Untitled Sermon (45)

As I had promised last week, this week’s sermon will be a combination of teaching and preaching but will ultimately fall more heavily on the teaching side of things. The topic that we’re going to be looking at today pertains to the atonement of Christ. Namely, for whom did Christ Jesus die? You see by the end of this sermon that what I believe Scripture to teach is that Christ died not for the whole world, but instead, Christ died for those whom the Father gave the Son in eternity past. To say that another way, Christ died for the sins of all those who would, by God’s Sovereign drawing, come to Christ for redemption, and nobody else. The Scripture I’d like to look at this morning is with our primary focus being on verse 28. With all of that in mind, lets read our text and go before the Lord in prayer.

As we begin to make this journey together this morning, I want to begin with a word of caution concerning how we should address this topic with those who may disagree with our views, as well as another caveat about the terminology we use. We have been called by God to be as one in Christ Jesus, and this includes our interactions with those whom we have disagreements that do not enter into the realm of heresy. Because of our calling for unity in the Gospel through Christ, we must be gracious with those who may disagree, yet that does not mean that we forego the conversation or even set aside our fellowship together. Instead, it means that we encourage, challenge and lift one another up to a deeper knowledge of the Biblical truths that we encounter so that we may be edified in Christ our King. With all of that out of the way, let’s get to the issue at hand this morning. As we move onto the terminology caveat, I’d like to preface the conversation by saying that I really don’t care for the term “limited atonement.” In essence, what it sounds like is that the extent of the sins that can be forgiven by Christ only goes so far. After that, the person is left without hope or without options of forgiveness. That is in no way the intended purpose of the term. Because of this, if I could rephrase the terminology, the phrase I would prefer to use would be that of purposed redemption. I believe that term better addresses the issue at hand and clarifies what it is that we believe the Scriptures to be saying concerning the extent of the atonement, its implications and applications.

Before we get too far into the conversation over limited atonement, I think it would be beneficial for us to discuss what we mean when we discuss Biblical atonement. The most common thought in our own modern culture concerning an idea of atonement is a form of reparation. Another term or understanding which is common for many to believe is the idea of a amends being made after some form of wrong has been encountered from one party to another. While there could be many aspects of that idea which would be encompassed in Biblical atonement, that definition fails to offer up a credible way in which the amends could be made. For many, to correct a wrong is as simple as paying some monetary amount to right what was lost by the other party. Yet in theology, there is no amount of money that can be paid to make reparation or amend the wrongs that were encountered by the injured party. Instead, the only solution for correcting what was destroyed by man is a fix authored by God Himself, through Himself and for Himself. No amount of being an indentured servant or good on our behalf can ever repair what was broken in the Garden. Because of this, an atonement needed to be sent to right the wrongs with God, and that is where we find the idea of Christ being our atonement. The one who on our behalf, makes the payment before the Lord to restore that broken relationship. We find this whole theme in passages such as the one in which we are examining today. “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” This is Christ, the redeemer who redeems that broken relationship by the giving up of His righteous life on our behalf on the cross of Calvary, where the wrath of God that had been storing up since the fall of Adam was poured out upon Christ. This atonement upon Calvary is not what makes our redemption possible but guarantees that all who call upon His name shall and will be made right before God. Yet in its application, Christ did not die to redeem all of humanity but instead, those whom the Father had given Him as tells us.

With that in mind, what do we mean when we say that the atonement of Christ is limited or purposed?

The first portion of understanding that I would like to offer is that what we don’t mean, as I stated a second ago, is that there are only a specific number of sins that can be covered through the atonement of Christ. I would just like to doubly emphasize this as it never fails that I always find myself having this discussion with someone over that term. Instead, what is meant by the term limited is who Christ Jesus actually died for at Calvary. As you begin to examine this verse, an idea of limitations begins to come to light. Christ in this passage claims that He came to lay down His life as a ransom for many. Let me ask you a question. Why didn’t Jesus say that He came to give His life as a ransom for all? The short answer is that Christ Himself knew that the atonement was not applicable to all of creation. We can see this theme shining forth from passages such as which speaks of God choosing the elect in Christ before the foundation of the world. That is merely one place in Scripture which addresses the issue and speaks of the atonements application in a corporal manner with the idea of predestination. There are many other places which we could go for this defense as well but for the moment, we will set that off to the side.

Now many of you might be wondering why in the world we’re even looking at this today as many of you would probably affirm the very same position as myself. The reason is that there are many out there who in several ways have distorted the Gospel by teaching an unbiblical understanding of the atonement, and we have to be on alert for when we see that stuff. So, I don’t only want to teach on what I believe the Scripture to teach but also what the other side would claim and how we are to understand this in light of Scripture. As we peruse throughout Church history, there appears an idea and an understanding concerning the atonement of Christ which in many ways contradicts other doctrines already established. An example of this is to say that Christ died as atonement for the whole world. A famous verse that many people love to go to for this idea is passages such as and .

Let’s look first at . “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” On the surface, this verse appears to be expounding a universal atonement. In fact, many who would hold to a universal atonement have looked at this verse to claim their position. Now I am not talking about the Arminian version of universal atonement when I say this. Instead what I am referencing here is the idea that in Adam, all men died through his fall as Paul tells us in Romans, and through Christ, all men now have redemption. Not merely those who would repent of their sins but everyone at all times. Each and every single person regardless of their belief upon Jesus has been ransomed through the atonement of Christ Jesus and will now spend eternity with God the Father. They teach that at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what one has done, said or believed, that because of Christ’ death on the Cross of Calvary, all men will be redeemed. While that sounds great on the surface and men such as Rob Bell can make millions selling books like Love Wins, at the end of the day, that ideology falls short of understanding the atonement in light of the rest of Scripture. They fail to account for the very words of Jesus who tells us in that, “They (speaking of the unredeemed) will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” They do not look to other Scriptures to prove what they are believing but instead look upon one attribute of God, namely His Love, and build off of it a doctrine which fails to accurately understand the atonement in light of all of Scripture. Yet they are not the only ones who do this. The Arminian who reads this passage actually fails to understand the doctrine of the atonement in light of the rest of Scripture as well.

In the Arminian understanding of this passage, the idea is that not only did Christ atone for those whom John was writing to, He also made salvation possible for the whole world. Salvation is sitting on the table and free for the taking for anyone who would look unto Jesus. They fail to take into consideration the depravity of man and humanity’s inability to look unto Jesus. They also fail to take other passages into consideration on the issue. If we parallel this passage which on the surface clearly looks like a free offer of redemption with Scriptures such as , we find what certainly appears to be a contradiction between the offer and the ability to receive that offer. states “No man can come to me unless God the Father draws them unto me, and I will raise him up on the last day.” If no man is able to come, yet the offer to come is sitting there, then something else must come into play here as well. Could it be that God is drawing all men unto Himself as states? I would argue the same way as John Gill on this passage that we cannot understand this as Jesus drawing a “concourse” of people to Himself. For if we read it in this way, we actually find ourselves back to universalism, that idea that all of humanity will be redeemed in the death of Christ Jesus. Instead that verse must be understood to be Christ drawing the elect unto Himself. This is where balance must come into our minds. When we deal with these weighty issues, we must weigh them out both in light of what all of Scripture teaches on that one issue, as well as what other doctrines or ideas apply to it as well. When we don’t do this, we develop and build a theology like much of what we see in most Churches today. Not that they do not preach Christ crucified, but they instead would claim that salvation in Christ is offered fully available to all who would by their own libertarian free will, come to Him. This idea does not line up with Scripture in any way, especially in dealing with man’s total inability to come to Christ on his own.

As we move forward and look at , we see that many people place a direct emphasis on this passage as being the verse which proves unlimited atonement. literally says this, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever shall believe upon Him, shall not perish but have everlasting life.” While I would agree that this verse most assuredly speaks to the atonement of Christ, I would argue that the verse itself actually limits the atonement on its own. The passage doesn’t say that God gave the Son so that all may be saved. Instead, it limits the atonement of Christ to only those who would believe. The whosoever in that passage speaks only of those who actually believe, and not everyone will believe. This in itself limits the atonement to only those who believe. Yet, in todays Church, the idea of “whosoever comes,” somehow means that anyone can come, and that Christ has paid the debt for all men, if they would just come to Him. Yet as we already stated, ideas of theology must be paired up with the rest of Scripture to develop and understanding of the doctrine that were trying to develop.