Limited Atonement
Tom Shrader examines the doctrine of limited atonement, arguing that when Christ died on the cross, He actually accomplished salvation for God's chosen people rather than simply making it possible for everyone. He explains that every Christian believes in limited atonement - the question is whether God or man does the limiting. Using passages like John 10:15 and Matthew 1:21, he demonstrates that Christ's death was definite in design and accomplishment, satisfying God's wrath toward His people specifically.
“When Christ died on the cross, he didn't make salvation possible, he actually secured the salvation of those that the Father had chosen before the foundations of the earth.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: God's Plan for Salvation (EVBC) (2002)
Recorded: July 14, 2002
Duration: 1 hr 19 min
Themes: salvation, grace, atonement, cross, redemption, calvinism, doctrine, sovereignty, new believer, questioning salvation, struggling with assurance, pastor, theology student, doubting faith, seeking understanding, young adult
Scripture: John 10:11-15, Matthew 1:18-21, Romans 3:23-25, John 3:16, 1 Timothy 2:6, Hebrews 2:9, John 12:19, 1 John 4:14, John 4:39-42, Mark 1:5, 1 John 2:2, Acts 20:28, John 6:35-37, John 17:9, Romans 5:8-9, Genesis 3:15
Theological Themes: limited atonement, definite atonement, calvinism, reformed theology, soteriology, salvation doctrine, biblical authority, particular redemption
Full Transcript
We continue today in our study titled God's Plan for Salvation, subtitled Understanding the Five Points of Calvinism. What we're looking at here is how you became a Christian, not from your perspective, but from God's perspective. I know your story. Somebody shared the gospel with you, you prayed a prayer, and at that moment you came into the kingdom of God, and that is true. What we want, though, is not your version of what happened and why, we want God's version of what happened and why. So we go to the scripture for that.
Here are the ground rules for this series. Number one, the Bible is our final authority. Now, you and I have lots of opinions as it relates to this topic, and while they may be interesting and fascinating, what we're really concerned about is what does the Bible say? I want to thank you for how patient you've been in logically proceeding through this. If ever there was a topic that lends itself to rabbit trails, this is it. It's very easy to start here, and we're headed toward Yuma, and the next thing we know we're in Albuquerque. We get distracted very easily. You've been very patient, and I appreciate that, and I think we as a church, you as individuals, reap the benefits of that patience.
The Five Points of Calvinism
I said we're looking at the five points of Calvinism. Here they are again. We believe these, and we cling to these, not because they're from John Calvin, but because they flow from scripture. If Calvin invented them, or Luther invented them, or Edwards, or Augustine, or any human invented these, we would have to take them and test them against scripture, and indeed that's what we do. We discover that these truths flow from the scripture.
Rather than just some idle academic exercise, they have a profound effect on the way you live, and I live, right down to every aspect of our life, because what happens is God is getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and you and I are getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller. People are continually saying, "Boy, I bet you're getting a lot of negative email," and we get that all the time. That's not a new deal. Let me tell you what I'm getting in this series. I'm getting a lot of real positive reinforcement. Virtually every time I come on campus, and there's a group gathered here, somebody will take me aside and say thanks for this. At the golf tournament yesterday morning, the very first hole I went to, a guy pulled me aside and said thank you for this series. This has just taken me, it's forced me to get into the scripture. It's forced me to understand why I believe what I believe. It's forced me to talk about this with my wife and my kids, because they have questions. We're talking to our relatives. Our praise and our worship is more vibrant. It's deeper.
That's what's happening here. It's not an academic, idle discussion about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. This has serious practical ramifications. That's why we study it.
God's Harmonious Plan
As we look at them, we're really focusing last week, next week, and this week on those middle three. This is what really talks about what God does. God is the one who elects. God the Father, the Son pays the price, the Atonement, and God the Spirit comes and applies this to us. We see great harmony. The Trinity works in harmony in this area of salvation.
We began with a really simple three-word sentence: God saves sinners. Then we tried to define that. We said God speaks of the triune God. He saves us. That is, He does everything from beginning to end to bring us to glory. He saves people who are lost and helpless and hopeless and absolutely unable to do His will.
If we focus it really close, what we talk about is the triune God's orchestrated, predetermined plan by how He would save His people. Before the foundations of the earth, God chooses. The Father chooses those that will be saved. Jesus Christ goes to the cross, and on the cross, He dies for those who were chosen by the Father. The Holy Spirit comes at the appointed time, and in each of those people's lives, He applies this truth in their life. Here's what I want you to see: it is a harmonious, preconceived, predetermined plan.
If you go all the way back to Genesis chapter 3, verse 15, when God is speaking to Satan, and He's dealing with now the ramifications of the fall, He says, "I will put enmity between your seed and her seed." We nowhere else in scripture see that reference to her seed or the woman's seed. It's never referred to that way. As we look at lineage in the Bible, we see from Abraham, from David, the son of Joseph. This is a beautiful picture in Genesis 3:15, a beautiful picture of the prophetic utterance of the coming virgin birth. It's all part of God's plan. God elects, God redeems, God regenerates.
Limited Atonement - The Most Difficult Point
Well, today we look at the L in TULIP. We look at this idea of limited atonement. Let me deal with some of these. Most Christians would say amen to the T and the P. They'd say, "Yep, man's lost, man's dead in his sins and trespasses, no question about it. Once you're saved, you're always saved." They would struggle with the U and the I, not because it isn't there, not because the Bible doesn't teach it, but just because it runs so contrary to what seems appropriate and fair and all those human instincts that we have. But ultimately, many people will embrace the U and the I.
But when we get to the L, we're sucking some serious gas here. That's where it starts to crumble. That's why many of you, if you have processed this stuff, and believe me, I'm not naive. I know that we're sending ripples all the way through this body. I know when you walk out of there, sometimes you're so frustrated, and you're talking to your friends, and as you talk to them, they're saying, "Oh, well, I understand. I am," here's what they'll say to you, "a four-point Calvinist." What they mean is, we'll embrace everything except limited atonement. Limited atonement on that, they'll
We're going to struggle. And so we want to spend a specific amount of time and energy to make certain we understand what we're saying when we say limited atonement. And I think when it's defined, we'll embrace it.
There's some other terms we could use. We could use limited atonement, we could use definite atonement, or particular redemption, and that might be the best of them, particular redemption. But that messes up the TULIP thing. TUPIP. Doesn't work then. So particular redemption might be the best of those.
What Limited Atonement Actually Means
The idea here is not that, and really important, we're not in any way trying to limit God. We, as humans, put no limit on God. What we're saying is God limits Himself in the sense that Christ dies on the cross for a specific group of people. The atonement, the redemption, is particular in the sense that Christ died to save His people from their sin.
Here's some of the questions we're going to look at today. For whom did Christ die? What did Jesus accomplish by His death? Really, the last two get into, was the death real and actual and beneficial, or was it just potential in its value? Did Jesus die for anyone at all? Those are questions that we're going to look at.
The Significance of Christ's Atonement
We're looking at the atonement itself. That's why I want you to see this is so serious. We're not just talking about the physical act that took place on the cross. What we're talking about is what happened on the cross in terms of Christ's sacrifice. Did Jesus Christ die merely to make salvation possible, or did He die and indeed accomplish what the angel had told Joseph, that you should name Him Jesus and save His people from their sins? That's what He'll do.
If you ask most people today, most Christians today, you go to most churches today, grab a hundred people and say, for whom did Christ die? They would say, well, of course, He died for the world. Isn't that what John the Baptist said? Behold the Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world. Jesus died for the whole world.
Christ Died for His Chosen People
I believe, and then we're going to expand this in a minute, to say we believe that the Bible teaches that Christ died not for every person that ever lived. That when Christ died on the cross, He didn't shed His blood for every man, every woman, every boy, every girl, whoever had lived, is living, or will live. But when Christ died on the cross, He shed His blood for a specific group of people, those that had been chosen before the foundations of the earth by God the Father. It gets into exactly what we said before.
Did Christ actually save anyone? If you want to cling to the view that when Jesus Christ died on the cross, He died for everybody, He paid the price for the sin of every man, woman, boy, or girl that ever lived, if you want to cling to that, then let me tell you what in reality you've done is not said that He died for everyone, you're saying He didn't die for anybody. That's what you're saying at that point. Because in that scenario, His death on the cross saves nobody at all. So that's what we want to look at.
What Jesus Accomplished for His People
Here's what we believe. We believe the Bible teaches that Jesus Christ died for the sin of His people. We believe that Jesus' death satisfied God's wrath toward His people. That Jesus reconciled His people with the Father.
Most of the time when somebody prays and you're in a group, they'll begin with this. Father. Well, not the whole world can call Him Father. Only His people chose before the foundation of the earth. Christ dies for their sin. The Holy Spirit now applies that to your heart. Now you are His. You're redeemed from the bondage of sin. You no longer enslaved to sin. You now have the ability to do right, to do good. And all of this sin that you will ever commit is covered by the blood of Christ.
I don't know about you, but when I became a Christian and now, I feel as though I'm sinning more in some ways than I ever did. How can that be? Because now we see how despicable our sin is. We start to see sin as God sees it. And when we see that, it breaks our heart. And if it were not for the fact that we understand that Christ paid for the price of our sin, we could easily lapse into depression and be filled with despair. But we know this is true.
A Key Point About Limited Atonement
Last night and Saturday night, we probably have, I don't know, 250 students in here, junior high school students. And I was wondering if they were going to track all the way through with us. And I know from spending time with them, they're going to be there all the way along. It was just marvelous. But here's what I understood. We're just throwing a ton of information at you. We're throwing so much stuff at you so fast today. So a couple of things to remember. Anything that's on the screen is also on the website. So as you're writing furiously, just be making notes that will supplement what you'll see when you go to the website. You can download all of these things.
Secondly, there are going to be three or four times today where I'm going to say, okay, key point, you got to get it. This next one is a key point, and you got to get it. Every Christian believes in limited atonement. They either believe God limits it, or man limits it. There are very few Christians that I know who believe that all people go to heaven. And those that do, we'd quickly take them to the scriptures and say, I'm sorry, you're wrong. I would say virtually 99.9% of Bible-believing Christians do not believe that hell is empty. They believe people are there. Therefore, everybody believes that the atonement is limited.
The Difference in How Atonement Is Limited
Here's the difference. We believe God puts the restrictions on it. The Arminian believes man restricts it. We believe that when Jesus Christ said, it is finished, He meant the sin for all of the people that are God's people that would ever live were paid for at that moment. Boom. The propitiation, the satisfaction was made for our sin. The Arminian would say, and I don't mean this in a flip way, he'd be better off if Jesus said, I've done my part. Didn't really finish anything. Now it's all
up to you. He said, do you see this? This is a key point. Every Christian believes the atonement is limited. We say God limits it, God directs it, God puts the boundaries on it. The Arminian says no man does that. Jesus died on the cross for everybody, and then man's going to determine whether that was a work of God or not.
Do you see how subtle it is? Do you see how man gets bigger and bigger and bigger? And then you look around at the church and you're trying to figure out what's wrong with Christians. Here's what's wrong with Christians. Their God has shrunk and man is bigger. That's why when that guy yesterday got ahold of me and said, my worship is deeper, it's more vibrant. My study time is more vibrant. Why? God gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
The Definite Design of Christ's Work
So let's take a look at it. Steele and Thomas, that little book on the five points of Calvinism, if you're with us today, maybe you're with us for the first time or you've been here a couple times but never picked up the book, grab a couple of those books out there. The five points of Calvinism, a little thin primer on it, about seven bucks by Steele and Thomas, really a helpful book. And then James Boyce's book, The Doctrines of Grace.
Here's what Steele and Thomas say. Grace-redeeming work was definite in design and accomplishment. I'm not going to ask you to turn there. I've already made reference to it. But let me just read to you the account of Jesus' conception and birth. We'll do this again at Christmas. We do it every year. But let me just remind you of this.
And this is from Matthew's Gospel, Matthew chapter 1, verse 18. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. When His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. Here's the situation. Mary and Joseph are engaged. Mary is now pregnant, and they've never been together physically. She's pregnant by the Holy Spirit.
Joseph finds out, verse 19, and Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man, did not want to disgrace her, but desired to put her away secretly. In other words, he's going to break this engagement. It required, in that culture, a decree of divorce, separation. And Joseph is going to do this very quietly, because he knows the embarrassment that comes with this. Joseph is going, hey, listen, I'm a sophisticated guy. I had biology. I'm understanding. It wasn't with me, so she had to be with some other guy.
Verse 20, and when he'd considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins. See, this was the design and the intent from the beginning.
God's Sovereign Purpose in Redemption
In God's predetermined plan, it was God who put a boundary on the effectiveness of the atonement, not at all the value of it. We'll see that in a minute. So God's design, God's purpose was that, in fact, the sin of all of His people would be paid for. That was all for whom Christ sacrificed Himself would be saved. Redemption, therefore, was designed to bring to pass God's purpose for election.
There's no human being dictating to God. There's no human being that's going to limit God. His sovereign plan will be done. Christ's obedience and suffering were of infinite value, and if God had so willed, the satisfaction rendered by Christ would have saved every member of the human race.
We are not in any way limiting the value of what Christ did. You see that? This was the perfect sacrifice. If for sake of illustration, we said, God's going to save this amount of people. If God wanted to save another million people, He did not need one more drop of Christ's blood. It was of infinite value, the shedding of that blood. It was the perfect sacrifice. If God had wanted to, He would have had enough satisfaction there to pay for the sin of every person that have ever lived.
But Christ came into the world to represent and to save only those given Him by the Father. See that? That's what John writes in John chapter 6 verse 35, Jesus said, I'm the bread of life. He who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. But I say to you that you have seen me, and yet you do not believe, know this, all that the Father gives me shall come to me, and the one who comes to me I will not cast out. None are lost in this process.
The Logic of Limited Atonement
So we say it to you one more time. Every Christian believes in limited atonement. The issue is, who does the restricting? Again, we say to you, the Bible teaches that God restricts not the value, but the efficacy of that atonement. That atonement applies only to His people.
If it didn't, if in fact Jesus Christ died for the sin of every man, every woman, every boy, every girl ever born, if Jesus Christ paid the price for their sin, then the judge of God would demand that every person went to heaven, wouldn't it? If that's paid for, then God in His righteousness and justice must accept that, and every person would be in heaven. We come back to that point. Is every person in heaven? No. No. Not at all.
Understanding Redemption and Propitiation
Here you go. Romans chapter 3, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through redemption. That's in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood. Those two terms are important, redemption and propitiation.
Redemption means to loosen, to buy back in a sense. If you have something and you take it to a pawn shop and you hawk it, get a little ticket, you come back with your money, you redeem it, you buy it out of hawk. When I was a kid, my mom used to collect S&H green stamps, remember those? And they would come in these big, should be a sheet like this. The worst day of the week was when mom would go shopping and bring those stamps home because she wanted them licked and put in
that book that day. She'd come with just huge sheets of them. Usually the burden would fall on the oldest of the boys to lick them and get them in those books. They tasted just awful. I don't know if you're old enough to remember—they just were awful. It had to be the glue that George Costanza's fiancé had. That's all I could think of. That just awful glue in there.
Then somebody came up with a great idea. Somebody came up with the idea where you had one big stamp and that represented a page. That was good. What you'd do is the S&H Green Stamp Company would give you a book and then you'd look through this book. There'd be all sorts of appliances and different things. So let's say there'd be a toaster there, and they'd say, "For five books you can go and you can get this toaster." So mom wants the toaster. She'd wait until she had five books of green stamps. Then she would go to the S&H Green Stamp Redemption Center. She would buy out of bondage that Sunbeam toaster.
Understanding Redemption and Propitiation
Most of us are familiar with the word redeem, and we've got it. The idea is "the wage of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus." We've been redeemed.
The word that we're not too familiar with is propitiation. There's another one of those star asterisk points for the day. You have to get this word down. It's a pretty simple word to understand. It means to satisfy or satisfaction. In this case, it's quenching God's wrath.
For some, although not many who would call East Valley Bible Church home, they're struggling just with the idea of God's wrath. You live in a culture that just wants to talk about the love of God. "God is love, love, love, love, love." That's all we hear. "God's love, love, love, love, love."
The Fullness of God's Character
Here's what I want you to see. Is God a God of love? This isn't a trick question. Is God a God of love? Sure He is. But He's also a God of justice and mercy. If all you talk about is God's love, while you may not be talking about something that is not a characteristic of God, you've limited who God is. You've restricted it. All you focused on is love at the expense of all His other attributes.
If you talk about Tom Schrader as a husband, but not as a father or a friend or an enemy or a teacher or whatever it is, while you're accurate in looking at my life as a father, you've limited the scope of my life. If you look at God as just a God of love, you've limited the scope of who God is. He's also a God who's justice.
In fact, here's what I'd say to you. Because God is a God of love, He must be a God of hate. If He loves righteousness, He has to hate evil. He has to. He will. God is angry. God will judge sin. The wrath of God will be poured out on sinners.
God Judges Sinners, Not Just Sin
This is so important, because we hear this all the time. "Love the sinner, hate the sin." I'm with you, put me down for yes. The problem is this—really important. God doesn't send sins to hell, He sends sinners. He doesn't send adultery to hell, He sends adulterers. He doesn't send stealing to hell, He sends thieves. See that? The wrath of God will be poured out on man. Propitiation means to satisfy that wrath. That wrath is quenched once and for all. Really, really a key word.
The Triangle of Redemption
Here's this graphic. I'll tell you, we go back to this graphic over and over again. When Michelle was working on the PowerPoint yesterday, she said, "I've now taken that graph and it's just in my MacArthur Study Bible. It's really helpful."
From Christ, the Christian receives redemption. From Christ, God the Father receives propitiation. From God the Father, the Christian receives justification. We're declared righteous.
What dawned on me, and you all know that have been around—we've used this triangle for years—what dawned on me today is what we've always said. There's nothing flowing out of the Christian here. He's the recipient. However, and I need to play with this and develop it further, what now comes out of that Christian, because of redemption and justification, is praise and worship and glory and obedience. So don't fail to understand that part of it.
We're looking at really these two things today: redemption and propitiation. From Christ to the Christian, he is redeemed. You're loosened from the bondage of sin, the wage of the sinner's death. You're freed from all of that. The key word for our discussion probably this morning is propitiation. From God the Son to God the Father is propitiation. The wrath of God is satisfied, not in theory, but in reality.
The Reality of Christ's Accomplishment
We know what that word means. It means to satisfy the wrath of God. It's not theoretical, it's actual. So we put this in a form of four questions, but you get the operative word here. Did this really happen or not? Did Christ's death really accomplish atoning for anybody's sin? Did Christ actually satisfy the wrath of God toward anyone? Did He reconcile God with sinners? Did He redeem anyone?
Here's the point. Either Christ's death on the cross accomplished something or it simply made it possible. I believe the Bible teaches that what Christ did on the cross when He said, "It is finished," He meant that He atoned for the sin of His people, that He had satisfied the wrath of God toward the sin of His people, that He had reconciled His people with the Father and that He had redeemed His people.
Scripture Supporting Limited Atonement
Here are just a few verses that seem to support that. Christ gave Himself for us. You'll notice in here the plural personal pronoun—it's referring to the church or to the body of believers. He gave Himself for us to redeem us. God reconciled us. Christ reconciled Himself to us. Christ gave up Himself for the church.
He's trying to admonish husbands here. He said, "How shall you love your wife? Love your wife as Christ loved the church. He gave His life for her." Christ redeemed us from the transgressions.
His people. For that purpose, He was stricken. He saved His people from their sin. He has come down and has redeemed His people.
I want to look at John chapter 10. There are many passages that we could look at, but I think we make the point and then you let it go deeper. Jesus is speaking in John 10:11, 14, and 15. He says, "I am the good shepherd, and the good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know My sheep, and I am known by My sheep. And as the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father, and I lay down My life for the sheep."
Jesus is saying, here's the picture here. I am the good shepherd, I am the perfect shepherd. And I give My life for the sheep. Who are the sheep? Those are the ones that the Father gave Me. All those, and we'll look at this next week, all those that the Father gave Me will come to Me. All those that the Father gave Me will never leave Me. Nobody's going to snatch them out of My hand. But for today, the focus is on verse 15: "I lay down My life for the sheep."
The Specificity of Christ's Sacrifice
Paul writes in Romans 5. Again, that plural personal pronoun, us and we. "But God demonstrated His love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Who? The body of believers, the elect. "Much more than having been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him."
The night before He died, Jesus prayed the Lord's Prayer. It's recorded in John chapter 17. When we talk about the Lord's Prayer, we think of "Our Father who art in heaven." The real Lord's Prayer is in John chapter 17. Jesus is very specific this night before He dies. Here's what He's saying: "I pray for them," as He prays to the Father. "I do not pray for the whole world. I am not praying for everybody in this world. I am praying for those that You've given Me, for they are Yours."
Scripture is filled with verses that say the similar truth that Jesus Christ died for His people. Acts chapter 20, verse 28, Paul saying goodbye, farewell to the elders at Ephesus. He says this: "Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood."
Understanding the Nature of the Atonement
So let me stop right there for a minute. Here's what we're saying. We're saying that Jesus Christ came to this earth, that when He died on this cross, He shed His blood, that that sacrifice was of infinite value. By God's design, it was a price that was paid for a specific group of people who had been chosen before the foundations of the earth by God the Father and who one day would be born again by a work not of their will or their desire, but by a work of God. That's what we're saying.
If that's true, and clearly that's a very powerful case, I would hope, if that's true then, why would the majority of people say Jesus died for the whole world? Well, one of the reasons is that there's Scripture that would seem to indicate that.
I mentioned to you before, John the Baptist says, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." 1 Timothy 2:6, "Christ gave Himself a ransom for all." Hebrews 2:9, "But we do see Him who has been made for a little while lower than the angels, namely Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone."
The Problem of Interpretation
Here's the problem we have. There are quite a few verses that on the surface seem to indicate that Jesus died for all men or died for the world. What we have to do is look at those verses and try to understand what's the author saying. Is the author saying that Jesus died for every person, every place that would ever live?
The problem is really with these two words, "all" and "world," because they are used in a variety of ways in Scripture. The word "world" can speak of heaven and earth, it can speak of just the earth, it can speak of the heavens. The word "world," here you go, John says, "do not love the world." What he's talking about there is the culture, the world system. But oftentimes the word is used to describe a large group of people. It may be a specific group of people, a large group of people, but it doesn't mean every person that's ever lived or ever will live or is living now.
Examples of "World" in Scripture
Just a couple of illustrations. John chapter 12, Jesus has just raised Lazarus from the dead. He has re-entered the city. They've cried "Hosanna, Hosanna." They want to crown Him and make Him king, and the Pharisees therefore say to themselves, "You see that you are accomplishing nothing. Look, the world has gone after Him." Well, are they saying every person who's ever lived? No, they can't. The Pharisees aren't going. But they're saying there's people from all over. There's a whole group of people that have gone after Him.
John uses this word. We're going to come back to it. John uses it here in 1 John 4:14: "And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son into the world as the Savior of the world." Well, does that mean that every person that ever lived will be saved? No. So what's He saying? Come back to it in a minute.
Paul uses the word "world." He said this: "For I think that God has displayed us, the Apostles, last as men condemned to death, for we've been made a spectacle to the world." Does he mean the entire world, everybody that most of the people didn't even know who they were at this point? So the "world" frequently is used to talk about a large group, it may be a specific group, but a large group of people.
Here in a passage in John 4, we see both the word "all" and "world." And we see again that they don't mean "all every time, every place, everybody." It's the story of the woman at the well. "Many of the Samaritans of the city believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, 'He told me all.'" Now do you think Jesus sat down and said, "Okay, when you were two
The Meaning of "World" and "All" in Scripture
Don't we talk like this all the time? We say things like, "When I was five years old, you had a peanut butter sandwich in the morning, and then you took a nap. It was a great deal." Or "All the guys were at the ball game." Do we mean everybody that we know when we say "all the guys"?
Getting to where John uses the word "world," I think verse 42 is really good. "Then they said to the woman, now we believe not because of what you said, for we ourselves have heard Him, and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world." These are the Samaritans saying, "You know what? He's not just the Savior of the Jew, He's the Savior of the Gentile as well."
Frequently when John uses this word, the truth that He's trying to communicate is this: God is bigger than the nation of Israel. In fact, Jesus said, "If I be raised up, I will draw all men to Me." Does He mean all people? In fact, a better translation is, "If I be raised up, I will draw all peoples to Me." People from all over the world.
The Great Commission and God's People
That is a great missions verse. That says that God has people all over this world. Why should we evangelize? If this is true, that would be one of the questions. If this is true, why would we evangelize?
Because God has people all over this world. We don't know who they are, and He's entrusted us the gospel and the privilege to go and to declare that truth all over the world. Every tribe, every tongue, He's got His people all over this world, and we go and we preach this gospel to them.
There are a couple more instances. Here's the word "all" - Mark 1:5, "All of the land." Well, not every person came down, and not every person was baptized.
The Challenge of First John 2:2
We're running late, but let me take a couple extra minutes, because I want to focus on this verse: First John 2:2. Now if you're sitting here and saying, "All right, propitiation died for the elect. What about this verse?" "For Christ made Himself the propitiation for our sins, and not only our sins, but also the sins of the whole world." What do you do with that? Because it seems to say, not just us here, but everybody everywhere.
Well let's see what you're going to do with it before I tell you what I'm going to do with it. If you're trying to say that propitiation means satisfy the wrath of God, and you're trying to say then that the wrath of God was satisfied not only toward us, the elect, but toward everybody in the world, you got a problem. And the problem is this: God is sending people to hell for whom Christ died. That can't possibly be.
Two Interpretations of First John 2:2
I think you got two options on what this verse says, and it's a great example of how you're supposed to study. There's a passage Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes. He says this: "Money is the answer to everything." The Bible says it. You're not going to argue with the Bible, are you? Well, we go, "Wait a minute. You got to put it in context, and you got to weigh it against the balance of Scripture." Scripture never says money is the answer to everything. In fact, if anything, it says it gets in the way of most things.
I think there are two options here to interpret this. One, John, as he does frequently in his Gospel, is saying this: Jesus Christ died for us, the Jew. He satisfied the wrath of God toward us, the believing Jew, but He also came for the Gentile and the rest of the world. That's a huge issue in that early church. As you read about Peter in Acts chapter 10, 11, 12, 13, that's the battle that he has. Now all of a sudden, the message is going out, and the Greek is responding, and those Jewish believers are saying, "How can this be?" Well, because they thought He came just to save them. So that's one reasonable interpretation.
The other one is this: John's writing, and he's dealing with the Gnostics, and the Gnostics were saying, "This salvation is all about us, not about anybody else. It's just us." And he's saying, "No, no, it's not just us. It's for the whole world."
The Certainty of Salvation
Here's what we do know. We do know that that verse, because propitiation means satisfy the wrath of God, we do know this: that verse cannot say that Jesus Christ died, paid the price, and said "It is finished" for the sin of every person that would ever live, because if that were the case, God's justice would not allow Him to condemn anyone to hell.
Summary of Limited Atonement
So here you go, summary. Here's what we believe: Jesus died for His people. He satisfied the wrath of God toward His people. He reconciled His people to the Father. He redeemed us, and He covers our sin. And not only us here in America, right-wing ultra-conservatives, but all around the world, from all the different tribes and tongues all around the world, God has a remnant. God has His people.
When Christ died on the cross, He didn't make salvation possible. He actually secured the salvation of those that the Father had chosen before the foundations of the earth. When we speak of limited atonement, we mean not limited by man. We mean God's choosing to apply the infinite valuable gift of God's salvation through Christ to a specific group of people.
Questions for Next Week
Well, this raises some questions. We'll look at them next week. Can somebody be chosen and not come? We're starting to get this. What about that person who wants to come to Christ, but they're not chosen? Or what about that person for whom Christ died? Will all of them come? What about if they never hear? Or is God calling everybody? We say God's calling people. Is God calling everybody equally?
I would add another one to this. If you're a Christian, forget all this other stuff. You're beyond all this. We're done with that. If you're a Christian, regardless of how you think you got there, if you're a Christian today, is there anything you can do to lose that salvation? And then we'll look at those things next week.
Schedule
Here's the rest of the teaching schedule. Tomorrow night, open forum. If you want to come and talk to us about this, we'll be up in room 200. Next week, we'll talk about Irresistible Grace and the Perseverance of the Saints. There will be an open forum after that. And then on the last weekend in July we will summarize all of these truths.
I know that's a lot of stuff. I know we came up with a lot of things at you. I will just tell you there's a couple of important support things. Those books that are out there are terrific tools that will help you as you navigate your way through this, and then secondly to join us tomorrow night up in room 100. I remind you there'll be a group of guys here who would love to pray with you and meet with you after the service in the front of the worship center.
Let's pray. Father, thank you for your Son Jesus. Thank you for His life. Thank you for His death. Father, thank you for His going to the cross to save His people from their sin. God, as a group of men and women, students who come together, who believe that this is true, God, we thank you. We praise you. Our hearts are filled with joy and thanksgiving and really a desire to tell the whole world about what you are doing in people's lives. God, help us see and understand that truth. We pray that in Christ's name. Amen.
I apologize, but this transcript appears to be in Welsh and consists entirely of repetitive phrases that don't contain any coherent sermon content about "Limited Atonement" or theological material that I can edit into a blog post format.
The text repeatedly states variations of "mae'r dynion yn cael eu gwneud yn yr ystod y pethau y mae'n cael eu gwneud" (roughly "the men are being made during the things that are being made") and ends with "Diolch am wylio'r fideo" ("Thank you for watching the video").
This appears to be either:
1. A transcription error
2. An auto-generated transcript that failed to process the actual sermon audio
3. Not the actual sermon transcript for "God's Plan for Salvation 5 - Limited Atonement Part 8 of 8"
Could you please provide the correct English transcript of Tom's sermon on Limited Atonement?