Week 7 - Limited Atonement (Part 2)

God desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

But is this emphasizing all people in the sense of every individual person? Or is it all people in the sense, perhaps of the previous verse that talks about kings and all who are in authority. And maybe this is talking about all people in the sense of kings and people in high places just as much as peasants and those who are poor, you know, all kinds of people. In other words, is this all people without exception or all people without distinction? Right? What exactly is the all getting at? So that's another of the kind of exegetical question that you have to work through in all these verses. and you want to look at the context and try to understand. Now, what about the second group of passages which speak of Christ's atoning work as being for all or the world? You know, if limited atonement is saying Christ only died for some, how do we make sense of that? Well, first, if world means every person without exception in every case, then some of these passages would teach universalism, not Arminianism. Okay, so for example, 2 Corinthians 5, verses 18 to 19, it says,

in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them.

Right, but of course, even the Arminian is gonna say, God counts the trespasses of those who go to hell against them, right? Or John 1.29,

behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

But Arminians would agree that the sins of each and every individual in the whole world are not taken away, or else there would not be a hell, right? So since we know universalism is unbiblical, I think these verses actually support the idea that world very well can mean, and in fact some places does mean, not each and every individual in the world without exception. Now a second point we could make, I think it's helpful to keep in mind, that many proponents of limited atonement actually would argue that there's some benefit in Christ's atoning work for the non-elect. Now this is something that I think you'll find a lot of nuance, you'll find a lot of differences between different folks within the camp of limited atonement on, but some would connect Christ's atoning work with common grace. Some might connect it with the benefits that are particularly associated with those who are closely associated with the church. There's kind of a spillover of God's blessings to those who are his with those who are connected with them or close to them. I think we probably should connect it with the blessing of the free offer of the gospel to all. So this is why, you know, many would say things like limited atonement means Christ didn't die for everyone in the same way. Right, the key thing with limited atonement is that Christ died specifically and specially for his people, but that doesn't necessarily mean there's no sense at all in which Christ died, has application generally to everyone. So my purpose tonight isn't to get in all the nuance and specifics of that, but just to point out that that's another possible exegetical approach with some passages. For example, in 2 Peter 2 verse 1, It speaks of false teachers who

deny the master who bought them.

Okay, so wait a minute. If they're false teachers, they're going to go to hell, but the master who bought them, what is this talking about? Well, I think this is definitely referring to the Exodus and drawing some parallel between these false teachers and the rebellious Israelites who were redeemed by God and then rebelled in the wilderness. And I think it's saying that there's some sense in which these false teachers of Peter's day have been bought out of a corrupt sinful lifestyle to get to be in the church. But then later in the chapter it talks about how they are like pigs who were washed and returned to the wallowing in the mire. And so, in that sense, they have denied the master who bought them. So, you know, the benefit that they've received in some way from the work of Christ, just by being part of the community of faith and being brought out of a sinful lifestyle, well, they've slung that back in the master's face by returning to their old way of life. So, there's ways we can wrestle through texts like that. And then a third thing is just like before, we again have to ask the question, all of who? Right? So, we already looked at the beginning verses in 1 Timothy 2. Well, as that continues, 1 Timothy 2.6,

Christ gave himself as a ransom for all.

Right? But again, is this all people without exception or all kinds of people? all people without distinction. Or again, in 1 John 2, 2,

he is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

Well, is this saying that Jesus is the propitiation for our sins in the sense of all of us who are believers, but that he also propitiated God's wrath toward all the unbelievers out in the whole world? Or is this emphasizing that Christ is the propitiation for the sins of his people not just right here, but from every tribe and tongue and people and nation in the whole world. Right, so I think the point here is not to have the time to look at all of these verses and kind of unpack all the context, but again, I just want to show you that there are responses from a limited atonement view that I think can be very helpful and compelling, and in fact, a verse like, 1 John 2.2 is actually very hard to interpret, you know, from the Arminian view because that word propitiation. How is he a propitiation for people that would go to hell? And so on that note, I want to transition now to this second thing I want to talk about. Okay, so we made sort of a Positive argument for limited atonement. I've now tried to sort of make the defensive, well, here's some other verses and why I don't think these verses are clear arguments against it. Well, now I wanna shift back to the more positive argument, and this is a more theological argument. And I wanna do that by thinking about our understanding of the cross itself. How does the cross work? Why was the cross necessary? And how might that relate to this question of limited versus a general atonement? And to do that, first, I want to just clarify, what is penal substitution? Okay, so penal substitution means that Jesus died on the cross to bear the punishment we deserve for our sins in our place. So penal has to do with punishment, substitution. He bore that punishment in our place. That's penal substitution. And probably if you've been coming to this church for any length of time, you've heard that a thousand times. It would be encouraging if that just seems very obvious and clear to you. That's something that we emphasize very much. But what maybe you haven't thought as much about is how interconnected that is with lots of other aspects of our theology. And historically, actually, many Armenians have denied penal substitution because of the tension it creates with the rest of Armenian Now, not all Armenians deny it, but some do. And many of those who do hold to something called the governmental view of the atonement instead. And so I want to take a few minutes to briefly introduce you to the governmental view, because this does seem like something that more and more people are teaching today and you might come across. And it's one of those things where if you don't know what you're looking for, it can sound so similar to penal substitution. You might think, well, yeah, what's the difference? This seems fine. But actually, it's a very, very different view. So in your notes, I provided this little schematic I found by, this is by a proponent of the view and how he summarizes it. And basically it says,

when mankind sinned, God was put into a dilemma. On the one hand, God in his love wanted to maintain his law throughout his kingdom. This is for the good of his subjects. He would do this by executing the penalty upon the disobedient. This is how he would discourage sinning.

Okay, so if God doesn't punish sin, then people think they can get away with it and that would be worse for everybody because there will be more sin.

On the other hand, God in his love wanted to pardon mankind. Pardon is the remission of the penalty.

Okay, so God doesn't want to send us to hell because he loves us.

The problem with this is that it weakens the law, encourages sin, and therefore endangers his kingdom.

" Okay, so God's moral governance and the wisdom of how he's leading is called into question if you just pardon sinners so easily or freely. Okay, so how can God do both? How can he pardon mankind but not weaken his law or encourage sin?

It was by substituting the eternal punishment of sinners with the blood atonement of Christ. God manifests to his subjects his regard for his law through the atonement even more than he would have through the penalty. Therefore, crime is prevented and discouraged through the atonement, even while the penalty can now be safely, wisely, and lovingly removed.

Okay, now as I said, at first, this may sound really similar to penal substitution, because it's talking about God's love, and his justice, and how Christ's atonement allows God to uphold both. But here's the difference. Notice that Christ, on this view, is not paying for the individual sins of individual people. In fact, Christ is not even paying for sins at all. On this view, Christ's suffering is an alternative to God enacting the sentence of the law. Christ is not a substitute bearing the penalty of the law in our place. He's an alternative that's demonstrating that God is still just, that God still takes sin seriously, even though he's not enforcing the penalty of his law. It would be kind of like this. If you crashed your parents' $100,000 car, you felt bad about it, you wanted to do something, but you can't pay for it, well, maybe you write them a very, very sincere, you know, long apology note, right? You're not paying for what you did, but you're trying to show the sincerity of your remorse. Well, in a similar way, this is saying that Christ's suffering is not paying for our sin, but showing or demonstrating or vindicating the integrity of God's justice and moral governance of the universe. Okay, so Christ's atoning work doesn't, on this view, it doesn't actually save anyone, and it isn't intended for specific individuals, but it frees God to then offer pardon to anyone on whatever terms he chooses, namely repentance and faith. So he can offer pardon on those terms, without his justice or moral governance being called into question or sin being encouraged in any way. Now, if you're still kind of struggling to get your mind around exactly what this means, how is this different than penal substitution, here's what really makes it the clearest for me. Notice that according to the governmental view, God was already ready to forgive us even before the cross. Like on this view, the cross isn't there to satisfy God. It's not there to make God willing to forgive you. It's there so that we can know that God is just even when he's forgiving sinners. So it's not that God himself needs to be propitiated or satisfied. The cross is really aimed at us. But penal substitution is based on the idea that it's because of God's own nature that he demands satisfaction for sin, or else he will not and cannot forgive it. Penal substitution says, no, no, there's something about the very nature of God himself. that justice, his own justice must be upheld or he cannot and will not be in relationship with us. He will not just overlook sin. The price has to be paid. God's own justice must be satisfied. And that's why on penal substitution, you know, yes, of course, Christ dying on the cross shows us how much God loves us. It shows us that God really is a just God. But first and foremost, the cross is aimed at God. I mean, if there's anything that Jesus is doing on the cross, he's offering himself as a sacrifice to God. to atone for our sins before God, to make propitiation before God for His people. And this is where the Old Testament is so helpful, because think about, what is a sacrifice? Well, God gives a whole Old Testament to tell us all about sacrifices, and the most basic, obvious thing about a sacrifice is who is it offered to? Never to man, always to God. Right? And for me, you know, when you realize, wait a second, the governmental view loses that. It turns the cross into God showing us something about himself. But it assumes God was already just, he was happy to forgive us without a cross. Penal substitution says no. God has to be satisfied. God has to be propitiated. Christ had to die. offering himself as the atoning sacrifice before God. Now, why do I share all that? Well, first of all, to say, look, even if you're not convinced of limited atonement, that's okay, don't buy into the governmental view. As I said, not all Armenians buy into that. But I bring it up to point out that in the quest for logical consistency, That's where many who deny limited atonement have ended up. And why is that? Well, it's because if Christ died for everyone, as the Arminian wants to insist, but you also hold penal substitution. Well, that means that if he died for everyone, then the sins of everyone were imputed to him. And when he died on the cross, he was being punished as a substitute for everybody. And if that's what Christ was doing on the cross, how is it that anybody for whom he died could go to hell? I mean, how can people be punished for the sins that Christ already was punished for, that he already paid for? That would be double jeopardy. That would be calling God's justice into question because now he's punishing Christ for sins that he's going to turn around and punish other people for, or he's going to punish those people for sins he already punished Christ for. And so you see in penal substitution, there's this one for one, Christ for us. And there's no easy way to just generalize that, right? He either died for our sins or he didn't. He either offered himself for us or he didn't. And, you know, some have tried to get around this by saying, well, maybe Christ died for all our sins except the sin of unbelief. But the Bible just doesn't speak as if hell and God's wrath is restricted to punishing people for the sin of unbelief. I mean, Romans 1,

for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

And if we say Christ didn't die for the sin of unbelief, well, what about us when we struggle with unbelief? Does that mean there's no forgiveness for that? I mean, I sure hope not. So that doesn't seem like a very good workaround. And that's why this governmental view becomes appealing. Because it allows you to say, well, Christ offered himself generally for all, and now God can just sort of offer forgiveness on the conditions of repentance and faith, and just whoever chooses to repent and believe, well, they're the ones who God chooses to save. So that you can see how that's attractive on one level, because that's consistent with, you know, other things Armenians would want to say. But as I tried to point out, that brings with it some, I think, pretty serious other theological issues. So again, if you're really committed to being Arminian, I think the best thing to do is affirm penal substitution and just live with the tension that creates for you. But in my opinion, the better thing to do would be to embrace limited atonement and reform theology with it. Now, as we wrap up for tonight, I do just want to end on a note of application. Last week, I concluded by emphasizing how limited atonement makes Christ's work personal. To think about Christ died for me. Well, this week, I want to conclude by thinking about how limited atonement connects with evangelism, and specifically, how it's a motivation for it. I think a lot of time we kind of focus on trying to explain why limited atonement should not be a demotivation for evangelism. People think, well, if Christ didn't die for everyone, well, how can I offer the gospel to everyone? And so we spend a lot of time saying, well, no, limited atonement is not necessarily incompatible with the free offer of the gospel. It shouldn't demotivate evangelism. But in a little bit of time we have today, I want to focus on a way in which I think limited atonement is actually a positive motivation for evangelism. And one of the things that came to mind as I thought about this this week is a story about these two Moravian missionaries who felt this burden to share the gospel with African slaves. But they were told, like, you can't do that. We're not going to give you any access to them, you know, too bad. So then they think, well, we're going to sell ourselves into slavery because then we can get access to go share the gospel with these slaves. And apparently as the boat, you know, they get on the boat and it's setting sail and you can imagine their families are weeping, knowing like, we'll probably never see our sons again. Well, then one of the men cries out,

shall not the lamb receive the reward for his sufferings?

In other words, they were motivated to sell themselves as slaves, to go share the gospel not just out of a burden for the lost, but a love for Christ, a yearning that he would receive the full reward for his sufferings. And you see, one of the things that limited atonement should really clarify for us is that when Jesus died on the cross, he purchased a people. The people he died for are his reward. And they are the people whom He deserves to have. That these people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation are rightfully His. And of course, it's not like their salvation hangs in the balance based on our faithfulness. No, no, Christ will receive His reward. The Spirit will regenerate their hearts. But what a privilege we should feel to get to be the ones who bring the people for whom Christ died home. You know, as we think about Christ dying on the cross, that not just for us, but for them, how that should motivate us out of a love for Christ, to want to go out there and bring His sheep into the fold. Friends, this should encourage Motivate evangelism. Christ loves his sheep. He died for them. We get to be the ones to go out and tell them this good news of the gospel. And so may we cry out with those Moravian missionaries

shall not the lamb receive the full reward for his suffering.

Amen. Let's pray. Father, how we thank you for this time to study this doctrine of limited atonement. And how we pray that Christ indeed would receive the full reward of his sufferings. May we be faithful to what you have called us to as your people. In his name we pray, amen.