DOES 1 JOHN 2:2 CONTRADICT 5 PT. CALVINISM?

This modest inquiry into the answer to its leading question, will neither attempt to, nor succeed in, laying out a defense of a 5 pt. Interpretation of this verse. What it will do, however, is set out how I would go about establishing this verse's true meaning over against the truckload of Arminian & Amyraldian thought that has obscured it for most 21st century readers.

In addressing interpreters of our target verse, I would ask them to answer several questions with sound exegesis and Biblical Theology:

1. Does the sacrifice of Christ truly, finally, and forever deal with the wrath of God for a sinner's sin? In other words, did the death of Christ save the sinner, or merely render him saveable?

2. Why does the author uses "peri" rather the "huper," if he really intended the word to have causal force? In other words, why couldn't "for" mean something other than "on behalf of?"

3. Who is the "our" to which he refers? Can it only mean all who, along with him, were already saved at that minute, or may it carry a more restricted focus?

4. What are the possible understandings in this verse of "the whole world?" Is "every person alive on the face of the earth" the only choice we have?

Arminianism is certainly the vox populi at present among evangelicals. Even the Calvinism that may seek to combat it is typically of the 4 pt. variety. Unfortunately, they would understand I John 2:2 in exactly the same way. I John 2:2 is simply a small battlefield of the much larger issue of whether or not the Bible teaches a definite atonement (and therefore "limited" in this respect), which was only intended for, and applicable to, the elect, or whether the atonement was merely hypothetical and potential.

I John 2:2 can legitimately yield interpretations that can be shown to be: 1) sustained by the overall teaching and implications of the Bible, and 2) consistent with Pauline, Augustinian, and Reformational theology.