Billy Graham on Extent of the atonement
Universal — for all, applied on faith
If you repent, He will forgive your sins, because when Jesus died on the cross God laid on Him the sins of all of us.
THE POSITION
He preached to mass audiences that Christ's death took away "the sins of all of us" and that forgiveness is theirs if they repent. A column compiled from his writings says "Christ died for the sins of the whole world." Nothing read takes up the extent of the atonement as a question, or distinguishes sufficiency from efficacy, The line echoes Isaiah 53:6, and a universal offer is also made by those who hold sufficiency for all and efficacy for the elect; what tips the lean to the universal stance is the column's "whole world," which is supporting only.
6 We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.
7 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Evangelist of the citywide crusades from 1947 to 2005, ordained a Southern Baptist minister, founder, with L. Nelson Bell, of Christianity Today (1956) and convener of the 1974 Lausanne Congress. He is generally reckoned to have preached in person to more people than anyone before him and was the public face of postwar evangelicalism. This entry rests on sermon texts dated 1951 to 2005 that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association republishes on the Decision magazine website, his recorded Billy Graham Minutes, his daily devotions, interviews he gave to Time, Christianity Today, Newsweek and Robert Schuller, and the My Answer column that ran under his name. By the standard account the column was written with staff, so cells that rest on it say so.
Cite this page
"Billy Graham on Extent of the atonement", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/graham/atonement-extent (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/graham/atonement-extent).