Limited Atonement (Calvinism Series: Part Three)

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Hi, this is John, and today on Theocast, we're continuing our series through Calvinism, and we'll be covering probably the most heated and debated points of them all, which is the third point, limited atonement.

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Who did Jesus Christ die for? Did he die for the sins of the whole world, or did Jesus lay his life down for the sheep?

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It's a great question, and it does relate to our assurance and how we understand our standing before God.

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We hope that it brings hope and clarity in this conversation. And in the members podcast, we continue the conversation around assurance and those who claim to be

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Calvinist and how often they deny the very doctrines of grace when it comes to their assurance.

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And then we may dabble in some other things like expository preaching and biblicism. We hope you enjoy.

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Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ. Conversations about the

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Christian life from a reformed perspective. Our hosts today are Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina, Jimmy Buehler, pastor of Christ Community Church in Willmar, Minnesota, and I'm John Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reform Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and gentlemen, it is good to be back with you again this morning, and we get to hear from none other than Mr.

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Buehler. You get to give us an update on the life of Buehler.

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My life. It's so interesting. Not his day off. That's right. Not his day off. Not his day off.

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Nope. So something that's new in my world, life of a church planter often means that church planting is not your only gig.

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I mean that to say sometimes it just doesn't pay the bills, if you know what

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I So what's new in my world is - You're spiritually filled, huh? That's right.

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Yeah. As John always reminds me after tough meetings and late night things, your reward is in heaven.

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So anyway, there's that. So something that's new in my world is

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I recently took a teaching position at a local Christian school, being able to teach

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Bible, Christian living, Christian history, church history, things like that. So that's fun for me.

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I'm excited to get that going. I did student ministry for many years and I did enjoy that.

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It certainly provides its own unique sets of challenges, but to be able to interact with students on that level and quite frankly, being able to take some of the things that we discuss here on the podcast and bring it to the classroom and blow up some young minds is always a fun adventure.

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Today's topic would definitely blow up some young minds for sure. It certainly would. I mean, it's a

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Dutch -reformed school. Oh, well, there that is.

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There that is, man. But you and I both know that the students who go to Christian schools sometimes aren't there because they want to be there.

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Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And this is a unique school. So the town that it's in doesn't have a public school district that overlaps its town boundaries.

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And so the school actually does have, for students with special needs and disabilities, the school does host some of those students and that is kind of a state -run section of the school there.

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So it's a unique school in that way. It's a beautiful school. Great kids and teachers.

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So, yeah, I'm excited to continue to do that. And of course, that just tugs on my time a little bit more.

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So please be gracious if I sound tired, but here we are. You never sound tired, brother.

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Tired is a perpetual state, right? That's right. A guy with kids planning a church. That's right, man.

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I mean, you could say that my time is limited. You were really working on that one.

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Just, that's all I want. You were. How long has that one been in the Hoppers? What I want to know. Oh, a couple of years, a couple of 13, 14 years.

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Maybe from eternity past. I don't know. Oh, yep. So this episode will come out the day we arrive in San Diego.

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Yeah, baby. So if you're listening to this right now and you live in San Diego tonight, we've got an event.

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You should go to our website or we'll be in LA on Saturday, the 19th, and we'll be in Lancaster on Sunday.

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So if you're listening to this, hop on the website, come get all the details and come see us in Southern California.

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Yeah, we'd love to meet you. So, all right, man. Well, Justin, you have the privilege of bringing in probably one of the hotter topics that has theologically been debated around the universe for the last 500 years.

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We're not talking about anything controversial at all today on Theocats. Not today. There has been pretty much universal agreement on this one throughout the history of the church.

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Whoa, whoa. So friends, we are in the third of a five -part series on the doctrines of grace, or they could otherwise be described as the five points of Calvinism.

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So two weeks ago, we considered the T in the acronym TULIP, total depravity.

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We considered what happened to our nature as a result of Adam's sin, how we were all plunged into a state of sin, guilt, corruption, and ruin, and how we are unwilling and unable in and of ourselves to do anything about our spiritual condition, which leads us then necessarily to think about how is it that anyone would ever come to faith in Christ?

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And so last week we considered the U in TULIP, unconditional election. God chooses

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His people purely based upon His grace, His mercy,

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His love, His purposes of election alone, not based upon anything in us, not even based upon foreseen performance, obedience, goodness, uprightness, not based upon our effort or our striving or anything in us completely grounded in God alone.

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So as we've considered total depravity, our inability, we've considered God's unconditional election, now even just logically in flow of thought, we are coming today to consider the

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L in TULIP. The L stands for limited atonement, or as it could be otherwise described, and it might even be our preference to describe it this way, we could call it particular atonement or particular redemption.

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And what we mean by limited atonement is that Jesus actually, not potentially, not hypothetically, but actually saved

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His people through the work that He accomplished on earth, in particular through the work that He accomplished in the atonement on the cross.

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So we're going to be unpacking that a lot more throughout this episode and hopefully bringing more clarity on what we mean exactly by limited atonement and the fact that Jesus actually saved

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His people. But we want to start, before we get there, we want to start by being very clear about what we are not saying.

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So Jimmy, John, I'm going to throw it over to you guys. What is it that we're not saying? So right away, what we want to be clear, and I mean absolutely and over and abundantly clear about, is that we reject universalism, and that is that when

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Jesus died, shed His blood, rose from the grave, that everybody now is saved simply because of Jesus' work.

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So we have a church here in town, I mean, I shouldn't, we have a gathering here in town that is

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Unitarian Universalist, and that's really the idea that regardless of what you believe about Christ, regardless in what you believe about who

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God is, what He has done in Christ, you are saved simply because of what Jesus did at the cross, that when

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Jesus died, shed His blood, rose from the dead, He now, by way of that, regardless of faith of the individual, that person or all people are now saved throughout all time because of Jesus' work.

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So, I mean, that would be kind of the quick flyby of universalism, and we want to be clear that we reject that.

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That is not historic Christianity. That is not historic orthodoxy. That is not scriptural or biblical

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Christianity. And so, John, if you want to fill that in a little bit more. I think

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Universalists are the most consistent Arminians as it comes to understanding the words all.

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So if someone says, I reject limited atonement, the only consistent view in what

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I would say, according to the text, is you have to believe that Jesus Christ saves every single person.

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And the reason we would say that is the concept of all in scripture.

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So we hear passages of scripture that speak to this, that Jesus is the propitiation, the

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Savior, those He paid. So propitiation, that is, He makes payment for the sins of everyone.

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2 Peter 3 .9 is a great verse there, 1 Timothy speaks of this, 1 John 2 .2,

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2 Corinthians 5 .14. I mean, there is a list. If you go to the internet and type in verses that counteract or contradict limited atonement, there is a large, large list.

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And the question amongst every single one is the concept of all. When Jesus says, or the writer says that He is the

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Savior of all, or He pays for the sins of all, we have to ask, what does all mean and does it mean all, all of the time?

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And I think this is where from a, we have to be careful not to become what's called Biblicists, where we do not look at a verse in its context, its media context, and then we don't look at it out in the book of the context and then the

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Bible and making sure that our theological categories aren't crossing lines, that we aren't denying, as Jimmy said, heretical truths, sorry, accepting heretical truths and denying orthodoxy because we're trying to embrace or trying to be consistent with Scripture.

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I'm going to read this quote to you I found very helpful in a book we've put on our resource page for this series,

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The Five Points of Calvin by Edwin Palmer. He says, an objection to limited atonement is sometimes made on the fact that the

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Bible explicitly says in several passages that Christ is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world, that He is the

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Savior of the world, that He takes away the sins of the world, that He died for all, and that He gave

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Himself ransom for all. If He died for all, it is reason then that He did not die for a limited number.

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And that would be the argumentation for, I think, those who would say they're four -point Calvinists and not five -point

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Calvinists, which I would then interject, you're no -point Calvinists because if you reject this, this kind of, there's a three legs to this and they all kind of fall down.

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Jimmy, do you have, or sorry, Justin, do you have something you wanted to add to that? Yeah, bro, I agree with you on the, if you don't, if you don't buy limited atonement, then the whole system of The Five Points of Calvinism fall apart.

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I want to be compassionate in this conversation and acknowledge that this point that we're talking about today, limited atonement is often the one that trips people up the most.

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If anybody ever tells you that they're a four -pointer, then you immediately know that the L is the one that they struggle with.

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And so, of course, this can be a hard truth for people sometimes. I hope that we do a decent job today of showing people the wonder and the glory and just the peace and the assurance that this brings.

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I think John Owen, just to kind of jump on what you were talking about, John, with respect to even all language that's used,

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John Owen is very helpful here. John Owen, several hundred years ago, gave this kind of framework in terms of we've got really three choices in thinking about all and what

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Jesus died for. So he says, Jesus either died, one, for all the sins of all people, which would then lead us to universalism, everybody's in heaven, two, he died for some of the sins of all people, in which case, well, nobody's saved, or third, he died for all of the sins of some people, in which case, those people are saved because Christ has died for all of their sins.

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So I think even in thinking theologically about that word all, that's a helpful framework for me in thinking about what

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Jesus actually accomplished when he went to the cross. And just to help with,

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I would say, some grammar and understanding exegesis when dealing with passages that say all, you have to ask the question, does all mean universally all humans, all of the time?

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Every human without exception. Right. Does it mean that or not? Right.

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And even a passage like 2 Peter 3 .9, which is a great example when it says, the

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Lord is not slow to fulfill his promises, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing any should perish, but all should reach repentance, well, what we do in this particular passage is we take the any, not wishing that any, and we immediately assume.

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Now, no, we're not assuming he means animals. We're not assuming he means aliens or planets.

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In context, immediately you are assuming what? He is talking about humans.

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I mean, that's an assumption you are already putting in there about any. He doesn't say any. He does not say any people.

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We have to put that in. Then the question is, well, what is he referring to, right? What's he pointing back to?

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And I would say in all of these contexts, you have to ask the question, what is he pointing to in the language when he was speaking of all or any, and it goes back to patient toward you, that's what he's saying, some count slowness, but God is being patient toward you, the reader, the listener of this letter, and you need to not have worry, my dear friends.

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You need to not have worry, my dear believers, that God is going to bring all of you safely home.

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And this aligns with, you know, John 10, who does Jesus say that he is laying his life down for?

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Is it laying it down for all? No. He says, I lay my life down for the sheep. So there's, there's, right.

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So you have passages that absolutely can come away and say, 1 John 2, 2, Jesus says that he died for not only our sins, but the sins of the whole world.

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And in context, what does he mean there? Well, John is always dealing with a racial issue. People who are

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Jewish thinking that Jesus is only going to save Jews. And John is saying, no, this is John 3, 16 as well.

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It's a mind blowing that he doesn't mean all humans ever, because that would make you a universalist. He is saying it's not just Jews, but it is

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Gentiles of every tribe, as Revelation tells us, every tongue, tribe, and nation will be present.

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Those who have been saved in heaven. So this is where I think we just have to, as Jimmy was saying, universalism, and then we have all, and there's one kind of,

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I'm not sure, Justin, if this is where you're wanting to go, but there's one last leg that kind of helps us put this here of, okay, if it's not universalism and it can't mean all, then what did

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Jesus actually accomplish on the cross? Yeah, sure. I was going to jump in on 1 John 2 too. And then you went there, you know, when

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John says that Jesus is the propitiation for our sins, he says, Jesus is the propitiation, the satisfaction, right, for our sins and not our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

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Well, what does he mean? I mean, you really have two choices there. He either means all people everywhere, all time, no exceptions, and everybody's in heaven because Jesus has satisfied the wrath of God and made payment for their sin.

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Or what he is speaking to, like you already said, not just Jews, but also Gentiles, people of every tribe, language, nation, and he's basically saying in that verse that Jesus is the savior of the world, that anybody who ever would be saved, regardless of ethnicity or background or anything like that, is saved through Christ alone.

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It's like what Peter says, even in his speaking in the book of Acts in the early chapters of Acts, when he says that there's only one name under heaven by which men will be saved, you know, it's

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Jesus. And so, yeah, you're exactly right. We can't be biblicists and pit one text against another, you know, in how we understand these things.

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We've got to hold all of the Bible together when it comes to this question of what does all mean.

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And yeah, we look at it in its immediate context and work out from there. And that's very helpful to us. Justin, I think that's super helpful.

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In the context, Jesus is trying, or the writer, John, is trying to help the listener hear that some aren't saved by Jesus and some are saved by the law.

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Some aren't saved by Jesus and some are saved by something else. I mean, Jesus himself says, no one can come to the father unless they go through me.

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And so they are, he is reiterating that, that, listen, the payment for your sins is also the same for the payment for everyone else that exists in the world that come to Christ.

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It's not what Jesus is a way among many. It is clarifying he is the way. I think this is a difficult pill to swallow.

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One, because it pushes us up against some pretty harsh realities, the nature and doctrine of hell that,

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I mean, if you scan through the book of Revelation, I mean, there is a clear picture that God will judge and punish the sins of the wicked.

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And so in light of that, universalism has to be outrightly rejected because it's clear that God does punish the wicked.

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God will, in the end, reject those who have rejected him.

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And so we have to hold these things together. And that as we think about all, well,

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I mean, you have to place that word within the broader narrative of scripture, that it is clear, it is overly and abundantly clear that there will be those who reject

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Christ. Matthew 7, Jesus himself says it, depart from me, I never knew you.

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Well, that can't possibly mean depart from me, as in go over there.

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I died for your sins, but I really want you to hang out over there. No, Jesus is clear, depart from me.

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And that implies an eternal departure. So guys, I think this conversation at the heart of it really hinges on maybe three massive questions.

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I'm going to lay them out and we can take any one of them in any order. Question number one, what did

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Jesus accomplish at the cross? Question number two, what did

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Jesus mean to accomplish as he was headed to the cross? Like what was his intention or even more broadly, what was the intention of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as Jesus is headed to the cross?

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Question number three, can Jesus fail in anything that he intends to do?

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So just getting really quickly, what did Jesus accomplish? What did he mean to accomplish? And then lastly, can

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Jesus fail? So let's, let's tear those up for a minute. To that, to that point,

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Justin, I want to add that the Bible defines the death of Jesus in at least four different ways.

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So when it describes Jesus Christ dying, one, he made a substitutionary sacrifice for sins.

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This is Hebrews 9, 10, chapters nine and chapters 10. And then secondly, he is the propitiation, that is the, he's the appeasement or the satisfaction of the righteous wrath of God.

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And famous passages would be Romans 3, 25, Hebrews 2, 17, or even first John 2, 2.

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Number three, he reconciled, he brought back into good favor in right -standing his people to God.

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That is, he removed the enemy status that we hear in Ephesians chapter two.

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And so we, verses like Romans 5, 10, 2 Corinthians 5, 20, and then fourthly, he redeemed them from the curse of the law.

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So this is how, Galatians 3, 13, this is how we see Christ's death on the cross, his payment being referenced.

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It's not just a general payment for sin, but it's always connected to the believer.

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And so what did Jesus Christ accomplish on the cross? He accomplished at least, in minimum, those four things.

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I think also it's important to keep in mind, what did Jesus say as he was giving up his spirit?

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I mean, it is finished, not, it is possible. Amen, brother.

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It's rather, I mean, just to be overly and abundantly clear, Christ's death actually saves.

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Christ's death actually accomplishes something. So you have a potential versus an actual, which is why

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I wrote off those four list of things, because if Jesus is the payment for something and it always is directed towards something, or he becomes the high priest of something, it means it can't be a potential.

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Otherwise, what Jesus says on the cross that is finished isn't actually finished. It's just set up. It's teed up for us to do something with.

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That's right. Right. Jesus, essentially, in that understanding, like the universal kind of scope of the atonement understanding, all

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Christ did was make men savable. He actually saved no one.

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And so then, if we really boil it down, our salvation decisively hangs upon an act of our will, in which we then would turn to God in faith.

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So in reality, we wouldn't say in that sense that Jesus has saved us. It's really,

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I mean, I don't want to be too punchy here, but I think this is fair. We essentially save ourselves with Jesus's help in that understanding.

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Right. An act of our will is necessary to make salvation actual because Jesus only made it, as you guys have already said, use that word potential, he has just made it possible and he has made us savable.

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But then we end up having to be the ones to kind of take the ball across the goal line to make it a reality.

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We're excited to announce that we have a new free ebook available at our website called Faith vs.

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Faithfulness, a Primer on Rest. And we, the hosts, put this together to explain the difference between emphasizing one's faith in Christ versus emphasizing one's faithfulness to Christ and how one leads to rest and how the other often to a lack of assurance.

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And you can get this at theocast .org slash Primer. And if you've been encouraged by what you've been hearing at Theocast, we'd ask you to help partner with us.

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You can do that by joining our total access membership. That's our monthly membership that gives you access to all of our material that we've produced over the last four years, or simply by donating to our ministry.

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And you can do that by going to our website, theocast .org. We hope that you enjoy the rest of the conversation.

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So Ephesians one, beginning in verse seven, in him, Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ.

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And as we think about that question, what did Jesus intend to accomplish? Well, Jesus intended to accomplish the salvation, the forgiveness, the redemption of his people.

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And this is where a robust understanding of the covenant of redemption that before eternity passed,

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God in Father, Son, Holy Spirit, they intended fully to save their people.

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They intended to save his people, God's people. So even as we think about Hebrews, I mean, Jesus is known and understood in the book of Hebrews as the high priest who makes atonement for who?

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His people. That's good, Jimmy. You've mentioned the pactum salutis, you know, the covenant of redemption in eternity past where God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and in particular between the

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Father and the Son, have determined to save a people. I want to pick up right where you left off, Jesus as high priest of his people.

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That's presented very clearly, yes, in the book of Hebrews, but it's also depicted quite clearly for us in the gospel of John.

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So in John chapter 10, we've already referenced this earlier in the podcast, but it's worth repeating.

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Jesus talks about the fact that he is the good shepherd, the fact that he knows his own sheep, that they know him, and he lays his life down, not for the entire world, but he lays his life down for the sheep, and so that's in John 10, 15.

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He says that. The very next verse in John 10, 16, he says, I have other sheep that are not of this fold, namely not

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Jews, but Gentiles. I must bring them also. So in Christ's mind, there is a certain, like a definite subset of people who comprise his sheep and he is laying his life down for them.

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Well, in John 17, the chapter known to us as the high priestly prayer, Jesus is interceding and praying for a particular group of people.

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He says at two different points in verse six and verse nine of John 17, that he is praying for those whom the father has given him out of the world.

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So he is not interceding for everyone. So then the question has to be asked about the high priestly ministry of Christ.

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Is he a high priest making atonement and intercession for the entire world, all human beings without exception, or is he a high priest of a particular people?

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And the Bible is very clear that it's the latter, that he is a high priest for his sheep, for his people.

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And so he died for, like makes atonement for that group of people, and he intercedes for that particular group of people.

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Because if we say, oh, well, Jesus is only interceding for, praying for the elect, a certain subset of people, but he died for everyone, that presents

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Christ as a very schizophrenic high priest who makes atonement for everybody, but then only intercedes for some.

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Whereas the Bible presents a very consistent picture of Christ dying for and interceding for the same group of people.

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To add to that, Justin, there's a very important theological conversation that we have to have. And this goes back to what is it that Jesus actually accomplished on the cross?

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What did he attend and can Jesus fail? I mean, I think it encapsulates all three down into this theological concept called double reprobation.

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In other words, double payment. If Jesus died for the sins of every single human being that has ever lived, and he went and actually received payment, the father punished him, and Jesus received full payment, and then goes and sits with the father, and then someone dies and goes to hell, and God then pours out his wrath on that person, that means that's an injustice because that person has already,

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God never, he says, God never punishes someone unjustly. He will never dish out wrath just because he's a maniacal

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God and likes to dictate upon people anger. He only punishes that which is due.

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No person can have punishment put upon them if Jesus paid for all sins, as far as the

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East is from the West, for all humans. That is a theological issue that if you try and embrace that Jesus did die, you either have to hold the potential view, which means

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Jesus actually accomplished nothing on the cross, or he actually accomplished something on the cross, and now

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God is being, I would say, absolutely unfair for punishing somebody who doesn't deserve to be punished.

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I don't know what you guys would say to that. So, John, you've touched on, in one sense, just the biblical truth of what

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Christ accomplished being described in one framework as penal substitution. So, he died as a substitute for his people, like in our place, and he paid the penalty that we owe

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God for being lawbreakers. So, there is an actual, definite, real penalty that every human being owes to God as a result of breaking his law and being in sin.

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And so, Christ actually, according to the penal substitutionary view of the atonement, Christ actually paid the penalty that sinners deserve.

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And the only consistent way to hold to that position is to understand that he paid the penalty for a particular group of people and that it was actually done.

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So, Acts 20, 28, that Jesus purchased the church, like he bought us with his own blood, that's what we're saying.

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To be an Arminian, like in all humility and with compassion, to be an

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Arminian and say that you believe in penal substitution is a contradiction in terms.

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To say that Christ actually died in the place of sinners and paid the penalty, yet there will be all kinds of people that don't choose him for whom

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Jesus died, and therefore, they will suffer forever in hell for sins that Jesus died for, is not consistent with the biblical presentation.

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And the last thing I would say, maybe, guys, before we head to just talking about assurance and how that relates to what Christ did, is that the

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Bible is quite clear that God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are perfectly united in the plan and work of redemption, and there are a number of texts that we could go to.

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We've already talked about Ephesians 1, that one depicts it beautifully. What we're saying here in presenting a limited or particular view of the atonement is that you have consistency amongst the three persons of the

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Trinity in the work of redemption. God the Father elects a certain group of people out of grace.

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The Son, Jesus, then atones for and procures, purchases a particular group of people, and the

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Holy Spirit then applies the work of Christ to a particular group of people, all of those people being the same.

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Those whom the Father has chosen, the Son dies for, and the Spirit applies the work of Christ to, rather than saying the

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Father has chosen a certain group of people, the Son then goes and dies for everyone, and then the

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Spirit now only applies the work of Jesus to, again, a subset of people, is not the biblical presentation either in terms of the consistency amongst the

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Godhead. Super helpful, Justin. I think one of the common pushbacks we have against penal substitution is that it's kind of the idea of divine child abuse, that God is unjustly punishing

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His Son, but as you said, there is cooperation within the

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Trinity to accomplish the salvation of the elect, and so it cannot be child abuse.

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I mean, what does Jesus say? My food is to do the will of Him who sent me.

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That is not a child abuse statement, but rather, Jesus understood

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His role within the Godhead to actually accomplish the redemption of the elect.

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Michael Horton speaks to this in his book, For Calvinism, where he talks about having an integrated view of the atonement, because there are certainly, and I would just point the listener to this book, where certainly there are various views on the atonement, but what

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Michael Horton says, and I think it's helpful, is that he says Christ's penal substitution is not the whole of Christ's work, but without it, nothing else matters.

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Like if Jesus didn't actually make the payment for the sins of the elect, well, then who cares?

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I mean, if it was merely just a good example, well, who cares? I mean, you can find a good example anywhere. And so does

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Christ's work undo Adam's trespass, Horton writes? Well, I mean, certainly it does, but we are still left in our sins unless Christ's death actually did what?

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Unless it actually canceled our debt. Does it display God's love, he writes? Well, indeed it does, but only if it actually satisfies

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God's righteous demands and absolves us of our debt. And so when we talk about penal substitution,

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I mean, we're getting to the very, very core of the good news of the gospel, that what Jesus actually did accomplish the salvation of the elect.

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Yeah, Jimmy, not only is penal substitution not divine child abuse for the things that you just stated, we have to remember that Jesus is very clear that he laid his life down willingly, like of his own accord.

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He says, nobody takes my life from me, but I lay it down. So he knew exactly what he had come to do and was willing to do it because it was according to the plan that he and his father had made before the world began.

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And I completely agree about theories of the atonement, which is another podcast for another day. There are a number of theories on the atonement that all hold water and have merit, but ultimately, like you said, unless penal substitution is true, which it is biblically, then all of those other things are effectively meaningless because our salvation has not been accomplished.

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Just to interject there. Why don't you give just real quick, and someone may have never even heard the term penal substitution.

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I mean, can you give us a 30 second explanation of what you mean by those two words? Yeah, man, I kind of did it earlier, but I'm happy to do it again.

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Oh, you did. Okay. So just really quickly, the two words penal obviously pertains to penalty.

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So there's a particular actual penalty that needs to be paid to God by every sinner because we are lawbreakers.

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We are really guilty and there is that definite penalty that we owe. And then substitution is pretty clear as well, meaning that Jesus as substitute, like in the place of his people, died, suffered, and paid that actual penalty.

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So the penalty that we really owe God, the actual penalty is paid in full, really, by Jesus in his atoning death.

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So that's what we're saying. Penal substitution. And there has to be a worthy substitute.

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Yes, exactly. A sinless, perfect one. And as you look at kind of redemptive history and you think about all of the types and shadows that we see in the

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Old Testament, Hebrews speaks to this. The blood of goats and bulls cannot take away the sins of man.

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There needs to be a worthy substitute. So this is, again, bringing in some theological understandings.

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This is where we talk about the passive and active obedience of Christ. The passive obedience of Christ in his death truly does pay for the sins of the elect, but we also, we need what?

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We need perfect righteousness. I mean, standing neutral before God is not going to be enough.

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We need the active obedience of Christ imputed to us, his righteousness imputed to us on our behalf.

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We know that many come to this and they feel, well, how can I make an actual call of the gospel to somebody if I don't know for sure

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Christ has died for them? And how do I know that is it legitimately an offer to offer

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Christ to someone when their sins may not have been paid for?

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And that's a complicated situation. That's a hard situation to find yourself in.

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And then some people even say, well, then why evangelize? If Jesus has already determined who it is he's going to save and he's already died for everybody,

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I'm not quite sure why I feel the necessity to then evangelize and there's answers to both of these.

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One we're going to address is there's an assurance issue we're going to answer with this. But there's a second one where you have to understand that just because there are certain things of God that we don't understand, there are certain, in other words, there are things that I can't even answer.

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Why did God create the world and allow sin? We don't have a theological answer to that. Why does

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God allow so much evil to go on in the world? There's so many things that we can't answer. And so we have to be careful as the three of us are going to start walking through this, we're going to try and give you some counsel on how to wrap your mind around dealing with some of these complicated things.

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Justin, I know you had something you wanted to add to that. Justin Perdue Quickly, John, to the scenario that you painted, it's a common question from a human philosophical level.

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If Jesus has already accomplished the redemption of his elect and they will be saved, the same thing is raised with respect to unconditional election.

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If God has already chosen his people and they will be saved, then why evangelize? Or how can

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I evangelize and offer the gospel message, offer Christ to all men in good conscience?

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And what we would say is, clearly in Scripture, that message of whosoever will may come is held out to all men.

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And also the Scripture is quite clear that the ones who will end up coming are the ones that the Father draws and the ones that the

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Father gives to Christ. And those things are not a contradiction biblically. But to your point, brother, we don't know the mind of God.

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None of us do. And so we see in Scripture clearly, this is my short answer, if Christ has saved his people, then why share the gospel?

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Or how can we share the gospel with all men? The answer simply is that God is a God of means, not just ends.

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And so he has ordained the ends, that's true, but he has also ordained the means through which those ends will be accomplished.

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And so we herald Jesus to all men without discrimination, and then we let the

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Lord draw whom he will to Christ by faith. And that's the easiest way for me to present it.

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I realize that there's still tension and wrestling in that, but I think that's the biblical answer.

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And we have to leave some room for God is God and we are not, and we don't know who the elect are for whom

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Christ has died, but we herald Jesus to everyone. I've heard a helpful word picture that if you think about the gates of heaven, you see this giant door that all the redeemed will walk through.

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And above the door, as you're walking through, it says, whosoever may come.

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So the invitation is open and then as you walk through the door, you turn around and above the doorframe on the other side, it says, from eternity past,

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I knew you. And so I think, as you were saying, Justin, the invitation, without discretion, we do announce the gospel to all people.

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But at the same time, when we understand that person to come to repentance and faith, we say, the

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Father has done this. The Father has drawn this person to Christ through the Spirit. Yeah, I think it's safe to say theologically that God not only determined how someone would be saved, but he determined by the means by which they would be saved.

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Absolutely. And what we've been so trained in the evangelical world to think is that we've got to go and convince people into the kingdom.

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We are the salesmen who have to go out and convince people that Jesus is the best way above every other way.

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And that's just not what you're doing. You're talking to deaf, dumb, and blind people who don't want anything to do with God, and I don't mean people who like ignore

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God and atheist only, but it's those who don't fully understand that it's Jesus Christ alone by faith alone.

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And what God then says to those children who have their eyes have been opened, he says to them in the most tender and precious way, as Jesus spoke to his disciples in the most tender and precious way, men, women, you now get to go and find your brothers and sisters.

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And the way that it's done is that you just herald this message out. It's like throwing magical seed everywhere, and those to whom

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God will save when it touches them, it comes to life. It's not up to you.

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It's not up to your capacity. It's not up to your ability. Trust my means, trust my power.

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And the fact that he wants to partner with us, which is crazy, I mean, Paul even says, through the foolish of men's mouths, the gospel is preached and people come to life.

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That to me does not discourage me to share the gospel, encourages me to share it without reservation, knowing it's not up to me to convince people to be saved.

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It's up to God to do his work through his means. A robust understanding of God's sovereignty and a robust understanding of limited atonement does not remove our zeal, but it does remove pressure.

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And what I mean by that is it does not remove our zeal to see sinners come to repentance and faith in Christ, but it does remove the pressure that their response is contingent upon how well we present the gospel.

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Their response is contingent upon how well we can sell Christ to them.

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Rather, we are merely ambassadors. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to Christ.

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And when they come to repentance and faith, all glory be to God. I watered,

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I planted, but who gives the growth? Paul says, God gives the growth.

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Jimmy, to your point, I would refer people to a wonderful hymn written by Isaac Watts called

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How Sweet and Awful is the Place. It describes not only just the sovereign grace of God and our own conversion, but then even the last verse points to this.

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We long to see thy churches full till all the chosen race may with one mind and heart and soul sing thy redeeming grace.

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So it does not at all remove our zeal when we understand the sovereignty of God in the salvation of his elect.

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I think guys, I want to turn us now most pointedly to the topic of assurance for the believer, if you guys are cool with that.

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I think that at the heart of this conversation and in terms of the takeaway here, what does this really mean for me as a follower of Jesus, as a person who's trusting

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Christ, what does this mean? This talk about what did Jesus accomplish at the cross has everything to do with our peace and rest and assurance.

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And I might even start us off with a quote by Herman Boeving. He says, the key point here concerns assurance to believers.

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Did Christ in his death and resurrection really procure the salvation of his own? Or was this only a potentiality and a mere possibility?

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And then he goes on to say, the advocates of a universal scope for the atonement ironically diminished the value and power of Christ's work.

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The center of gravity shifts from Christ to the Christian. Salvation comes to depend on our faith implication, salvation in a universal understanding of the atonement.

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Salvation hinges upon us. And so then it's like, how in the world can anybody have any hope?

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Because if I'm decisive in this operation, any sane, reasonable human being is going to conclude, well, if I can mess it up,

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I will. And so when we point people to the fact that no, Christ really has bought you.

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He has purchased you. He has accomplished everything necessary for you. Like you said earlier, Jimmy, when he was on the cross and stretched his arms out and he breathes his last and gives up his spirit, he says, it's finished.

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It's over. Atonement accomplished, righteousness fulfilled, and it's done. And so now all that's left is trusting and resting in that.

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It brings peace and it brings assurance to the believer. When we say the word gospel, this is wrapped inside the gospel.

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Sometimes I know, yeah, I would say growing up as a child and through my young adult years, the gospel was very minimal to me.

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It was, I'm a sinner, Jesus Christ came and died and rose again, and I needed to believe that. And that was the entrance into heaven.

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And then after that it was, okay, now let's talk about everything that you are required to do and how to be a faithful, good

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Christian. And now when I think about the gospel, I could never exhaust the ends and the depths and the height of how glorious Christ is and the good news of being offered to us, and if you think you fully understand the atonement of Christ and how it is applied to you,

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I would dare say that that would be hard to do if you have not lived 500 years, there's so much that is here.

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And I would say in limited atonement or what we're saying here is that there is so much that we have to embrace.

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And Justin, it's all you, baby. He's going for it. Some of you guys are, you can tell it's getting down to the end of the podcast because like everybody wants something to say.

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Jimmy and I are like flailing at each other. It's a good thing we're in the same location.

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There'd have been a fight right now. Seriously. No, that bobbing quote

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I think is massive where the center of gravity has been shifted from Christ to located into the

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Christian. It's absolutely huge. Well, I mean, it's massive because, and Horton, Michael Horton even writes about this, where as we think about the objective realities of the atonement that Christ did actually accomplish the redemption of sinners, the forgiveness in sinners at the cross,

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I mean, if we deny that, then really what saves us is not the object of our faith, but rather our faith and what

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I have done in order to believe in Jesus. There's a couple of things that I would maybe want to say here, and I'm debating in my mind, which one of them to say, given the time constraints.

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I think for the general listeners here, I might save some of this other good content for the members, a shameless plug there.

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Romans chapter eight is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. I think it's one of the favorite chapters of most people as we read scripture.

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Well, famously in Romans eight, verses 28 and following, we're told that God works all things for the eternal good of those whom he's called, and we're told that those whom he foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.

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Those whom he predestined, he also called. Those whom he called, he justified. Those whom he justified, he glorified. But then Paul goes on to talk about this, just kind of putting maybe a bow on this particular redemption piece.

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What then, Romans 8 31, what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? The answer to that is no one.

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He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

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Of course he will. And then this, who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.

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Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who is indeed interceding for us.

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And then he goes on to talk about how we'll never be separated from the love of Christ Jesus. And all of that hinges upon what we've been talking about today, that God the

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Father chose a people before the foundation of the world, and Christ agreed with his

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Father in that pact of redemption, that covenant of redemption. I am going to go and I am going to die in the place of those people, and I will save them to the uttermost.

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And that's our hope and confidence. It's our hope and stay. I think this is a good place to wrap up here.

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And I just want to read a quote from Horton, and he writes this, Michael Horton. To all who trust in Christ, we declare with scripture that they are already now saved from God's wrath, death, and hell.

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Their salvation is not potential, but actual. They are not savable, but saved. It is not something that they are to complete or to make effective by their decision or effort, but it is to be received as a free gift.

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That's good news. Well, it's very obvious that as every week, we always have more to say, and I'm pretty sure we're going to handle some more objections and offer more hope in assurance and maybe even talk about some more controversial issues as it related to limited atonement.

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But you can do that with us over in our members podcast. This is a simple way for us just to provide more content, but also for you to support

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Theocast and what we are doing. It's a monthly membership. You can join us and it helps support and allows us to write more books and to provide more material coming your way.

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So if you want to join that or learn more about it, there's a 14 day free trial over at theocast .org.

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As always, thank you guys for listening. We'll see you again, hopefully in San Diego today or sometime this week, and we'll see you next week.