3. LIMITED ATONEMENT

3. LIMITED ATONEMENT This third point not only brings us to the central point of the five, but also to the central fact of the gospel, that is, the purpose of Christ’s death on the Cross. This is not accidental. The theologians who had set themselves the task of defending the truths of the Protestant Reformation against the attacks of the Arminian party were following a Biblical and logical line in their formulations and had now arrived at the very pivot of salvation. First of all, they had asked, ’Who is to be saved?’ The answer was ’Man’. But the Bible’s teaching with regard to man showed that man, in his natural state, is totally unable to save himself. Thus, we have the teaching of the Bible on man set under the general heading of total depravity, or total inability. Secondly, as some men and women are undoubtedly saved, then it must have been God Himself who had saved them in contra-distinction to the rest of mankind. This is election: ’That the purpose of God according to election might stand . . .’ [Rom 9.11]. However, this election only ’marked the house to which salvation should travel,’ as Spurgeon puts it, and a full and perfect and satisfactory atonement was still required for the sins of the elect, so that God might be, not only a Saviour, but ’a just God, and a Saviour.’ This atonement, as we all acknowledge, was accomplished through Christ’s voluntary submission to the death on the Cross where He suffered under the justice of this just God, and procured the salvation that he as Saviour had ordained. On the Cross, then -- and, no doubt, we all accept this -- Christ bore punishment, and procured salvation. The question now arises: whose punishment did He bear, and whose salvation did He procure? There are three avenues along which we can travel with regard to this:

1. Christ died to save all men without distinction.
2. Christ died to save no one in particular.
3. Christ died to save a certain number.
The first view is that held by ’Universalists,’ namely, Christ died to save all men, and so, they very logically assume, all men will be saved. If Christ has paid the debt of sin, has saved, ransomed, given His life for all men, then all men will be saved. The second view is the ’Arminian’ one, that Christ procured a potential salvation for all men. Christ died on the Cross, this view says, but although he paid the debt of our sin, his work on the Cross does not become effectual until man ’decides for’ Christ and is thereby saved. The third view of the Atonement is the ’Calvinistic’ one, and it says that Christ died positively and effectually to save a certain number of hell-deserving sinners on whom the Father had already set His free electing love. The Son pays the debt for these elect ones, makes satisfaction for them to the Father’s justice, and imputes His own righteousness to them so that they are complete in Him.

Christ’s death, then, could only have been for one of these three reasons: to save all; to save no one in particular; to save a particular number. The third view is that which is held by the Calvinist and is generally called limited atonement, or particular redemption. Christ died to save a particular number of sinners; that is, those ’chosen in him before the foundation of the world’ [Eph 1.4]; those whom the Father had ’given him out of the world’ [John 17.9]; those for whom He Himself said He shed His blood: ’This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many, for the remission of sins’ [Matt 26.28]. This last view, we claim, does justice to the purpose of Christ’s coming to this earth to die on the Cross. ’Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.’ Not the Jews, surely, for the Jews are not saved as a people. Jesus ’loved the church, and gave himself for it’ [Eph 5.25]. ’He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification’ [Rom. 4.25]. Whom does the Holy Spirit mean when He says, ’Our’? The world? If so, then the Universalist is right, for Christ was, then, ’delivered for [the world’s] offences and raised again for [the world’s] justification’, so the world is justified before God. ’As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive’ [1 Cor 15.22]. This again can only mean that all of Adam’s posterity die in Adam, as indeed they do, for ’death has passed upon all men’; but all of Christ’s posterity -- the Church that He gave Himself for -- are made alive in Him. Why is this? Surely, it is because He gave Himself for them! ’By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities’ [Is 53.11]. And when He accomplishes this as He hangs upon the Cross, says the prophet Isaiah in that great chapter 53 of his prophecy, He sees ’of the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied.’ The travail of His soul as He pours out His soul an offering for our sin shall bear spiritual children to the praise of His name, and He shall be satisfied when He sees this work accomplished.

We do not overlook the fact that there are some Scriptures which refer to the ’world’, and many have taken these as their starting point in the question of Redemption. However, when we compare scripture with scripture, we see that the use of the word ’world’ need not imply ’every man and woman in the world.’ ’Behold, the world has gone alter him,’ they said of Jesus; every person, however, had not ’gone after’ Christ. The expression means ’every kind of person’ -- and normally Gentile as well as Jew. The over-riding question must always be the Divine intention; did God intend to save all men, or did He not? If He did not intend to save all men without exception but only the elect, then, the work of Christ on the Cross is a glorious success, and we right well believe: ’All that the Father giveth me shall come to me . . .’ [John 6.37]. If, on the other hand, it was God’s intention to save the entire world, then the atonement of Christ has been a great failure, for vast numbers of mankind have not been saved. Christ paid our debt! Whose debt? The world’s, or the elect’s? Surely, if a man has been redeemed by a redeemer, then the law which he has broken must be satisfied by reason of the work of the Surety on his behalf.

If Thou hast my discharge procured,
And freely in my place endured,
The whole of wrath Divine;
Payment God will not twice demand,
First at my bleeding Surety’s hand,
And then again at mine.