1 John 2:2 and Limited Atonement

How do we reconcile 1 John 2-2 with the doctrine of limited atonement? Welcome back to another Conversations with a Calvinist Quick Quack.

This is not a short video in the sense of my normal little one-minute videos.

This is actually going to be more than a minute, but it is short in the sense of this is not a full podcast.

So I want to deal specifically with an objection that I keep seeing arising in comments in different places.

And, of course, this objection has been around for a long time.

And that is the objection to limited atonement from 1 John 2-2.

Limited atonement, of course, is the doctrine also known as particular redemption.

It says that the work of Christ on the cross provided atonement only for those who would believe, otherwise known as the elect.

Opponents say, no, Christ died and provided atonement for every person who has ever lived.

Because of this, His atonement is available to everyone.

They would say there's a universal atonement and Christ died for everyone.

And the most cited passage in regard to this is 1 John 2-2, which says, He, being Christ, is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

The opponent of limited atonement would say that this passage is the silver bullet against the doctrine of limited atonement.

Because they would say that it clearly teaches that Christ died for the world, which they interpret to mean every single person who has ever lived.

They often accuse Calvinists of having no answer, or they're unsatisfied with the answers that we have given.

So I want to say from the outset that I'm sure that this isn't necessarily going to convince everyone.

I'm sure that there are those who will hear what I have to say and immediately dismiss it.

Some won't even listen to the whole video.

But I do want to demonstrate that Calvinists have thought about this passage.

We have considered this passage in light of all of the other passages that we deal with on this subject.

And we do believe that we have an answer to the objection that this passage would tell us that limited atonement is wrong.

And the issue that we deal with really is the definition of two specific terms in this passage.

The first term is the term world, and the second term is the term propitiation.

Now we'll start with the second one.

Propitiation means to make favorable, and it refers to the averting of God's wrath against sinners.

The Greek word is hilasterion, and it essentially means that God's wrath was satisfied.

It's used four times in the English Standard Version, Romans 3.23, Hebrews 2.17, 1 John 2.2, and 1 John 4.10.

And its meaning is consistent throughout all of those verses.

The modern hymn in Christ Alone actually references propitiation when it sings, or when we sing it, when we say, on that cross when Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.

That's the doctrine of propitiation, that God's wrath was satisfied.

World, on the other hand, has a series of different meanings and uses throughout the Bible, and in particularly, even in John's writings.

Some would say world always means every single person who has ever lived, but that is demonstrably false in several verses.

One dictionary of the Bible even lists 22 different and distinct nuances of the word world used in the Bible.

For instance, we know that the Bible says, For God so loved the world.

And then in another place, it says, Love not the world, neither the things in the world.

And so we know that these are different uses of the Greek word kosmos, which is the word for world.

And one of the best examples which show that the word world does not always mean every single person is in John's gospel.

John 12.19 says this, So the Pharisees said to one another, You see that you are gaining nothing.

Look, the world has gone after him.

This is referring to Jesus.

The Pharisees are saying that the world was going after Jesus, but that obviously did not mean every single person because it didn't include them.

It also didn't include people that had never heard of Jesus.

It didn't include people in China and places like that that were alive during the time of Christ.

So the world doesn't always mean every single person who ever lived.

Pastor Derek Thomas was interviewed on this subject and was asked this question.

I think he gave a masterful answer.

He talked about the fact that he says, I've been all over the world.

I've been to Australia.

I've been to Taiwan.

I've been to Japan.

I've been all over the world, but I've never been to China.

I've been all over the world, but I've never been to Iceland or the Antarctic.

So his point is easy to understand.

World always has a context.

And if we say someone's been all over the world, that doesn't mean they've been to every single place.

When the Bible talks about the world or the whole world, it doesn't always mean every single individual.

So what is John's meaning in 1 John 2.2? Well, I believe John is referring to the fact that there are those for whom Christ died and every tribe, tongue, and people and nation on the earth.

Jesus did not die for the Jews only.

Jesus did not die for the small community of John's church at the time as his writing, but Jesus died as a propitiation for people all around the world.

He died for the whole world in that sense.

Now I want to challenge back the idea that Jesus died and provided a sacrifice for every single person who ever lived.

This is a claim that the universal atonement advocates often make.

And all one must do to prove it wrong is to show that there are those who were not included in the sacrificial atonement of Christ.

So in 1 Samuel, God makes a pronouncement.

And I want you to hear this pronouncement.

This is about the house of Eli and particularly the sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, the ones who were in great sin during the early chapters of the book of 1 Samuel.

And this is what it says in 1 Samuel 3.14.

Therefore, I swear, this is God speaking, I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.

Notice what it says.

It says that this great sin that was done, that was performed by Hophni and Phinehas, and by extension Eli for allowing it to happen, that this sin brought about a punishment that would not receive atonement, that would forever go without being atoned for.

So my question would be, did Christ provide an atonement for Hophni and Phinehas when God said no sacrifice would ever be offered as an atonement for them? So did Christ make an atonement for Hophni and Phinehas? I would say not.

And in that sense, we can say the atonement was not made for every single person who ever lived.

Now some might argue and say, well, that was before Christ, and therefore it's not included in the world.

But we know that the sacrifice of Christ is what provided atonement both before the cross and after the cross.

Everyone who's ever been saved, before Jesus and after Jesus, have been saved by the blood of the cross.

And so we can argue that the fact that the universal atonement advocate wants to say that that atonement expands to every single person and Hophni and Phinehas were not included, that it's not, couldn't be a universal atonement.

This leads me to my last point.

If we believe in hell, we have to believe in some form of limited atonement because people are going to hell for their sins.

Some people say, well, they're only going to hell because of their unbelief.

Well, unbelief is a sin.

And if Christ died for all their sins, did he not also die for their unbelief? And so we have to either say that the atonement is limited in scope or it is limited in power.

And ultimately, the limited atonement advocate, those on my side, those on the Calvinistic side, would say it's limited in scope.

It was made for the elect, for those who would believe.

But the universal atonement advocate has to say it's limited in power because even though it was meant to save all, it doesn't have the power to save all.

And that's where we have our problem with those who would argue for universal atonement.

Ultimately, they have an atonement that doesn't have the power to save all that it was made for.

And we believe Christ died and has the power to save all that his death was meant to save.

I hope this has been a helpful answer to the question of how do Calvinists reconcile 1 John 2.