Bible Study, Trinity Bible Church Cypress, May 31, 2026

I was not born a Christian. I was not born again a Calvinist. It was limited atonement that troubled me most. At first, I didn’t like the term, because I didn’t like election overall. The whole arrangement felt presumptuous of God. Then, in college I came to a “four-point Calvinist” position, as many faithful believers do, many in my family, perhaps even most of you in this room this morning. But for my part (not theirs), I knew I wasn’t especially well informed of the four points that I claimed either. Then, for about six months I landed at a Reformed Baptist church. There were many sweet people there, who genuinely loved Christ and loved me, and who regularly said condescending things to my face, because they didn’t know I was not one of them in some ways. (I try to take a lesson from that still today, however weekly.) But I had many good talks with older brothers who sought me out.

I will pick that story back up later. But I start with that because today we come to a difficult task, related to this third point of Calvinism or the doctrines of grace, that has become known as “limited atonement.” So, as we study grace, let us have grace with each other. First, however, we need to finish our task from last week. There’s one more objection I want to answer about unconditional election.

III. Unconditional Election

E. Implications and Objections

2. But isn’t a genuine relationship precluded?

Baptist Arminian scholar Roger Olson writes this:

The main reason Arminians reject the Calvinist notion of monergistic salvation, in which God unconditionally elects some to salvation and bends their will irresistibly, is that it violates the character of God and the nature of a personal relationship. If God saves unconditionally and irresistibly, why doesn’t he save all? Appeal to mystery at this point does not satisfy the Arminian mind because the character of God as love showing itself in mercy is at stake.[1]

This, I believe, is the central issue of disagreement between Arminians and Calvinists, so it is of great importance. There are several problems with Olson’s argument:

1. First of all, he says Calvinists believe God “bends their will irresistibly,” as if to mean that He breaks their will, in order to save them.[2]

But most Calvinists believe God’s sovereignty is compatibilist. That He frees, heals, and persuades the will. The Puritan Thomas Watson illustrates God’s providence like the gears in a clock.[3] They all seem to be moving in various directions. But the central wheel is God’s providence that turns them all, so that they all work in accordance with God’s plan, including calamity, evil, and human will.

2. Then, as I mentioned last week, appealing to mystery is exactly what Paul does in Romans 9–11, as do many other authors of Scripture.

“Why doesn’t he save all” is a charge that God would be unjust in unconditional election. Which, ironically, is like the devil’s advocate question Paul asks in Romans 9:14 and 19:

Is there any unrighteousness in God? May it never be! (Rom 9:14)

You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault?” (Rom 9:19)

In other words, why doesn’t he save everybody? Scripture’s answer, we saw, is ultimately a question to us: Who are you, O man, who answers back to God? Doesn’t the potter have authority over the clay? What if God has reasons in His glory? Could you defeat Him with the moral high ground? Olson’s objection seems based in presumptions that no mystery should remain before us in this matter, that we are fit to judge God’s fairness in it, and that that autonomous free will is inviolable. But these principles are nowhere laid down in Scripture.

3. Thirdly, genuine relationship with God in the eternal state will not be based on man’s ability to choose (Rom 8:23; 1 Cor 15:42; 1 Jn 3:2–3).

All Christians believe that we will be in a state of confirmed righteousness in our resurrected bodies for all eternity. We will no longer have the moral ability to desire sin, though we’ll still have the natural ability to choose our desires. That’s one of the things I look forward to most about heaven. I will no longer sin and grieve my Lord! Don’t you eagerly wait for the day you won’t be able to sin against Christ anymore? Would anyone say that means our relationship with God is shallow or fake? We cannot define the concepts of God’s love or true relationship by anything other than what we read in Scripture. What we read in Scripture means the Arminian view can’t be true.

Now, in the same way that total depravity necessitated unconditional election, unconditional election necessitates our next point.

IV. Limited Atonement

A. Summary Statement

“God the Son atoned particularly for those individuals the Father chose to save.”[4]

However, up front, let’s acknowledge a problem. Roger Nicole represents many Calvinists when he writes:

The language of ‘limited atonement’ is undesirable and unnecessary. It describes inadequately and unfairly the view held by Reformed people. The problem is that it seems to place the emphasis upon limits. It seems to take away from the beauty, glory and fullness of the work of Christ. We seem to be saying that is does not go quite so far as it should or could go.[5]

He’s even more fired up earlier, saying,

I, for one, am not happy to go under the banner of a limited atonement, as though Calvinists and myself were ones who wickedly emasculate and mutilate the great scope and beauty of the love and redemption of Jesus Christ. For it is not really a question of limits. It is a question of purpose.[6]

Therefore, we have the following alternate names.

B. Alternate Names

• Definite atonement
• Particular redemption (> Particular Baptists)

C. Scriptural Basis

• Gen 3:15; Isa 53:6, 10–11; John 3:36; 6:37–40; 10:11–18, 22–30; 15:13, 16; 17:6–11, 20; Acts 20:28; Rom 8:29–32; 2 Cor 5:14; Eph 1:7; 5:25; 1 Thess 5:9–10; Titus 2:14; Heb 9:11–12; 1 Pet 1:18–19; Rev 5:8–10

D. Explanation

Now, for the explanation of this doctrine, and I think, first, we should think about our method.

1. Method

As I was saying earlier, I grew thicker skin at the Reformed Baptist church I was attending just after college. But I had many good talks with older brothers who sought me out. And they explained their understanding of limited atonement. An argument one of them made was that if the atonement was not definite, you end up with a “frustrated God.” I didn’t find that one very persuasive. I wasn’t given biblical texts for it, just the logic. I agree with some I’ve talked to this week, that will not do. But it drove me to read and study the atonement for myself.

After becoming convinced on other grounds, I saw the reasoning. Is it possible that God would pour out His wrath for my sins on Christ, only to decree that I would incur the same wrath eternally? That’s often called the “double jeopardy” problem. Another but similar “frustration” question is, Would God be just to refrain from giving the Son every sinner whom the Son purchased with His blood? Those are, in fact, biblical frameworks describing the atonement: (a) suffering inflicted as a fitting answer to sin and (b) repayment of a debt to God as creditor.[7]

It would indeed be a frustrated God, who twice inflicted punishment, one who thwarts His own intentions and His justice and His mercy —all at the same time! But that is simply impossible with God. That seems, however, to be the result of the view I’d earlier held, what is called the unlimited or general atonement view, where it is either non-specific and open for whom Christ died or Christ died for all including tragically the non-elect to no avail. Again, this is an honest opinion held by many, attempting to deal faithfully with Scripture.

Yet I find these things to be true in Scripture: that God has always known for whom the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world, because their names were written in the Lamb’s book of life before the foundation of the world (Rev 13:8), that Christ will be satisfied as Isaiah 53:11 says, that He will have the bride for which He died as Ephesians 5 says, that redemption was never left up to chance, that no suffering of Christ was in vain, that no plan or justice or mercy of God can be frustrated. Plus, besides being what I am now convinced is a necessity— from exegesis and from theology both biblical and systematic—this doctrine is also a comfort to me, not because it is “limited”—an inherently negative construal—but because it is “definite”—the positive construal of Scripture.

I would like to make the last point especially clear. The construal of the atonement in its intent, nature, and extent is overwhelmingly positive in Scripture, because the atonement—all of it—is good news. It is not usually stated in negative terms, i.e., what it is not, although in many cases that is the unavoidable conclusion. If, on the other hand, to be persuaded you expect a Bible verse like a “silver bullet” that expresses the doctrine finally and succinctly in both positive and negative terms, then you will likely land in a general view of the atonement. The general view may well be your honest persuasion of the atonement for other reasons. But with a “silver bullet” approach, you would be hard pressed to believe in, for example, the Trinity. The proof-text approach is not how we should construct theology.

Therefore, since Scripture teaches the atonement as good news, I would ask you to allow the whole of Scripture wherever it speaks to the atonement’s nature and intent to guide your thoughts as to its extent also. For, if you allow the Bible’s theology, whatever it is—not just its “sound bites” or “proof texts”—to shape your theology, then it will shepherd and sanctify you in exactly the way Jesus wants it to. That is what I want for me. I want to believe whatever Jesus wants me to believe. I want to be comforted however Jesus wants me to be comforted. I want to be chastened, or corrected, or humbled, or assured, or sanctified, or sharpened by whatever means Jesus wants me to; and to trust that whatever the Father has chosen in His plan of redemption is for His glory and my good; so that even if I don’t fully understand it, I would have it no other way! After all, if God alone is sovereign, it could be no other way.

You may not be persuaded by my presentation of the Bible hereafter, but we can agree that whatever our Shepherd does and says is right and we will love and trust Him for it.

We’re going to walk through the atonement theologically as I hinted, rather than canonically (i.e., in order from Genesis to Revelation). We’ll take the nature and intent of the atonement first, then, the extent of the atonement after that. We will Bible survey along the way.

2. The Nature and Intent of the Atonement

Another way of saying this is simply, “what atonement means.” Atonement itself is actually a bit of a squirrely word. Let’s understand its nature and intent by defining the major words used to identify the atonement in Scripture.

a)    What Atonement Means

Generally, “the atonement” (par excellence) is used in theology to refer to whatever Christ accomplished on the cross.[8] Now, there were some faulty attempts in church history to define what Christ did on the cross. The most biblical formulations include things you’ve heard of, like:

• Penal substitution – the idea that a substitute bore our penalty
• Redemption or ransom – the idea that Christ purchased us out of slavery to sin
• Christus victor – the idea that Christ defeated death and Satan on our behalf

There are other ways the Bible describes what Jesus accomplished. While the Reformed view doesn’t deny that, it does always see penal substitution as being the most central to the atonement.[9] Classical Arminians also confess this, and we Calvinists need to fully acknowledge it. For example, Methodist scholar I. Howard Marshall writes clearly,

The principle of one person bearing the painful consequences of sin is the modus operandi of the different understandings of the cross. There are different nuances in these expressions of the nature of salvation. But the central action, common to them all, is God doing something in Christ that involves the death of Christ, who bears our sins and the painful consequence of them. … The term ‘penal substitution’ appropriately expresses this process.[10]

Penal substitution is seen in Isaiah 53, so let’s turn our focus there. This passage is often called the Song of the Suffering Servant. It’s the words of the prophet Isaiah, looking ahead to what Yahweh’s ultimate Servant, Christ, would do for Yahweh’s servant people, i.e., not only the remnant of Israel but also Gentile believers. It is the longest, most detailed passage in the Bible on the suffering of Christ and what it meant. Thus, it is also one of the “mountain-peak” passages I point to for why Christians ought to love their OT.

⁵ But He was pierced through for our transgressions,    
              He was crushed for our iniquities;         
              The chastening for our peace fell upon Him,    
              And by His wounds we are healed.        
              …          
              ¹⁰ But Yahweh was pleased         
              To crush Him, putting Him to grief;    
              If You would place His soul as a guilt offering,  
              He will see His seed,      
              He will prolong His days,          
              And the good pleasure of Yahweh will succeed in His hand.       
              ¹¹ 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. (Isa 53)

I remember around the time I was coming to Christ, at age 17–18 I heard Isaiah 53:10 in Sunday school, as if for the first time. My teacher’s explanation of it shocked me. It was nothing extraordinary, just penal substitutionary atonement. But I was astonished, and thought, “I’ve got to tell my dad.” (He had been a Baptist pastor most of my life.) “Can you believe this, Dad?” My dad answered, “That’s exactly what it means.” It pleased Yahweh to crush Christ? That’s quite strange to someone who has a small view of sin or a small view of God’s justice.

It’s not that Yahweh delights in the death of anyone. He doesn’t. It’s that that God sent His Son, but His Son also volunteered as a Servant. It’s that God is just—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and that Christ satisfied this justice and so justified many others. It’s that God always knew He would also raise Christ up after His suffering and give those many justified ones to Him as a gift of love. That is how it pleased God to crush Christ.

Penal substitution is also seen in the NT, wherever Isaiah 53 is quoted, and also in texts like these:

2 Cor 5:21 – He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

1 Pet 3:18 – Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, so that He might bring you to God.

Here you see the intent of the atonement alongside the nature of the atonement. They obviously dovetail. It is pointed up in the phrases here “so that.”

Again, Arminians and Calvinists agree that penal substitution is there. Yet at the same time, none of these texts mentioned allow for substitution without success. They do not allow for Christ being crushed without “healing” in Isaiah’s words, for Christ being made sin without making us “righteousness” in Paul’s words, or for Christ suffering without “bringing you to God” in Peter’s words.

It is like a formula that must be balanced, even if it’s not quantifiable. In the whole transaction of penal substitution, the penalty is definite, the substitute is definite, the one substituted for is definite, and the result is definite. So, I would argue, penal substitution requires a definite atonement, and that an indefinite view of the atonement is just not being consistent at this juncture. Those holding to it are not evil or to be scorned but, I would say, just inconsistent.

That is the meaning of the atonement (par excellence). But the words atonement and atone themselves first appeared in English Bibles in William Tyndale’s translation of the NT in 1526. Tyndale actually coined many new words and phrases that are in use still today, like anathema, godly, unbeliever, and zealous.[11] Atonement is a compound word—“at-one-ment”—meaning “the process by which two typically estranged parties are made at one.”[12] Tyndale seems to be the first to make theological use of it. Yet, the underlying Greek word is now usually rendered propitiation (NASB, ESV), so let’s talk about that term.

b)   What Propitiation Means

The Greek word for “propitiation”—again, which Tyndale translated as “atonement”—is “an assuaging or turning aside of divine wrath by an offering.”^[13] Whereas atonement has to do with the penalty for sin, propitiation has to do with God’s wrath for sin. Members of the propitiation word group can also be translated “merciful,” which is to say “propitious,” as in Luke 18. In the parable of the two men who went to the temple to pray, the pharisee boasted in his own (pretend) righteousness, while the tax collector stood afar off within the temple courts. He wouldn’t even lift his eyes up to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, “God be merciful to me, the sinner!” (v. 13). “This man,” Jesus said, “went down to his house justified rather than the other” (v. 14).

The word group also gives us the term “mercy seat” in both the NT (Heb 9:5) and the Greek translation of the OT. This, by the way, was another one of Tyndale’s inventions! And a little more creative, but helpful. The “mercy seat” was the lid of the ark of the covenant, where the blood of a sacrificial ram was sprinkled between God, who’s presence dwelt above the seat, and the law of God inside the ark, below the seat, the very law broken by the sinners bringing the sacrifice. That blood temporarily turned aside God’s wrath on sin, until Christ came to be our final propitiation.

Andrew David Naselli gives the illustration of a credit card. You can genuinely get fuel at the gas station, paying with that credit card, until you pay the credit card bill a month later. In a sense, God gave Israel a credit card through their sacrifices, turning aside His own wrath, validating their offerings “based on Christ’s future sacrifice.”[14]

Quite interestingly, that “mercy seat” word (hilastērion) is the very same form of the word we get in Romans 3:25.

Rom 3 – ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; ²⁵ whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith, for a demonstration of His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; ²⁶ for the demonstration of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

This is a clear statement of the nature of the cross: that Christ Jesus was publicly displayed as a propitiation, an assuaging or turning aside of God’s wrath for sin. In short, the cross is a new mercy seat or place where God settles His wrath.[15] Isn’t that wonderful news?—that Jesus, suspended on the cross between heaven and earth, between God and me, as it were, intercepted the just wrath of God against my sin, so that I would instead know His mercy and favor. It was not, of course, the wrath of the Father only. The Son and Spirit as much as the Father have righteous indignation over sin (Ps 2:12; Acts 5:9–10; Heb 10:29; Rev 6:16). But in the triune counsel of the Godhead, the Son was chosen and volunteered to receive the triune wrath in my place.

Then, notice the two phrases that describe the propitiation further. “In His blood” and “through faith” are both the means by which Christ is a propitiation for sinners.[16] “In His blood” clearly means His death; “blood” is a common shorthand (metonymy) for violent death. However, “through faith” is more challenging. What I’ve given you is the word-for-word translation from the NASB and LSB. The ESV renders the text as “to be received by faith,” which is a more dynamic equivalent approach. Either way, it’s obvious that the faith here is not Christ’s faith. It is faith in Christ, from the sinner who would be justified.

What these things mean is that faith in Christ is essential to Christ’s blood being a propitiation.[17] The Father does not turn aside His wrath against one’s sins, without that one having faith in Christ the substitute. Then, since even my faith is a gift of God’s grace, that means propitiation doesn’t happen without God’s unconditional election too! In short, all this means the atonement is definite, and it is this propitiation—a definite one—that, according to verse 25, is the very nature of what Christ did on the cross.

The spelling out of propitiation here becomes important when we look, for example, at 1 John 2:2, or passages like it, where we have “propitiation” and “whole world” in one verse. For now, this is supporting evidence that the atonement is propitiation and the propitiation is definite.

One more term is often interchanged with these, and it is here in Romans 3 as well: redemption. It is one of the preferred alternates for “limited atonement,” so let’s briefly define redemption.

c)    What Redemption Means

There are two main roots in Greek translated as “redeem, ransom.”[18] Though they are overlapping, one of them profiles the concept “to purchase, buy back,”[19] the other focuses on payment that “releases, liberates.”[20] In particular, the latter has as its background the freeing of slaves.[21] In both cases, the purchase framework is essential for the word’s meaning. That means a known object for a known price, in the Roman context, with legal means to protect the purchaser, and in the case of slaves, as one lexicon put it, assurance that “the person ransomed is truly freed.”[22]

How is that relevant to the atonement? John Murray, in his book Redemption Accomplished and Applied, writes this:

What does redemption mean? It does not mean redeemability, that we are placed in a redeemable position. It means that Christ purchased and procured redemption. … Christ did not come to put men in a redeemable position but to redeem to himself a people.[23]

In other words, God’s purchase of His people cannot be robbed by anything. God’s redemption of the slave of sin cannot be invalidated by anything. Therefore, anywhere in Scripture where the atonement is called redemption, if we allow the words to mean what they mean, it must be definite or particular redemption. For example, Hebrews 9 says that Christ,

¹¹ …entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, ¹² and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy places once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. (Heb 9)

Redemption was obtained, not merely made possible.

To summarize, if by nature the atonement is penal substitution, is propitiation, is redemption, then the atonement must be definite, not because of long, complicated logical arguments, but because of what all those words actually mean in the NT. Bearing this in mind, we can discuss the extent of the atonement.

3. The Extent of the Atonement

There are several texts in the NT that identify the persons for whom Jesus “died” or “gave Himself”:

• For His flock and sheep (John 10:11; Acts 20:28)
• For His friends (John 15:13–14)
• For “us” (the apostles and those to whom they wrote) (Rom 5:8; Gal 2:20; cf. Luke 22:20)
• For the church, His bride (Eph 5:25)
• For His people (Titus 2:14; cf. Matt 1:21)
• For “all,” “everyone,” or “many” in various contexts (Mark 14:24; 2 Cor 5:14; 1 Tim 2:6; Heb 2:9)

These are agreed upon by generalists and particularists. We both recognize that a statement can be personalized without necessarily being exclusive (e.g., “me” in Gal 2:20). But in many of these texts, if Christ’s giving of Himself is not definite for the party named, then the whole point of the text is defeated. If Christ died for His flock and also for those who are not His flock, there is no comfort there for the flock. If Christ gave Himself up for His bride and for those not His bride, there’s no special affection or confidence communicated to the bride. The point of those texts becomes lost. We need to pay special attention to the writings of the apostle John.

a)    John 10

John 10 – ² “But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. ³ To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴ When he brings all his own out, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. … ¹¹ “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. … ¹⁴ I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, ¹⁵ even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.”

There is no question here in Jesus’ mind—He knows His sheep. He knows them to the same degree that the Father knows Jesus. These, He says, are the very ones for whom He laid down His life.

Christian, you can be comforted, that Jesus had you in mind. He didn’t give His life unsure of who would be saved by it. Nor did He go to the cross knowing that He would die for those who would never believe. He went to the cross with you on His heart. What a savior!

Sometime later, Jesus was in Jerusalem at Hannukah.

John 10 – ²⁴ The Jews then gathered around Him, and were saying to Him, “How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us openly.” ²⁵ Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these bear witness of Me. ²⁶ But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep. ²⁷ My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; ²⁸ and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish—ever; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. ²⁹ My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. ³⁰ I and the Father are one.”

These are some of the most poignant words on the doctrine of election: “you do not believe because you are not of My sheep” (v. 26). Being one of Christ’s sheep is a prerequisite to believing in Christ, not the other way around. Who the sheep are is also already certain to the Father, not because He foresaw who would believe but because He gave them to the Son before the Son ever came down from heaven. They are certain to the Father because He and the Son together are already holding them securely, unflinchingly, and unfailingly. Thus, when Christ came on His mission to make atonement and accomplish redemption, He came specifically for those whom the Father had given Him in eternity past. The definiteness of the atonement spells the security of the believer.

b)   John 15

John 15 – ¹² “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. ¹⁴ You are My friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵ No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶ You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit….”

It is, again, impossible to avoid unconditional election in this text, if you and I today are at all analogous to Jesus’ disciples during His earthly ministry. In the same way, it is impossible to avoid the particularness and definiteness of the atonement, again, if we are at all analogous to Jesus’ disciples at that time. The point of the text isn’t that Jesus laid down His life for all people, including those who befriended Him and those who didn’t. Rather, the point is that Jesus chose those whom He would make His friends, and then He laid down His life for them. In fact, if Jesus laid down His life in the same way for all people, in a universal or general or potential atonement, then these words and indeed the whole supper discourse in which they spoken cannot demonstrate the greatness of Jesus’ love for His friends. Yet, as it stands, Jesus was telling His disciples at this supper, as He loved them “to the end” (13:1): “No one has ever loved you greater than I do” (15:13).

If you are one of Jesus’ disciples, then Jesus counted you His friend. He counted you His sheep, and He laid down His life knowingly for you. Jesus really, really loves you. You weren’t a number or an impersonal mass of humanity. You by name, were in His mind and on His heart as a friend, when He left His throne, when He added a human nature to His divine nature, and when He went to the cross. He went on purpose for you. In the infinite mind of the Son of God, omnipotent as the Father and Spirit, He could think of you and me all at once, and He did.

c)    John 17

The next episode is known as Jesus’ “high priestly prayer” in the garden of Gethsemane, on the eve of His crucifixion.

John 17 – ⁶ “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. … ⁹ 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….”

What does Jesus ask? He asks that the Father would:

• To keep them in His name (v. 11)
• To preserve them from the evil one (v. 15)
• To sanctify them in the truth (v. 17)
• To take them up to His glory with Jesus (v. 24)

He specifies again whom He has in mind in v. 20:

John 17:20 – “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word…”

Jesus prayed for you and me—but not for the world. He doesn’t ask the Father to save as many as possible by His impending death. He doesn’t ask the Father to convert more from the world to become His friends. He doesn’t ask the Father to give Him more sheep for the flock. All of that is already settled in Jesus’ awareness, so that in this prayer, Jesus unreservedly prays for His disciples, for those whom He knows will believe because of the disciples’ word in the future, and not for those whom He knows will not believe. J. I. Packer asks: “Is it conceivable that he would decline to pray for any whom he intended to die for?”[24] And he asks this especially given that Jesus prays this on the eve of His crucifixion? It seems to me to be impossible.

Now, there are many more texts in John’s writings, and John is often used to support a general view of the atonement. Yet, the consistent picture of the atonement we get through these chapters in the Gospel of John is definite—and definite in the most encouraging, comforting, confidence-building way for the believer. One more text will help us see this.

d)   Romans 8

Rom 8 – ²⁹ Because those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers; ³⁰ and those whom He predestined, He also called; and those whom He called, He also justified; and those whom He justified, He also glorified. ³¹ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? ³² He who indeed did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? ³³ Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; ³⁴ who is the one who condemns?

Two arguments from this text are relevant. First, in v. 32 Paul argues from the greater to the lesser. He says that so high is the Father’s value of the Son, that if He “did not spare His own Son” for a person, there is nothing imaginable He could withhold. What more could He possibly give to a sinner? He would never deliver over His Son for you, only to withhold adoption. He would never permit the righteous one to die for you, only to deny you justification. He would never give to die the one who is called “the radiance of His glory” for you, only to withhold glorification from you. That is the logic of Paul’s argument: “How will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?”

Notice the word “all,” and let us make sure we understand it contextually. “All things” must mean at a minimum predestination, adoption, calling, justification, and glorification, which are all the things mentioned in vv. 29–30. Though, in addition, it must mean every other benefit that Scripture ties to the death of Christ, barring none whatsoever. None of it could be more precious to God than Christ.

The fact that He gave us Christ should overwhelm with comfort. The general view of the atonement, however, I think inadvertently puts too low a value on Christ’s blood, as if Christ could be delivered over by the Father, exposed to all His humiliation and suffering and shame, without securing justification for those for whom He died. I want to value Christ, the way the Father values Christ. That is one reason why I am a particularist.

The second argument I think we can take from these verses begins with the fact that “delivered Him over for us all” is simply a long phrase for “justified.” You can see this in Paul’s alternation of terms: “justified” in v. 30, “delivered Him over for us all” in v. 32, back to “justified” in v. 33. Of course, every evangelical understands that “justification” means being declared righteous on the basis of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection in our place. If, then, Christ’s being “delivered over” for a person means that they are justified, there could be no room for discrepancy between the extent or scope of any step in the order of salvation described here. There is no possibility for a broken link in this “golden chain.”

The best biblical illustration is the Lamb’s book of life. You could liken it to a roll call, like the old gospel song “When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder.” Or liken it to those family tree books, kind of like a photo album. Those names written in the Lamb’s book of life, Jesus promises to “never erase” (Rev 3:5). It’s like His inventory (as if God needed an inventory). The list of those whom God predestined is the very same list for those whom He effectually called. That list, in turn, is the same for those whom God justified. That list is the same for those for whom God delivered over His Son. And that list is necessarily the same for those whom God has already decreed to glorify in eternity. The names of those included are a one-for-one equivalence at every step, because it’s the same book of life that stands behind each of these works of God in Christ. If Jesus was “delivered over” for you, He cannot fail to justify and glorify you.

I hope you can see that the payoff of all this is like what God promises to Israel in Isaiah:

But now, thus says Yahweh, your Creator, O Jacob,       
              And He who formed you, O Israel,       
              “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
              I have called you by name; you are Mine!” (Isa 43:1)

I do not believe that the church has replaced Israel. Yet, inasmuch as I am a Gentile grafted into the tree of the Abrahamic covenant (Rom 11:17ff.), inasmuch as I’m told repeatedly in the NT that Jesus redeemed me, I share in the assurance attached to this promise (2 Cor 1:19; Gal 3:6–9; cf. Rom 15:27). I rest in the doctrine of particular redemption, that my God loves me this way. I am His.

E. Implications and Objections

1. What about the passages that say Christ died for “all” or for “the world”?

I will just summarize my answers now, since Ken will do a final week of taking on the Scriptures used to support the Arminian view. As a test case, I’ll use 1 John 2:2, since it is the one most often cited by those of the general atonement view.

1 John 2 – ¹ My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; ² and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

The knee-jerk reaction might be to say, “World means world,” as if it were self-evident that the word here means “all, without exception.” But the words “all” and “world” are also frequently used in the NT to mean “all, without distinction.” Wholistic words are used the same way in many languages. For example, in English, if I “shush” you and say anxiously, “Do you want the whole world to know?!” you understand that I don’t mean “whole world” without exception but only without distinction. I’m stopping you from broadcasting something I don’t want to be public knowledge. Well, the words “all” and “whole” are used in the same way in the Bible, and they’re used that way in John’s books took (John 4:29, 42; 11:48; 12:19; 16:13; 18:20; 1 John 5:19; Rev 12:9). In fact, a parallel verse in John 11 makes this the likely understanding of 1 John 2:2 already:

John 11 – ⁵¹ [Caiaphas] prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, ⁵² and not for the nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.

The parallels are three: (a) “not for [this] only, but also [the other thing]” in both texts, (b) “world” in 1 John is paralleled to “the children of God who are scattered abroad” in John 11, and (c) “propitiation” in 1 John with “die for the nation” (John).[25]

1 John 2: and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

John 11: Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.

With such parallels, one could easily see 1 John as reminding readers that the good news is for all nations. After all, the Gospel and the letter have different purposes. The Gospel is written for a broad audience, intended to be circulated as broadly as possible. The letter was written for a congregation or possibly a group of congregations, over which John had apostolic authority. According to church tradition, late in John’s life he became elder of the church at Ephesus and exercised this apostolic oversight over the churches in that vicinity.[26] Thus, the “we” and “ours” in 1 John 2 refers to that audience, and the apostle reminds his beloved churches that Christ’s mission was not for them only but for anyone anywhere in the world who would ever believe.

But what is decisive for me is the word “propitiation.” The reality is, Christ is not the propitiation for the sins of the whole world without exception. Some go to the grave abiding under God’s wrath. He is, however, a propitiation for the sins of the world without distinction, meaning persons “from every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Rev 5:9). Isn’t He?

2. Does this mean Christ’s death was not sufficient for all?

Many who see themselves as “four-point” Calvinists say as the grounds for leaving off limited atonement that Christ’s death was sufficient for all but efficient only for the elect. I also held this opinion once. In reality, this is what “five-point” Calvinists believe.[27] The question of sufficiency is answered well by Gary Williams: “Christ’s suffering was… as valuable as his divine nature: infinitely valuable. Being infinitely valuable, it was unquantifiably valuable.”[28]

Let me illustrate with a song: “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood.” It’s a wonderful song, with a high view of God’s sovereignty. But verse 2 can be misleading:

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood 
              Shall never lose its power           
‘Til all the ransomed church of God     
              Be saved to sin no more.

One might get the sense that, to use a mundane expression, there is only so much blood of Jesus “to go ‘round.”[29] It sounds as if the blood were a relic or talisman or a magical substance. For, if the blood’s power is just enough to save the elect, until the last convert, then it is not sufficient to save the non-elect too. But why should we say Christ’s blood loses its power ever? I am saved for all eternity by that blood. Christ, we just read, entered the heavenly places with His blood “having obtained eternal redemption” (Heb 9:12).

We are speaking of the infinite Son of God as our Savior, and so, the power of His atonement is eternal just as the value of His life is infinite. My sins, though committed in one lifetime, offend an infinitely holy God and thereby merit eternal hell. Yet that sentence of hell can be exhausted by Christ in just three hours on the cross. In the same way, Christ’s death would be sufficient, as Roger Nicole puts it, for all the wrath toward all the sin of all the sinners in this world and infinitely more worlds were they to exist.[30] Jesus’s blood can never lose its power for you and me. It is unlimited in sufficiency. The doctrine of “limited atonement” does not limit sufficiency; it only sees a limit—or rather, a particularness—in the intent and application of Christ’s death. It is not a limit of “what” but of the “who” in the redemptive transaction.

In reality, the general atonement view sets limits too, just of another sort. John Murray writes,

If we universalize the extent [of the atonement] we limit the efficacy. If some of those for whom atonement was made and redemption wrought perish eternally, then the atonement is not itself efficacious. It is this alternative that the proponents of universal atonement must face. They have a “limited” atonement and limited in respect of that which impinges upon its essential character.[31]

Likewise, Packer boils the available options we have to interpret the atonement.[32] The atonement must be one of three kinds:

• Unlimited efficacy but limited extent (Reformed particularism)
• Unlimited extent but limited efficacy (hypothetical universalism)
• Unlimited efficacy and unlimited extent (actual universalism)

God forbid that we should limit the atonement’s efficacy or sufficiency. Yet that is what the Arminian position unwittingly does. We must, then, understand redemption to be particular, remembering that it is not about who is excluded but about how it is effective.

3. Is God’s offer of salvation genuine?

Robert Lightner identifies himself as a “moderate Calvinist,” which is to say a four-point Calvinist. In his book defending the unlimited atonement view, he writes the following:

This subject is of paramount importance to the ambassador for Christ. Unless Christ died for all men, the message of God’s love and Christ’s death must be given with tongue in cheek and with some reservation, because some may hear who are really not to be numbered among those whom God loved and for whom Christ died. Consistency and honesty would demand that the one who believes in limited atonement refrain from proclaiming God’s universal offer of the good news of God’s love and grace in Christ to all men indiscriminately, since in that view God did not extend grace to all nor did Christ die for all. Therefore, to tell all men that these things are true and that salvation is available for them is to speak that which is not true if the limited view be accepted.[33]

These are serious claims, and a bit uncharitable. After all, the modern missions movement began with a few sincere Calvinists![34] Are Calvinists being consistent only if they stop evangelizing? Or are they being disingenuous if they do proclaim the gospel freely to those around them? Up to the very last words of Scripture, God the evangelist is inviting sinners to take Him up on the gospel.

Rev 22:17 – And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who wishes receive the water of life without cost.

Is it a true offer? —Yes, 100% true. Jesus said,

John 3:16 – “Whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.”

John 6:37 – “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will never cast out.”

What a promise to us who believe, that Jesus will not cast me out. Scripture is filled with many more; that He will not lose me (John 17), that He will not be ashamed to call me brother (Heb 2:11), that He will never leave me nor forsake me (Heb 13:5). I can be sure of all of this, because I know that Christ intended to save me. I was not accidental to the design.

But one might ask, “How can God mean the offer, if He knows that men cannot come unless He draws them (per John 6:44)? How can ‘many be called’—genuinely called—if only ‘few are chosen’ (Matt 22:14)?” These are texts that more immediately speak to unconditional election, but as we have seen, unconditional election and definite atonement are intertwined. The question over the sincerity of the gospel offer is the same for both points. Thus, the four-point Calvinist has to answer too.[35] Regardless, these are Jesus’s own words in Scripture, not any Calvinist’s construal of them. How can both His election and His offer be in harmony? I would answer in several ways.

1. First, God is simply pleased to save by the preaching of the gospel.

“Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” (Rom 10:17)

Because the word of Christ, the general call, goes out to all without distinction, it is additional proof that God’s election is not made on the basis of merit or anything in the believer. None of us could have known whether we were elect before we heard. Nor can any of us know now whether our neighbor is elect before we proclaim. It is not for us to “unriddle providence.”[36] Therefore, the Calvinist evangelizes freely not only because he is commanded to by Christ and wants to please Him, but because the Calvinist is assured that, though he knows not who, Christ has elected to save still others. Christ has His sheep in other folds (John 10:16), and they must be found out by telling them the gospel.

It’s a famous illustration attributed to Spurgeon that over the gates of heaven is a sign: “Whosoever will may come.” Then, after you enter, you look back, and from the other side the sign reads: “Chosen from before the foundation of the earth.” God is pleased to save by this open invitation. The fact that He must make you willing to accept it is not a strike against His generosity but only shows Him all the more generous. That Jesus invited me to have eternal life, and I refused Him again and again and again, until He gave me life and made me willing to come? I can only say, “Jesus, thank you!”

2. I think it is again hinting that election and reprobation are unequal.

As Jesus was approaching Jerusalem in the triumphal entry, recall that He stopped the parade to weep over the city (Luke 19:41–44). Later that week in the temple courts, He said,

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you did not want it.” (Matt 23:37)

God doesn’t delight in the death of the wicked (Ezek 18:32; 33:11).

3. In the final analysis, we must rest.

The Puritans used to say, that “Jesus Christ is more willing to save sinners than sinners are to be saved by Him.”[37] Praise be to God. Because He is more willing, I am saved. The remainder we humbly, gratefully, worshipfully leave with Him.

Endnotes

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[1] Olson, Arminian Theology, 38.

[2] Olson mischaracterizes what the Canons of Dort meant by regenerating grace bending the will “sweetly and powerfully” (3.16). They expressly meant that God makes a dead sinner alive, and by virtue of that new life, has made the sinner willing to believe. In the words of Packer (“Introductory Essay,” 8), “Grace proves irresistible just because it destroys the disposition to resist.”

[3] Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity (1692; repr., Banner of Truth, 1983), 125.

[4] Naselli, Predestination, 16.

[5] Roger Nicole, Our Sovereign Saviour (Christian Focus, 2002), 60.

[6] Ibid., 51.

[7] Gary J. Williams, “Punishment God Cannot Twice Inflict: The Double Payment Argument Redivivus,” in From Heaven He Came and Sought Her: Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective, ed. David Gibson & Jonathan Gibson (Crossway, 2013), 486, 515.

[8] Cf. “Atonement,” Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 3^rd ed. (Baker, 2017), 98–100.

[9] Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach, Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution (Crossway, 2007), 208–10; cf. John MacArthur and Richard Mayhue, Biblical Doctrine: A Systematic Summary of Bible Truth (Crossway, 2017), 516–39, especially 538–39.

[10] I. Howard Marshall, “The Theology of the Atonement,” in The Atonement Debate: Papers from the London Symposium on the Theology of the Atonement, ed. Derek Tidball, David Hilborn, and Justin Thacker (Zondervan, 2008), 61.

[11] John D. Meade and Peter J. Gurry, Scribes & Scripture: The Amazing Story of How We Got the Bible (Crossway, 2022), 194.

[12] “Atonement,” Lexham Bible Dictionary (Lexham, 2016), n.p.

[13] “Atone,” Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Zondervan, 2006), 44–45.

[14] Andrew David Naselli, Romans: A Concise Guide to the Greatest Letter Ever Written (Crossway, 2022), 56.

[15] Ibid., 55.

[16] Idem., Tracing the Argument of Romans: A Phrase Diagram of the Greatest Letter Ever Written (Andrew David Naselli, 2022), 17.

[17] A. W. Pink, The Satisfaction of Christ (Sovereign Grace, 2001), 262.

[18] “Redeem, Redemption,” Mounce, 566–67; “Redemption, Ransom, Deliverance, Release, Salvation,” NIDNTTE, 1:67.

[19] Exagorazō (agorázō).

[20] Lytroō (lyō,cf. exaireō).

[21] “lýō,” F. Büschel, TDNTA, s.v.; “agorázō,” idem., ibid., s.v.; “Redemption,” LBD, s.v.

[22] “lýō,” F. Büschel, TDNTA, under “lýtron” A.2.

[23] John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (1955; repr., Eerdmans, 2015), 61.

[24] Packer, Concise Theology, 154.

[25] Matthew S. Harmon, “For the Glory of the Father and the Salvation of His People: Definite Atonement in the Synoptics and Johannine Literature,” in From Heaven He Came and Sought Her: Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective, ed. David Gibson & Jonathan Gibson (Crossway, 2013), 285.

[26] Andreas J. Köstenberger, L. Scott Kellum, and Charles L. Quarles, The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown: An Introduction to the New Testament, 2^nd ed. (B&H Academic, 2009), 905 D. A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, An Introduction to the New Testament, 2^nd ed. (Zondervan, 2005), 677.

[27] This was even included in the language of the Counter-Remonstrants, in their 1611 response to the Remonstrance. “Although the suffering of Christ as that of the only-begotten and unique Son of God is sufficient unto the atonement of the sins of all men, nevertheless the same, according to the counsel and decree of God has its efficacy unto reconciliation and forgiveness of sins only in the elect and true believer” (Peter Y. De Jong, Crisis in the Reformed Churches: Essays in Commemoration of the Great Synod of Dort [Reformed Fellowship, 1968], 247–50; cited in Lee Gatiss, “The Synod of Dort and Definite Atonement,” in From Heaven He Came and Sought Her: Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective, ed. David Gibson and Jonathan Gibson [Crossway, 2013], 146). Academic treatments from four-point Calvinists also acknowledge this. E.g., Robert P. Lightner, The Death Christ Died: A Biblical Case for Unlimited Atonement (Kregel Publications, 1998), 43.

[28] Williams, “Punishment,” 499.

[29] Williams (ibid.) writes: “The metaphor of payment cannot be taken to imply that the penal substitutionary suffering of Christ was measurable into discrete parcels of defined and limited value, assignable as portions to the different persons for whom he died.”

[30] Nicole, Our Sovereign Saviour, 58.

[31] Murray, Redemption Accomplished, 63.

[32] Packer, Concise Theology, 154.

[33] Lightner, The Death Christ Died, 15.

[34] Calvinists William Carey and Andrew Fuller are well known to have co-founded with a few others the Baptist Missionary Society in 1792. It was this organization which kick-started the “Great Century” and the modern missions movement.

[35] Lightner does not seem to recognize the irony in the fact that the “moderate Calvinist” (four-point adherent) also knows that God’s election means that an unbeliever cannot respond to the gospel in faith unless God has elected the unbeliever and effectually calls him or her. Thereby, the accusation that a “strict Calvinist” (five-point adherent) can only evangelize tongue-in-cheek would seem to extend to the four-pointer just as much. Lightner’s conviction (The Death Christ Died, 46) that a general or provisional atonement “exists as a basis of condemnation” (in addition to original sin) does not answer the question that he himself raises as to whether the general call is inherently truthful.

[36] Watson, A Body of Divinity, 125.

[37] William Bridge, “Evangelical Repentance,” Works (1845; Banner of Truth, 2022), 4:434–35.