Imperishable Inheritance

No ques­tion has raised more con­tro­versy (inside ortho­dox Chris­tian­ity) than this ques­tion. In the fol­low­ing essay, I will present and defend the doc­trine that Christ died effi­ca­ciously for those whom The Father put Him on the cross for (Acts 2:23). To bring it right to the fore­front, unless you are a Uni­ver­sal­ist (belief that all have received sal­va­tion) then you in some way limit the atone­ment of Christ. Even though the title is the clas­si­cal ques­tion, I prefer: “Did Christ die for anyone or for the pos­si­bil­ity for everyone?”

This ques­tion is of course a point of con­tention within Sote­ri­ol­ogy (most often between Covenant The­olo­gians). So, which is it: the Syn­er­gis­tic (Armin­ian) Unlim­ited Atone­ment or the Mon­er­gis­tic (Calvin­is­tic) Lim­ited Atonement?

Let there be no mis­un­der­stand­ing at this point. The Armin­ian limits the atone­ment as cer­tainly as does the Calvin­ist. The Calvin­ist limits the extent of it in that he says it does not apply to all persons…while the Armin­ian limits the power of it, for he says that in itself it does not actu­ally save any­body. The Calvin­ist limits it quan­ti­ta­tively, but not qual­i­ta­tively; the Armin­ian limits it qual­i­ta­tively, but not quan­ti­ta­tively. For the Calvin­ist it is like a narrow bridge that goes all the way across the stream; for the Armin­ian it is like a great wide bridge that goes only half-​way across. As a matter of fact, the Armin­ian places more severe lim­i­ta­tions on the work of Christ than does the Calvin­ist.
Lor­raine Boet­tner, The Reformed Doc­trine of Predestination

Also, I also want to deal with a typ­i­cal Armin­ian emo­tional argu­ment. The Armin­ian would say, “why should I bother evan­ge­liz­ing when God has already pre­des­tined those who He wants to be saved and they don’t have the abil­ity to respond?” The fact is that whether your Armin­ian or Calvin­ist there are still an “elect” today in this world. The Armin­ian believes in con­di­tional elec­tion, or that God rec­i­p­ro­cates our choice for Him before the foun­da­tion of the world. The Calvin­ist believes that God alone makes the choice, because humans, due to the Fall, do not have the moral abil­ity to respond. So, there are still an “elect” whether you pro­scribe to either system. The Armin­ian is forced to admit that this is indeed true if he is to be the­o­log­i­cally con­sis­tent. Also, with using this Armin­ian argu­men­ta­tion, which usu­ally is on the basis of a verse such as 1 John 2:2 or 1 Tim­o­thy 2:1-4, then that makes God out to be a mis­er­able fail­ure! The only accept­able inter­pre­ta­tion of these Scrip­tures is that it is a will of com­mand and not a will of decree. So, let us not back our­selves into emo­tional argu­ments that will get us nowhere.

“If ever there should come a wretched day when all our pul­pits be full of modern thought, and the old doc­trine of sub­sti­tu­tion­ary sac­ri­fice shall be exploded, then there will remain no word of com­fort for the guilty or hope for the despairing.”
Charles H. Spurgeon

Was Christ’s Death to be an Offer or to be Effectual?

“For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost.”
Matthew 18:11

and He Him­self bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to right­eous­ness; for by His wounds you were healed.
1 Peter 2:24

For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
John 3:17

The saying is trust­wor­thy and deserv­ing of full accep­tance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sin­ners, of whom I am the fore­most.
1 Tim­o­thy 1:15

It is quite appar­ent that The Father put His Son on the cross to be an effec­tual saving act. It encom­passes one intent and that intent will be ful­filled. It was not meant to simply come off as an “offer,” but Christ’s death was meant to save a people. It is pos­si­ble, when deal­ing just with Unlim­ited Atone­ment, that Christ could have died for no one and no reason. But the Armin­ian con­tends, “but God knew who would come to Him.” Exactly! You are, in a cir­cu­lar fash­ion, val­i­dat­ing the Mon­er­gis­tic con­cept of election.

Christ’s Death as Assis­tance or the Pri­mary Causal Agent?

But you denied the Holy and Right­eous One, and asked for a mur­derer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are wit­nesses.
Acts 3:14-15 (ESV) (empha­sis added)

For it was fit­ting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bring­ing many sons to glory, to per­fect the author of their sal­va­tion through suf­fer­ings.
Hebrews 2:10 (empha­sis added)

There­fore, since we have so great a cloud of wit­nesses sur­round­ing us, let us also lay aside every encum­brance and the sin which so easily entan­gles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and per­fecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despis­ing the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2 (empha­sis added)

From these pas­sages, is Christ simply an assis­tor? No. Jesus Christ is the author and the per­fecter of our faith. Fur­ther­more, I find it very trou­bling, both tex­tu­ally and philo­soph­i­cally, that Christ’s death did not secure the faith of anyone (as in the clas­si­cal def­i­n­i­tion of Unlim­ited Atone­ment). What a trav­esty that would be!

The Wrath of God on the Cross

I ques­tion the Armin­ian, what encom­passed the wrath of God onto Christ on the cross? Was it unlim­ited? Was it general?

Now from the sixth hour there was dark­ness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou for­saken me? Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man cal­leth for Elijah.
Matthew 27:45-47 (KJV)

A Case for the Penal Sub­sti­tu­tion­ary Atonement

It is the thesis of this essay to con­tend that Christ’s death (the atone­ment) was in fact penal (of relat­ing to pun­ish­ment) and sub­sti­tu­tion­ary (in place of).

As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be sat­is­fied; By His knowl­edge the Right­eous One, My Ser­vant, will jus­tify the many, As He will bear their iniq­ui­ties.
Isaiah 53:11

Hus­bands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Him­self up for her, so that He might sanc­tify her, having cleansed her by the wash­ing of water with the word, that He might present to Him­self the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrin­kle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blame­less.
Eph­esians 5:25-27 (empha­sis added)

For God has not des­tined us for wrath, but for obtain­ing sal­va­tion through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him.
1 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 5:9-10

Jesus spoke these things; and lift­ing up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glo­rify Your Son, that the Son may glo­rify You, even as You gave Him author­ity over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eter­nal life. I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours;
John 17:1-2, 9

Who are those that The Father has given to Christ? His death was for the elect, those who are to receive sal­va­tion. Each of these pas­sages (and many more) speaks clearly of Christ as the sub­sti­tute for God’s holy and just wrath.

The Neces­sity of Evan­ge­lism in Light of Lim­ited Atonement

Again, to re-​iterate the first argu­ment usu­ally posed by Armini­ans is that of the neces­sity of evan­ge­lism. The doc­trine of Lim­ited Atone­ment has mag­ni­fied my desire for evan­ge­lism, and it does this for the fol­low­ing reasons.

1. I am assured that God will over­come human deprav­ity (Matthew 16:17).
2. I am assured that there are those out there who will still believe (1 Peter 1:1-5).
3. The gospel is the very means to which we are saved (Mark 1:15).
4. The most impor­tant is that I am to obey Christ’s com­mands for my life (Matthew 28:18-20).

It should also be noted that Lim­ited Atone­ment in no way deters the gen­ui­ness of the gospel call.

Con­clu­sion

James White declares: “[w]e have seen, then, that the Word teaches that Christ died for many, for His sheep, for the Church, for the elect of God, for His friends, for a people zeal­ous for good works, for His people, for each and every Christian.”¹

To this I com­pletely agree. If it were left to humans to come to Christ—Christ would have died for no one (Eph­esians 2:1, 1 John 3:14). The death on the cross was for a par­tic­u­lar redemp­tion, the true and only inten­tion of the cross. This doc­trine is meant to mag­nify God’s glory and majesty. Let Him be exalted. Soli Deo Gloria!

Jesus answered, “I told you that I am He; so if you seek Me, let these go their way,” to ful­fill the word which He spoke, “Of those whom You have given Me I lost not one.”
John 18:8-9

Sug­gested Reading

• Was Anyone Saved at the Cross? by James White
• Mon​er​gism.com: Atonement