Universal Ineffectual Atonement vs Limited Effectual Atonement: An Argument for Limited Atonement

One of the most common arguments for what is popularly called limited atonement is the argument that it is either the case that Christ died to merely make men savable, or to effectually save some (as opposed to all). However, we know that it is true that Christ so died as to effectually save his elect, and as it turns out, only these ones are finally saved. Thus the first proposition has to be false.

But before we get too far into this, I need to be clear on something important. By “limited atonement” I mean by that, the idea that Christ sustained a penal relationship only with the elect, he bore the condemnation due only to their sins, etc. The issue is not the effectual intent of the expiation, but its intrinsic nature and extent. With that aside…

The standard form of the argument goes like this:

Its either A or B.
Not A.
Therefore B.

This form of syllogism can be a sound line of argument, if and only if, there are only two alternatives, ie, if there is no tertius quid.

Stated in conversational English, the argument works like this. Either Christ died for all merely and only to make it possible for God to save all, or he died with an effectual intention to save some only. The argument assumes that both cannot be true. First the proponent of this dilemma will cite Scripture which speaks to Christ intentionally and effectually saving some. This then establishes B. Next, the proponent will claim that A cannot be true.

Now this line of argument might work against some wings of Evangelical Christianity who may say that Christ died for all exactly equally, and in no way for any with a discriminating effectual intentionality.

However, in terms of responding to the classic and moderate Calvinist position, this “dilemma” is just a false dilemma. For us, it is simply a false either/or fallacy.

For the classic and moderate Calvinist, it is not a case of either/or but of both-and. The only thing we do need to do is remove from the first proposition the idea of “merely” or “only,” that, it is either that “Christ only died to make men savable.” With that qualification, I think Nathaneal Hardy’s following comments well explode the false dilemma fallacy:

In regard of Christ, the certain continuance of all the true members of the church depends upon the energy of his death, and the efficacy of his intercession.

[l.] Though the design of Christ’s death was in some respect general, namely, to purchase a possibility of salvation for all upon the conditions of faith and repentance, yet I doubt not to assert, that besides this there was a particular design of his death, which was to purchase a certainty of salvation by faith and repentance for some, to wit, the elect, this being the most rational way of reconciling those scriptures which do enlarge Christ’s death to the whole world, with those that restrain it to his church. Indeed, if there be not some who shall be actually saved by Christ’s death, his death will be in vain. If there be not some for whom Christ hath purchased more than a possibility of salvation upon condition, it is possible none should be actually saved by it, especially if (as those who deny this peculiar intention affirm) the performing of the condition depends so on the liberty of our will, that notwithstanding the influence of grace a man may choose or refuse to do it; for then it is as possible that every man may not believe as that he may, and consequently it is possible no man may be saved by Christ’s death, and so Christ’s death in vain, as to that which was its primary end, and consequently his intention frustrated. It remaineth, then, that as Christ intended his death to be sufficient for all, so that it might be efficient to some, in order to which it was necessary that for those persons he should purchase grace, yea, not only grace, but perseverance in grace till they come to glory.

Nathanael Hardy, The First General Epistle of St John the Apostle, Unfolded and Applied (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1865), 312.

Sometimes I see responses to the classic and moderate position which just remind me of the Bahnsen-Stein debate. Recall in this debate, Stein approached the debate with arguments that Bahnsen both himself would have repudiated and would have considered outmoded. It is as if Stein was not “up to date” in his counter-apologetic. The lesson was, he did not truly know his opponent, or his opponent’s position. Likewise, when folk table this argument against the classic-moderate position, it’s as if they are using outmoded and irrelevant arguments against an opponent, whose position they seem clueless about.

David

The Atonement and Intercession of Christ: An Argument for Limited Atonement

Introduction:

I recently posted this argument in the comments section of another blog. I thought it was something I should post here so as to have it handy and accessible. This is an argument that comes up again and again.

I have deleted the references to personal names. And I will convert the essay to third person mode as best as I can.

The background argument is a proof for limited atonement by way of the exclusive effectual intercession by Christ as high priest. The argument is usually expressed like this: For all whom Christ prays for as high priest, he effectually prays for, thereby effectually saving. This intercession of Christ is as extensive and as limited as is the scope of the expiation. For all whom Christ dies, he necessarily and effectually prays for, and thereby saves. If a given man is not finally saved, then it has to follow that Christ did not effectually pray for that man. If Christ did not pray for that man, then he did not die for him either, as Christ necessarily and effectually prays for all for whom he died. I requested Biblical support for this argument, and three verses were kindly supplied.

I should also say the discussion, albeit brief, was very friendly and with good Christian demeanor on all sides. And thanks to the blog owner for allowing me to post my thoughts in his comments section.

Argument:

“All the saved are “atoned for” and “interceded for.”

For the sake of ease I began to simplify this to:

1) All those for whom Christ died, are effectually prayed for by Christ.

And then I further reduced that to its core:

2) All the died for are prayed for.

In this response, I will assume “prayed for” equals “effectually prayed for as high priest.”

The proof-texts:

1) NAU Hebrews 7:24 but Jesus, on the other hand, because He continues forever, holds His priesthood permanently. 25 Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.

2) NAU John 17:9 “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.

3) NAU John 10:15 even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. 16 “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.

The Rebuttal:

Richard Baxter on 2 Peter 2:1

2 Peter 2:1: Of this verse there are two main elements to the exegetical approach taken by John Owen¹ and others who take his line of thought. Firstly, Owen stresses the fact that the Greek here is despotes which signifies not Christ as the mediator, but Christ as Lord, as sovereign God.² The second key argument, Owen adduces, is the fact that where agoradzo is normally used in reference to Christ as mediator, the price of the purchase is always stated.³ For example, we are “bought” by the blood of the lamb. The third key argument is that Owen thinks it’s more likely that Peter means not that they were ransomed by the blood of Christ, but rather that they were temporarily delivered from the pollutions of the world.⁴ Owen makes this argument by comparing this temporal deliverance with the temporal deliverance of Israel in the Old Testament.

Against this Baxter notes that even though despotes is used, it is used of Christ as saviour-mediator. For in verse 20, they have known the Saviour Jesus Christ.⁵ It is not absolute Lord apart from his mediatorial office, but in and with that office. Baxter also adds that in the parallel account of this, Jude 4 identifies that they denied their master (despotes) and Lord Jesus Christ. In response to the lack of price mentioned in 2 Pet 2:1, that is, the claim that agoradzo here does not denote blood-bought redemption but something else, Baxter cites Rev 14:3, where the 144000 are said to have been bought from the earth, and yet here no price is mentioned. Thus, we are not to imagine that this redemption was not soteriological.⁶ Regarding the argument from analogy from the OT, Baxter asks: “what of that?”⁷ He asks again, were not those Old Testaments false prophets part of the “typically redeemed people, so they are truly redeemed”? He goes on: “That the typical redemption out of Egypt was not only a type, but also a fruit of Christ’s redemption, in its moral being considered.”⁸

It is also helpful to briefly touch on a modern exponent of these arguments. Gary Long in his little book Definite Atonement⁹ presents his case by asserting a series of rhetorical questions. He argues that no where is despotes used to denote Christ as mediator, “unless this be the exception.” The problem is that Peter says they denied the saviour Jesus Christ. It is hard to imagine that Peter could have made such a distinction between Christ as absolute sovereign and Christ as mediator. Rather it seems that he held both together. Long notes:

2 Peter 2:1 refers to God the Son as sovereign Lord and not as God the Son as mediator. This does not mean that Christ as mediator is not sovereign; rather it is to acknowledge the fact that when Christ is referred to as mediator, one of his redemptive titles, such as lamb of God, is always mentioned, or the redemptive price is made explicit …¹⁰

However, Long’s point is an argument from silence. Just because certain descriptive components are absent one cannot build a case that the subject being described is radically different. Regarding agoradzo, Long makes a similar argument. He notes that when it is used elsewhere to denote the redemptive work of Christ as mediator, a price is mentioned, “unless this be the exception.”¹¹ The problem is that the converse also holds. Whenever agoradzo is used in redemptive contexts,¹² that is, where Christ is referenced as saviour, this would be the only case where it is used non-soteriologically. That would be a serious anomaly. It is more probable that, seeing Peter actually identifies Christ as saviour, he means it in a soteriological sense. To argue that because a price is not mentioned, this redemption cannot be soteriological, is again to argue from silence.

In contrast, Clifford is closer to the biblical truth when he notes:

There is, however, an important point to be made about the use of agoradzo which links it with despotes. In 1 Cor., 6:20 and 7:23 Paul is highlighting not so much the freedom of the redeemed as their obligations to the redeemer. Freedom from sin’s guilt and power is not freedom to do as they wish; they are now Christ’s property. Although agoradzo does not, strictly speaking, mean ‘acquired by ransom’, it clearly presupposes redemption… Therefore, agoradzo is used in 2 Pet., 2:1 to emphasize the obligations of the redeemed teachers faithfully to proclaim the truth. Peter is thus stressing Christ’s sovereign right of ownership and the consequent obligations of those who had professed him.¹³

This makes better sense and is more true to sound exegetical principles, rather than basing an argument resting on ‘things not stated.’

_____________________

¹And lots of unsound rhetorical arguments which I will not tackle here.

²John Owen, The Death of Death (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth, 1983), 250.

³Ibid., p., 251.

⁴Ibid. Owen bases this last point on the Old Testament, wherein it was said that some were temporarily delivered from the world.

⁵Richard Baxter, Universal Redemption of Mankind, Stated and Cleared by the Late Learned Mr Richard Baxter, (London: John Salsubury, 1694), 315.

⁶Ibid., p., 320.

⁷Ibid.

⁸Ibid. One can also apply this to Long’s attempt to connect 2 Pet 2:1 with Dt 32:6. But here Long has problems. For there in the LXX ktaomai is used. Long must weave into that a more inferential connection of agoradzo. If Peter had been consciously thinking of using this OT reference in a completely non-soteriological context why did he then not use ktaomai making his reference explicit? But that notwithstanding, why could it not be that the ‘deliverance’ is still secured by Christ as sovereign mediator? Why must his sovereignty exclude his mediatorial role? For surely, the sovereignty of Christ is grounded on his mediatorship?

⁹Gary Long, Definite Atonement, (no plce: Backus Books, 1988), p., 71.

¹⁰Ibid.

¹¹Ibid., p., 72.

¹²A non-redemptive context would be instances where agoradzo is used in reference to buying a garment or a field.

¹³Clifford, Atonement, p., 159. This is where the drift of modern scholarship is heading in terms of explicating the most likely intent of Peter here.

John 11:51-52 and 1 John 2:2

There is an old argument that seeks to correlate John 11:51-52 with 1 John 2:2. John Owen is probably one of the first to make this connection;

Owen:

1)  Hence are those terms of the world, all men, all nations, every creature, and the like, used in the business of redemption and preaching of the gospel; these things being not restrained, according as they supposed, to one certain nation and family, but extended to the universality of God’s people scattered abroad in every region under heaven. Especially are these expressions used by John, who, living to see the first coming of the Lord, in that fearful judgment and vengeance which he executed upon the Jewish nation some forty years after his death, is very frequent in the asserting of the benefit of the world by Christ, in opposition, as I said before, to the Jewish nation, — giving us a rule how to understand such phrases and locutions: John 11:51, 52,

“He signified that Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad;” conformably whereunto he tells the believing Jews that Christ is not a propitiation for them only, “but for the sins of the whole world,” 1 John 2:2, or the people of God scattered throughout the whole world, not tied to any one nation, as they sometime vainly imagined. And this may and doth give much light into the sense and meaning of those places where the words world and all are used in the business of redemption. They do not hold out a collective universality, but a general distribution into men of all sorts, in opposition to the before-recounted erroneous persuasion. Works, 10:302.

2) How, this being thus cleared, if withal ye will remind what was said before concerning the inveterate hatred of that people towards the Gentiles, and the engrafted opinion they had concerning their own sole interest in the redemption procured and purchased by their Messiah, it will be no difficult thing for any to discern the aim of the apostle in this place, in the expression so much stuck at. “He,” saith he, “is the propitiation for our sins,” — that is, our sins who are believers of the Jews; and lest by this assertion they should take occasion to confirm themselves in their former error, he adds, “And not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world,” or, “The children of God scattered abroad,” as John xi. 51, 52, of what nation, kindred, tongue, or language soever they were. So that we have not here an opposition between the effectual salvation of all believers and the ineffectual redemption of all others, but an extending of the same effectual redemption which belonged to the Jewish believers to all other believers, or children of God throughout the whole world. Works, 10:332.

This argument has been developed by others. Phil Johnson has posted using it, and so have these folk, Understanding 1 John 2:2 by Pastor John Samson

A few years back I decided to work through some of the assumptions in this argument, which I nick-named “parallel/overlay argument” just as a tag.

Normally when we look for parallel ideas we look for parallel contexts. For example, the synoptics may discuss the same event in different ways, with different words. But the grounds for the connection is the event. Or a writer may have a common pattern of speech, a favoured idiom which he may use many times, all with some differences. We can put these together and get a picture. But here, now, there is nothing. There is only the hinge structure of the semantics, ‘not only this, but this also.’ even that does not exactly match both for in one its third person, the other its second person.

The structure of the overlay would look something like this:

“Die for the nation” not only for the nation, but also for “The Children scattered abroad “

compared with:

Christ is the expiation our our sins, not only our sins but for the sins of the whole world

The argument, then, is that structure of j11:51-52 is overlayed on top of 1j2:2 such that the overlay DELIMITS the meanings of the terms in 1j2:2. Children scattered abroad delimits the meaning of holos kosmos. That is, the latter (holos kosmos) is reduced to mean only the elect scattered abroad. (Here we assume children is equivalent to elect for the sake of the argument.)

Revisiting the phrases: “All without distinction,” and “All without exception.”

Part 1:

Here is how I interpret these phrases:

1) All men without distinction to me means:

All men without this or that distinction.

So an instance of this might be,

All men [without distinction] who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved…

Here there is no ethnic/racial distinction, all–without this exception–who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

I can also say that all men without distinction means all men apart from a number of distinctions, gender, race, age, employment, status, etc.

And here the “all without exception” comes into play, in this way: Without any racial/ethnic exception, all men who call upon the name of the Lord, will be saved. This is clearly how Paul uses this in critical passages in Romans.

The controller is: The distinction(s) being negated has to be supplied by the context; and the scope of the all is defined by context as well.

2) All men without exception

I take that to be just as fluid.

It can mean all men without absolutely any distinction or exception whatsoever. I don’t think anyone uses it to denote that, or if they do, very rarely.

It can mean all who have lived, lived, will live.

But then too, this can also he true for all without distinction: Eg: All who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved: this applied to those who are now dead, it applies to the living, and it shall apply to those who shall live.

The controller is: The exception(s) being negated has to be supplied by the context; and the scope of the all is defined by context as well.

3) The two terms for me are not discrete and compartimentally segregated into opposite water-tight containers. That so many so over-play this artificial distinction is unhelpful and at times just blinds the investigator to tacit assumptions that distort the true picture of a given at hand verse.

4) Classically, for a few writers, they will use all without exception and distinction interchangeably. Or they will use other terms like all without discrimination, and then it becomes trickier to work out what they mean.

5) The problem is, most high or hyper Calvinists are not using “all without distinction” in its original form, but it has been transmuted into something else.

6) I think Spurgeon’s moment of insight in his blasting and exploding Gill’s exegesis of 1 Tim 2:4 should be a must read.

Part 2:

Let’s say we have the comment:

“I love all kinds of corn chips.”

Hold that thought.

A few weeks ago I asked a friend what does “all without distinction” mean:

One answer I have seen a few times is that it means this: “all kinds of men.”

On the surface my above question may seem silly. But here is why I would argue it was not.

Let’s run with that and see if it can take us anywhere.

I guess what this entails then is that when “all without distinction” is applied to 1 Tim 2:4 it means, precisely, that God wills the salvation of all kinds of men.

Why? because I love all kinds of corn chips.  What does that mean? It means I love all kinds of flavors, brands, colors, shapes, sizes, and so forth. But at no point can it be a statement about any particular corn chip of any kind.

Here is my basic problem. What I want to argue is that for the High Calvinist reading, “all” becomes “some” and that the way this is done is self-deceptive.

We have a phrase, “all men“

All is the modifier, and it modifies “men”.

Then we have the “rule” that here all men must mean all without distinction. Okay, so lets apply this “rule”.

All men becomes: “All men without distinction.”

If we ask what “all men without distinction” means, we are told it means all kinds of men.

So now “all men” becomes “all kinds of men”.

But now, note the modifier does not modify the noun. Now it modifies the term “kinds”.

Yet no High Calvinist can really seriously say that Paul is commanding us to pray for kinds of men. Rather he wants us to pray for concrete particulars, such that  no concrete particular is to be excluded from our prayers (Calvin). Paul has actual people in mind, either as subjects of our prayers, or objects of the will of God.

So almost immediately we are brought down from the forms and abstractions to the concrete and the particular.

So “all kinds of men”becomes “some men of all kinds” (Owen). [It must become some men of all kinds, because the very intent of the High Calvinist is to preclude the idea that Paul has "all men of every kind" in view here.]

So now, all men becomes some men of all kinds.

Thus: All becomes Some.

The modifier “all” now becomes “some” in order to truly modify “men”.

I think this strategy is quite deceptive. And I have demonstrated before that “all without distinction” properly meant all men without this or that distinction or exception.

But obviously that too seems quite artificial and counter-intuitive to some of us. Later I will explore this from my perspective, because the question is, what internal evidence is there in this text that Paul has in mind the idea of “some men of every kind”

David