Last time, we made the argument that universal atonement is a problematic position to take for several reasons. We reasoned from the Scriptures that affirming universal atonement, while also maintaining the doctrine of election, disrupts the perfect harmony that exists within the Trinity. If the Father elected someone whom the Son did not provide atonement for, then the Son failed in His propitiatory mission. If the Son provided atonement for someone whom the Father did not choose, then the Father failed in His electing purposes. Therefore, the people whom the Father elects and those whom Christ provided redemption for through His blood must be one in the same. While this argument is helpful in addressing the question of for whom Christ died, there is another fundamental problem with the common objection raised against limited atonement that we began to address in our last post. The objectors assume that God must open the possibility of atonement to every single person in order to be loving. But is this reasoning biblical?

As we briefly touched on previously, those who argue for universal atonement often cite passages such as John 3:16 and Revelation 22:17, where we see what appears to be God demonstrating His love by inviting everyone to believe in Him, as though Christ’s atonement is already prepared for them and all they have to do to have it applied to them is believe. After all, the text plainly says that salvation is available for “whoever believes in Him” and “the one who is thirsty”. But is that really what these passages are teaching? In short: absolutely not. Those passages in no way contradict the clear teaching that Christ came to lay down His life for His sheep (John 10:15). Invitational passages such as John 3:16 and Revelation 22:17 are indeed general calls of salvation for anyone who comes across those texts, but they do not address the issue of who would ultimately believe in Jesus and drink of the living water. To answer that question, we turn to other texts, such as in John 6:44 where Jesus famously said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.” In this context, Jesus is clearly talking about our inability to come to Him apart from the Father’s enabling. By letting Scripture interpret Scripture, we see that the ones who believe in Jesus according to John 3:16 and the ones who drink of the living water in Revelation 22:17 are the very ones whom the Father is drawing in John 6:44. We can therefore safely conclude that John 3:16 and Revelation 22:17, as well as other similar invitational texts, are by no means implicitly or explicitly teaching universal atonement.

But what about the issue of love? Let’s ask the question in a different way: if God provides atonement for everybody in order to give all people a chance to be saved, would that be loving? Perhaps, but doing so would be in total disregard for God’s other attributes. God is indeed a God of love, but He is so much more than that! He is also a God of holiness, justice, and grace. One can make the argument that providing atonement for everyone is a loving thing to do, but the gracious element of salvation would be lost. Instead, we would be putting God in a position where He owes us an opportunity for salvation. We lose the very meaning of grace itself in this scenario, because such an act of God would be not an act of grace, but justice. But this is not what Scripture teaches! Our salvation is not the result of God paying us what is owed to us, for God does not owe us anything; it is by His grace that we are saved (Ephesians 2:8). God could have saved none of us, given us the punishment we deserve for our sins against Him, and He would have been perfectly just in doing so. But instead, He chose to demonstrate His great love and mercy towards a select few, and if He indeed has mercy on whom He has mercy as it says in Romans 9:15, then it is likewise true to say that Christ provides atonement for whom He provides atonement. To say that the atonement of Christ must be universal in order to be an act of love is to misunderstand the true nature of what we justly deserve for our crimes against a holy God, as well as the very meaning of grace itself.

The biblical evidence leads us to only one conclusion: Christ’s atonement is not universal, but limited only to the elect of God. Limited atonement is most consistent with God’s character and nature, and it maintains harmony in the expressions of God’s divine attributes. Some indeed misunderstand the label “limited atonement” as though to say that Christ’s atonement is only capable of removing the sins of the elect, but this is easily resolvable when we understand that while the atoning work of Christ could remove all the sins of all people who ever lived, that doesn’t mean that it actually does. To avoid this confusion, many theologians refer to it as particular atonement to emphasize the particularness of Christ’s atoning work in terms of its intended recipients.

This is not to somehow downplay the difficulty of this doctrine, for indeed it is tough for many to accept, even amongst those who are otherwise Calvinistic in their soteriology. There are in fact certain passages that even appear to explicitly teach universal atonement, such as in John 12:32 where Jesus said, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself”. This can be quickly resolved when we once again let Scripture interpret Scripture. In Revelation 7, for example, the apostle John records a vision wherein he saw God’s heavenly throne, and in that vision, there was “…a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues” (v. 9). This is a clear indication that people from every nation in the world will inherit eternal life, and it is with this understanding that we can then interpret the “all men” in John 12:32. Jesus is by no means saying that every person on the face of the earth will come to Him with saving faith, nor is He saying that He would provide atonement for every single person. He is simply saying that He will draw all kinds of men to Himself.

When the Bible speaks about a particular issue, including limited atonement, we must set our natural tendencies and emotional responses aside and submit to what it is authoritatively teaching us. It is where the rubber meets the road in our pursuit of godliness and conformity into the image of Christ. Yet, I am convinced that limited atonement is not a doctrine that we have to begrudgingly accept simply because “the Bible says so”: we can (and should) wholeheartedly embrace it with joy as God intended. Next time, we will conclude this series by discussing the implications that limited atonement has in your Christian walk. I pray that it will help you grow in your appreciation for not only limited atonement as a doctrine, but the very meaning of the gospel itself.