From Heaven He Came and Sought Her: Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective

by David Gibson

If they deny the specificity, then the truly penal character of the atonement is undermined.

The opponent claims that the death of Christ can fail to effect salvation, which means that its intention can be refused, and refusability without injustice is a feature of pecuniary payments. By contrast, a penalty borne by a person cannot be returned. The personal, physical, and spiritual suffering of Christ cannot be undone. Because the suffering has been borne and cannot be returned, it must take effect. Christ has died. Owen’s argument, which should leave his critics aghast, is that definite atonement is not best served by reliance on the pecuniary metaphor, since a payment made in money can be refused and returned. Rather, it is the language of completed penal suffering that most clearly expresses why God will not punish sin twice and thus establishes the definiteness of the atonement.

God did not receive satisfaction from the sinner but graciously provided it himself in Christ, and graciously relaxed the law that demanded it from the sinner.87 In that sense, forgiveness is real because God himself graciously willed to bear the cost of sin.

“one drop of the blood of Christ would be enough for the sins of the whole world, even of the damned. But Christ did not die for the sins of the damned, otherwise the damned also would be saved.”

if Christ had died for all, none could be damned.

Part of the glory of his death that we are to proclaim to all men, women, and children is its unlimited power. We are to preach to the lost that Christ’s blood is immeasurably powerful to cleanse all who will come to him, no matter what they have done.

The nature of punishment as answer also establishes the double punishment argument: when God has given an answer to a sin, it has been given. Payment God cannot twice demand; punishment God cannot twice inflict. Christ’s blood has spoken an answer to the sins of his people, including their sins of unbelief. Nothing more remains to be said.

at the heart of the covenant relationship is the reality that God dwells with his people. But given the biblical portrayal of God as personal, holy, and just, how can he dwell with his people without ultimately bringing judgment upon them? How can the Lord live among his people without destroying them by the flame of his holiness?

Christ’s atoning work cannot be extended to all people without also extending the new covenant benefits and privileges to all, which minimally includes regeneration, forgiveness of sins, and the gift of the Spirit.

As one moves from the old to the new covenant, it becomes even more pronounced how Christ’s priestly work provides for and is effectively applied to all those he represents as the new covenant Head. But nowhere does the OT priest offer sacrifices for those outside the covenant people, nor does he offer sacrifices that do not effectively achieve their intended purpose (under the old covenant’s limitations) for those who trust God’s promises and act in obedience to him.

To offer and to intercede, to sacrifice and to pray, are both acts of the same sacerdotal office, and both required in him who is a priest; so that if he omit either of these, he cannot be a faithful priest for them: if either he doth not offer for them, or not intercede for the success of his oblation on their behalf, he is wanting in the discharge of his office by him undertaken. Both of these we find conjoined (as before) in Jesus Christ.

Yet, general atonement advocates, especially Amyraldians and Hypothetical Universalists, posit a disruption in Christ’s priestly work at this point: Christ dies for all without exception but only intercedes for the elect—a point that is plausible only if Christ’s work is stripped of its priestly, covenantal specificity.

In John 17:6–19, our Lord effectively prays for his disciples, those whom the Father has given him, but not for the world (vv. 9–10). In verses 20–26, Jesus then prays for all future believers, once again given to him by the Father (v. 24; cf. 6:37–44). This intercession is consistent with Jesus’s teaching previously: he is the Good Shepherd who dies for the sheep (10:11, 15); he has other sheep that he will bring in the future (10:16); all of his sheep are given to him by his Father (10:29); his sheep receive eternal life due to his death; and not all people are his sheep (10:26–27). All of this is consistent with his office as Priest, in which he offers himself for a particular people and intercedes for them.

All we know of priests is that they intercede for those they represent covenantally.

there is good evidence that as a general prayer for those who put him on the cross, it was answered in that the centurion, the thief on the cross, and many of the Jews who crucified Christ were converted (Luke 23:40–43, 47; Acts 2:37–41), thus underscoring that Christ, as the Great High Priest, did effectively intercede for those who would become his own.

The NT is clear: the work of the Spirit is grounded in the cross-work of Christ (John 7:39; 16:7; Acts 2:33).

For those for whom he died as covenant Head, his work is effectively applied by the Spirit, the same Spirit whose new covenant work is effectively secured by Christ’s atoning death.

Our Lord both provides and applies, which is why his work is greater.

Ultimately what is at stake in the debate over the extent of the atonement is a Savior who saves, a cross that effectively accomplishes and secures all the gracious promises of the new covenant, and a redemption that does not fail.

“God loves all in some ways” and “God loves some in all ways.”

The permissive character of the sovereign decision over the “vessels of wrath” makes it possible for it to coexist with the salvific “desire” and universal love. Yet, it is no rational solution. I cannot understand why the Lord of lords so decides about men and women he loves. I have argued elsewhere that this mystery must remain opaque, a thorn in the flesh of our reason, the occasion for humble trust. The riddle is the riddle of evil, and adherents of both definite atonement and Hypothetical Universalism must face it, in humble trust.

whosoever will may come and shall be saved—without any exception.

“Christ invites you: ‘Come to me’; if you do so, you will find that he paid for your sins on the cross, and thus lifted your condemnation for ever.”

A righteous judge will not inflict twice the penalty which a given crime has deserved.

Analysis should dispel deceptive haziness.

Christ is not the Author of the possibility of salvation, but of salvation indeed!

No doctrine is an island.

Doth it become the wisdom of God to send Christ to die for men that they might be saved, and never cause these men to hear of any such thing; and yet to purpose and declare that unless they do hear of it and believe it, they shall never be saved?

Proponents of universal atonement often criticize the definite atonement position for not being able to hold to both definite atonement and a universal “well-meant” gospel call.16 However, concerning the unevangelized it would seem that they themselves are in the same “limiting” position, for the unevangelized have no offer at all.

an atonement of universal extension “must make clear precisely what Christ did do at the cross if he did not actually propitiate, reconcile and redeem,”18 and that what we actually have in this particular doctrinal construction is a work that procured “nothing that guarantees the salvation of anyone, but only made everyone in some inexplicable way salvable.”

[Universal atonement] leads to the doctrine, as the Quakers rightly observed, that if Christ died for all, then all must be given the opportunity, in either this world or the next, to accept or reject him, for it would be grossly unjust to condemn and to punish those whose sins had all been atoned for solely because they lacked the opportunity to accept Christ by faith.27

for those who hold to universal atonement, a theory concerning universal accessibility is not a speculative theological luxury or “extra” but rather a theological necessity which is inextricably linked to any defense of a universal atonement.

On the one hand, if they accept fides ex auditu, that people can be saved only through hearing of Christ from a gospel messenger, then their definition of “universal” atonement is called into question, especially if they wish to hold to its objective character. On the other hand, if they accept that all people must have the opportunity to respond to what Christ has done because of his objective universal atonement, then they must deny that it is only through the medium of the proclamation of the gospel by human messengers that salvation comes, and approve some other theory of universal accessibility, theories which seem to counter the biblical testimony and which lead to some problematic theological and pastoral conclusions for evangelicals. Faced with these uncomfortable alternatives, I would encourage them to look once again at the doctrine of definite atonement, which I do not believe entails these dilemmas.

Biblical anthropology presents the effects of the fall as being so severe that the only universal thing we merit is judgment: The justice of God is questioned by some critics who protest that election-love is discriminatory and therefore a violation of justice. But all love is preferential or it would not be love. . . . The modern misjudgment of God flows easily from contemporary theology’s occupation with love as the core of God’s being, while righteousness is subordinated and denied equal ultimacy with love in the nature of deity.46 J. I. Packer is not “unfair” when he comments that these accessibilist arguments seem more influenced by American principles of fairness than by anything else.

God has commanded the gospel to be preached to every creature; He has required us to proclaim to our fellow-men, of whatever character, and in all varieties of circumstances, the glad tidings of great joy,—to hold out to them, in His name, pardon and acceptance through the blood of atonement,—to invite them to come to Christ, and to receive Him,—and to accompany all this with the assurance that “whosoever cometh to Him, He will in no wise cast out.”

Caricatures of definite atonement often state that if Christ died only for some and God is going to save only his elect, then there is no point in preaching the gospel to all. However, as Helm has noted, “Scripture does not invite us to break up the causal nexus of events as revealed and to speculate about each link in the chain.”

The message we proclaim is not that of a gospel offer which construes the atonement as providing merely the possibility of salvation or the opportunity of salvation, for “it is not the opportunity of salvation that is offered; it is salvation. And it is salvation because Christ is offered and Christ does not invite us to mere opportunity but to himself.”

in God’s amazing graciousness and mercy, and in a myriad of ways, we are confident that he has been preparing his own people, those for whom Christ died, to receive the gospel message we proclaim, in saving repentance and faith.

Jesus taught definite atonement. He speaks of himself as the “good shepherd [who] lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11, 15). He knows and is known by his “own” sheep, just as the Father knows him and he knows the Father (John 10:14–15). Jesus’s sheep listen to his voice and follow him (John 10:27). He gives them eternal life, and they will never perish; no one can snatch them out of his hand (John 10:28). The Father has given them to him; no one can snatch them out of his Father’s hand (John 10:29).

Our Lord’s logic here is striking. It is not, “You do not believe and therefore you are not part of my flock.” Rather, it is, “You do not believe because you are not part of the flock for which I lay down my life.”

In his death Christ actually atones for the sins of his people; reconciliation is a finished work.

“Repentance proceeds from a sincere fear of God. Before the mind of the sinner can be inclined to repentance, he must be aroused by the thought of divine judgment.”

If Christ did not experience what we deserve to experience for our sin—namely, God’s wrath (Rom. 1:18) and the divine curse (Gal. 3:13)66—there is no atonement for it.

It is in fact the natural bent of fallen men and women who are at heart legalists,76 and who therefore see the way to salvation in terms of their efforts to fulfill the demands of the law and attain worthiness of heaven in their lives.

“accepting, receiving and resting on Christ alone for justification, sanctification and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace.”

In Christ we are no longer dominated by the flesh but by the Spirit. But we are not yet delivered from the flesh.

Christ’s propitiation of God’s wrath at Calvary (Rom. 3:25) ensures that we will not—cannot!—receive God’s wrath on the last day (Rom. 5:9–11).

By contrast, any form of indefinite (universal) atonement short of absolute universalism in effect limits the efficacy of the Son’s work and debilitates the power of the Spirit’s ministry.

Definite atonement spotlights the illegitimacy of a double payment for our sin and highlights the Trinitarian harmony displayed in the gospel. Both together serve to ground a believer’s assurance: all those for whom Christ died will come to faith, and will never be plucked from his or his Father’s hand, being kept by the power (or Spirit) of God for salvation on the last day.

God is merciful to use us in spite of many failings.