; yet the darkness received it in those to whom the Apostle7 says, “You were once darkness, but now light in the Lord.” But the Lord Jesus himself, who said8 that he had come to seek and to save what was lost, says9, “I came not except unto the sheep that were lost of the house of Israel.”