Limited Atonement, Double Jeopardy, and the Bible’s Answers - By Chris Roberts

From SBC Focus

There are two basic views of the atonement: limited and unlimited.

Unlimited atonement is held largely by people who do not consider themselves Calvinists. They say that Jesus died for all the sins and sinners of the world. He paid the price for all people so that all might have life. His work is not automatically applied to everyone, but is rather made available, possible, for all. We receive his work when we trust in him by faith. A common analogy is that Jesus’ blood can be said to be in a bank. It is there, it is provided, it is available for us. He has paid the price. What is lacking is our receipt of what he paid. When we trust him by faith we are in essence
withdrawing from the bank what he deposited, taking from him the price he paid for our sins. If we never trust him, we never receive the price he paid and we must therefore pay for our own sins. 1

One of my criticisms of this view is that it presents God as accepting double payment for sins. In this view, Jesus really has paid the price for all sins. The debt is paid in full. If Jesus’ death is the same for all people, then he has satisfied the Father’s wrath for each and every person. That satisfaction may be held in escrow, so to speak, but it is nonetheless a real satisfaction. If God then condemns an unrepentant sinner to Hell, he is demanding from that sinner payment already satisfied by the Son. Going back to our banking analogy, it would be akin to me owing a great debt and Bill Gates paying off the debt on my behalf. He writes a check to the creditor, completely satisfying what I owe. Nonetheless, I choose not to acknowledge what Gates has done and as a result I am hauled before the creditor to make restitution. Unable to pay, I am thrown in prison. If a situation of this sort were to happen in real life, we would let out a cry of corruption. We would quickly recognize the creditor has demanded a payment already paid. Whether or not the debtor acknowledges the payment is irrelevant: the one owed a debt has been satisfied, and he knows it.

Turning tables, the view of limited atonement says that Jesus died specifically for the elect. His atoning (saving) work was not carried out for all people but specifically for those the Father had appointed for salvation. The debt is paid only for those who would actually be saved.

Critics respond that this makes God into an unfair and capricious tyrant, that it makes God out to be the cause of sin and disbelief since he chooses to extend saving mercy only to some while withholding it from others. They would say that it seems to undermine God’s love to say that Jesus did not do the same thing for all people or pay the same price for all souls.

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President Obama and Persecution Complexes

From The American Vision

Since President Obama won re-election as our nation’s president, the chatter on Facebook has been somewhat amusing. In response to that chatter, I posted the following status update:

“All of this talk about Christian persecution coming under four more years of Obama is amusing. The only Christians who get persecuted are those who: (1) share the gospel when the government says not to (check the book of Acts) or (2) stand against evil when the majority are toeing the line (see the book of Daniel). If you haven’t already been doing these things when you had the freedom to do it, what in the world makes you think you will do it when you don’t have those freedoms? The government WILL NOT CARE if you keep the gospel inside your church walls and only vote against evil. Every oppressive government has allowed churches to meet just as long as they keep their mouths shut (Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, China even has State-controlled churches). If persecution is coming, don’t worry, you won’t see any of it so long as your Christianity is limited to your church attendance.”^[1]

 

I’ve been somewhat pleased to see this get reposted on Facebook. I hope it goes fully viral and people think seriously about these statements because they reflect a reality that few in church leadership are willing to admit. What we do in the church building is not impacting society because the church membership is not taking what they know outside the four walls. If they do, it is thickly masked under the guise of friendship evangelism which involves no real gospel proclamation in most cases (not all).

As long as this is the case, we cannot expect any persecution.

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A Calvinist Evangelist?

 

From Ligonier Ministries

If I have heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times: “A Calvinist evangelist? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Calvinism undermines evangelism.”

This accusation has been repeated so many times that few make the effort to argue it. Instead, it is simply assumed. Never mind that some of the church’s greatest evangelists have been Calvinists. One need only be reminded of men such as George Whitefield, David Brainerd, or “the father of modern missions,” William Carey. “Yes,” we are told, “these men were great evangelists and Calvinists, but that is because they were inconsistent.”

But is this true?

The fact of the matter is that Calvinism is not inconsistent with evangelism; it is only inconsistent with certain evangelistic methods. It is inconsistent, for example, with the emotionally manipulative methods created by revivalists such as Charles Finney. But these manipulative methods are themselves inconsistent with Scripture, so it is no fault to reject them. In order for evangelism to be pleasing to God, it must be consistent with the whole system of biblical teaching. But what does such evangelism look like?

A classic answer to that question is found in R.B. Kuiper’s little book God-Centred Evangelism. This book surveys the entire biblical scope of teaching on the subject of evangelism. Kuiper defines evangelism quite simply as “the promulgation of the evangel.” It is, in other words, the proclamation of the gospel. Kuiper explains that his book “is a plea for God–centered, in contradistinction to man-centered, evangelism.”

The book, then, presents a theology of evangelism.

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Radical Depravity in the Gospel of John -

From the Thirsty Theologian

 

 

 

The natural depravity of man is so deep that the unregenerate actually hate God

 

Jesus explained that the unconverted person who hates Him also hates the Father. The world’s rejection of the Father, who is invisible, is rooted in its hatred of Christ, who has been seen:

“Whoever hates me hates my Father also.” —John 15:23

Whatever anyone’s relationship with Christ may be, it is inseparably bound with one’s relationship with the Father. No one can hate Christ and love the Father. Unbelief toward Christ causes the same disdain of the Father. Hendriksen writes, “A person may imagine that he loves the Father while he hates the Son, but he deceives himself. Whoever hates the one necessarily hates the other also. And this holds also with respect to the present day and age. Men who scoff at blood-atonement and reject the vicarious death of Christ do not love God!”

—Steve Lawson, Foundations of Grace (Reformation Trust, 2006), 277.

In a tangential note, this passage also disproves the popular notion that people of other religions worship the same God. Whoever rejects Jesus also rejects the Father.

Did the Second Person of the Trinity Die on the Cross or Just Jesus' Humanity?

From The Reformed Apologist

I hear more often than not from knowledgeable Christians that although Jesus is God, God did not die on the cross – Jesus’ humanity did.

When bodies die they remain in the grave until resurrection but the soul will remain conscious in the intermediate state doing what souls can do without a body. With that premise in view, how does the death of the Second Person of the Trinity impinge upon his divinity, authority, abilities or whatever? Was the death of the body sufficient to do away with Jesus’ sovereign rule over the universe?

Was death even sufficient to stop the Rich Man (from Luke 16) from trying to correct God? One would have to ask how the Lord managed prior to the incarnation (when without a body) if we may not say that the Second Person of the Trinity truly died upon the cross.

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Unconditional Election - James White

From Reformation Theology

Numerous biblical passages can be cited that plainly teach the divine truth that God predestines men unto salvation. John 6:35-45, Romans 9:10-24, and 2 Timothy 1:8-10 all teach this truth. But I shall focus first upon the classicus locus, Ephesians 1:3-11, for my initial exegetical defense of this divine truth.

As space permits, I will then briefly address Romans 9 and John 6. I invite the interested reader to follow along. I shall use as my base text the Nestle-Aland 27th edition of the Greek New Testament.

English translations are my own.

Ephesians 1
Paul begins this tremendous introduction to his letter1 with a word of blessing addressed to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (1:3). All of salvation comes from the Father, its source, and its end. It is the Father who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Immediately we encounter three vital truths: 1) God is the one who has blessed us (we did not bless ourselves); this is seen in recognizing that ho eulogasa refers to the Father specifically; 2) that Paul is not speaking of all mankind here, but specifically of the redeemed, for he uses the personal pronoun hama (us) when speaking of the scope of the blessing of the Father; we will see this is continued throughout the text; and 3) the phrase en Christo (in Christ) or its equivalent in Him, is central to Paul’s thought. All of salvation takes place only “in Christ.”

Verse 4 is central to our subject: “just as He chose us in Him before the creation of the world so that we should be holy and blameless before Him.”2 Again the Father is in view, for He is the one who chose us (hama, accusative, indicating direct object of “to choose”). This choice is exercised only in Christ (there is no salvation outside of the Son). It is vital to recognize the personal aspect of this choice on the part of God the Father.

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Practical Implications of Soli Deo Gloria - Richard Barcellos

From Reformed Baptist Fellowship

The universe is all about God, not man.

The vastness and mystery of the universe does not point to our importance, but to God’s. The universe is a theater for God’s glory. Living as if you are the center is the problem not the solution. Living for personal happiness is just that–personal. It is temporary. It does not last, nor does it satisfy the soul. It will bring you nothing but trouble when you face God at the great day of judgment. We are all restless and fickle until we find our rest in God and the only way to find your soul’s rest in God is through Jesus Christ, the only Mediator between God and man. Come to Him for cleansing now, if you haven’t. And if you have, thank Him, praise Him, adore Him. Why? ^“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen” (Rom 11:36).

When seeking to explain the purpose of the universe, the Christian, or biblical view, is to start with God, not man.
He is first and He gives meaning to all the rest. If we are trying to justify our belief in Christianity before an on-looking and unbelieving world, we should not assume it to be false or put it in a neutral category till proven true. If we believe Christianity has been revealed to man by God via the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, then we will tell others what the Scriptures say. The Bible does not need to be defended or proven by a litmus test outside of itself. As Spurgeon reportedly said, “The Bible is like a lion; just let it out of its cage and it will defend itself.”

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