For Whom Did Christ Die?

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