1st Samuel 3:14
1st Samuel 3:14 (see also John 1:29)
The LORD said to Samuel, “Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which both ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. In that day I will carry out against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I am about to judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons brought a curse on themselves and he did not rebuke them. Therefore I have sworn to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.”
Question: Is there a verse in the Bible that says that Jesus did not die for the sins of the whole world?
Answer: Some 5-Point Calvinists cite 1st Samuel 3:14 as evidence that there are some people that Jesus never died for, and that there is no atonement, including Calvary, which can save them. So when an Arminian comes along and says that Jesus loves the world and died for everyone, the 5-Point Calvinist says, not these people! Not the house of Eli!
Question: What did Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phinehas, do that was so egregious?
Answer: They desecrated the worship of God in Israel by sleeping with women in the tabernacle and mocking God’s sacrifices: “Thus the sin of the young men was very great before the LORD, for the men despised the offering of the LORD.” (1st Samuel 2:17)
Question: What was the “curse” that they had brought upon themselves?
Answer: The end of the line for the house of Eli from its priestly heritage forever, stemming from Eli’s failure to discipline his sons. They had crossed the line, so to speak, from being able to have this judgment atoned for, meaning that God would not change His mind concerning the calamity with which He was now going to judge it.
1st Samuel 2:28-36: “Did I not choose them from all the tribes of Israel to be My priests, to go up to My altar, to burn incense, to carry an ephod before Me; and did I not give to the house of your father all the fire offerings of the sons of Israel? Why do you kick at My sacrifice and at My offering which I have commanded in My dwelling, and honor your sons above Me, by making yourselves fat with the choicest of every offering of My people Israel? Therefore the LORD God of Israel declares, ‘I did indeed say that your house and the house of your father should walk before Me forever’; but now the LORD declares, ‘Far be it from Me--for those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me will be lightly esteemed. Behold, the days are coming when I will break your strength and the strength of your father’s house so that there will not be an old man in your house. You will see the distress of My dwelling, in spite of all the good that I do for Israel; and an old man will not be in your house forever. Yet I will not cut off every man of yours from My altar so that your eyes will fail from weeping and your soul grieve, and all the increase of your house will die in the prime of life. This will be the sign to you which will come concerning your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas: on the same day both of them will die. But I will raise up for Myself a faithful priest who will do according to what is in My heart and in My soul; and I will build him an enduring house, and he will walk before My anointed always. Everyone who is left in your house will come and bow down to him for a piece of silver or a loaf of bread and say, “Please assign me to one of the priest’s offices so that I may eat a piece of bread.”’”
The curse upon the House of Eli was premature death, poverty and the loss of its priestly heritage. Fulfillment of this curse is found with Abiathar, descendant of Eli, who was a faithful priest for King David, but turned against David when David’s son, Adonijah, tried to take the crown from Solomon. (1st Kings 1:7). The result was this proclamation from King Solomon: “Then to Abiathar the priest the king said, ‘Go to Anathoth to your own field, for you deserve to die; but I will not put you to death at this time, because you carried the ark of the Lord GOD before my father David, and because you were afflicted in everything with which my father was afflicted.’ So Solomon dismissed Abiathar from being priest to the LORD, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD, which He had spoken concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh.” (1st Kings 2:26-27)
Also in fulfillment of the curse was the murder of 85 priests of Nob, descendants of Eli, whom Saul, in a fit of rage, had “Doeg the Edomite” murder. (1st Samuel 22:22)
Question: Were the descendants of Eli damned forever because of Hophni and Phinehas?
Answer: There is no mention in the prophecy of 1st Samuel 2:28-36 that says that the “curse” on the house of Eli was that every one of its descendants (however many thousands of them) were all going to Hell, as an alleged, generation of children growing up as priests and servants of the Lord, all being born damned, for which there was no atonement to save them. Rather, the unatonable curse on the house of Eli was premature death, poverty and the loss of its priestly heritage, and there was no sacrifice or offering that would atone for, or reverse, this judgment. So the argument is not whether I deny that the curse was unatonable. The argument is what exactly was that unatonable “curse”? Was it a curse to damnation, or was it a curse to premature death, poverty and loss of its priestly heritage. (1st Samuel 2:28-36; 1st Kings 2:26-27; 1st Samuel 22:22) If it was a curse to damnation, you need only ask whether Abiathar is in Hell, or Ahimelech and the 85 priests of Nob in Hell? (1st Samuel 22:14-23) There are similar types of curses in the Old Testament as with the house of Eli, such as the curse on the house of Gehazi (servant of Elisha) receiving the unatonable curse of being lepers forever. (2nd Kings 5:27)
Question: What will not atone for the sins of Eli’s house?
Answer: The blood sacrifices and offerings performed by the Old Testament priests would not appease God’s anger in order to change His mind concerning the judgment which He had decreed upon the house of Eli. God denied atonement from that curse.
Question: Does 1st Samuel 3:14 address whether Jesus died for the house of Eli?
Answer: No.
Question: Did Jesus die for the house of Eli?
Answer: Jesus died for the sins of the whole world (John 1:29; 1st John 2:1), having come as the Savior of the world. (John 12:47) There is no verse in the Bible which states that there are some people that Jesus did not die for.
Eli did the opposite of what the faithful Israelites did at Exodus 32:29: “Then Moses said, ‘Dedicate yourselves today to the LORD—for every man has been against his son and against his brother—in order that He may bestow a blessing upon you today.’”
