Limited Atonement

I was informed that I read the wrong chapter, but we actually read 2 Peter chapter two last week. So sorry, what was on the board was wrong. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, I would ask that right now you would fill me with the power of your spirit, Lord, that I would speak your word, speak your truth from your Bible behind your pulpit to your people for your glory.

In Christ's name, amen. Revelation 5, nine says this. Worthy are you to take the book and to break its seals for you were slain and purchased for God with your own blood, men from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.

That is the statement that was sung around the throne of God to Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords. He didn't make purchasable. He actually purchased with his own blood a people from every nation, tribe, and tongue.

The Doctrines of Grace and the Meaning of Limited Atonement

We are going through the doctrines of grace. We are teaching them category by category. Point by point of the tulip. So let me just recap. Keith has taught on the total depravity of man. And the total depravity of man mean he is totally unable to do the good that God requires.

Man is unable to come to God apart from the empowerment of the spirit. He will not obey the law of God. He is not able, and even if he could, he would not. That is the doctrine of total depravity. Then we went over unconditional election.

Unconditional election is that God in eternity past looked over all of humanity in its sinful state, and he chose to save some to be instruments of his glory and honor, and he passed over others, and he passes over them in sorrow.

God then takes those whom he passes over in sorrow and willfully punishes them in their sin. That is hard for some people to swallow, and I understand, but that is what the scripture teaches. Then it comes to the limited atonement.

Some people do not like the word limited atonement. So for those that like particular redemption or definite atonement, that's fine, but it is limited. And a limited atonement is that Jesus would come, and he would do the work of God that he sent him to do, and he would purchase for him those people whom were elected unconditionally in eternity past, and he would secure the salvation of those people.

Then irresistible grace, and if you don't like that, effectual calling, or whichever Andy decides term he uses next week to do it, is that the effectual call is the call of the spirit of God to the elect, applying the atoning process that which Jesus did to the elect, that they would come to faith and repentance through the power of the spirit.

And then the perseverance of the saints is that those whom God has elected in eternity past and has applied the atonement to them by the effectual call that they will persevere to the end, and they will be saved.

And not only will they persevere to the end, they will persevere in holiness, and they will persevere in faithfulness, not perfection, but in faithfulness. That is the doctrines of grace. And I wanna clear up any confusion.

A lot of people think that Calvinism is reformed theology. It is not. So just to let you know, those that believe that Calvinistic soteriology is not reformed theology, it is a part of reformed theology.

Reformed theology is far greater than the five points of Calvinism. And if you would like to get in some further details on that if you do not know, you can talk with me or Andy or Keith at any time to just make those distinctions.

Atonement, Substitution, and Sacrifice from Genesis to Job

First and foremost, why is atonement necessary? Atonement is necessary because God is infinitely holy, and he is a majestic God. He cannot tolerate sin. He must punish sin. He cannot overlook. There are many false religions in the world that just say that God just can't forgive.

He cannot because he is just. He must punish sin. Now, when we're dealing with a theological system such as Calvinism, it is often when we're dealing with this very difficult subject of the limited atonement that we want to at times pit the Arminian view of an unlimited atonement against the verses of limited atonement.

That is not my plan to do today. I do not think that's beneficial. My plan today is to let the scripture speak for itself and use the biblical theology, how God unfolded through redemption, atonement, redemption, and the satisfaction of his wrath, and let the scriptures determine that.

So we'll begin in Genesis. In the garden, our predecessors, our forefather, and mother, sinned against the holy God. They sinned grievously against the holy God, knowing the prohibition, and the day that you eat and dine, you will die.

And what did they do? They were to be guiled by the serpent, and they took of the fruit, the knowledge of good and evil, and they threw all of his predecessors and prodigy into eternal condemnation, and here's what happened.

In Genesis chapter three, verse 21, it says, and the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin. He clothed them with them. Now, an inference is a conclusion drawn based on internal evidence that is not explicitly spoken.

It says here that God made a garment. He made a covering for them. Well, how did he do that? How did he make it with animal skin? Well, the inference is, what did he do? He had to take the life of an animal.

Now, some people will point here that this is the setup of the sacrificial system. I am not gonna argue with somebody if they believe that. If that's what they believe, that is fine, but we know this, that it's not explicitly said that that was what was instituted in the garden, but we know this, that God said, you have violated my law.

The day that you eat and dine, you will die, and God did not kill them, but what did he do? He provided a covering for the consequence of their sin, and he made clothing to cover their shame. That's what he did.

Now, the conclusion would be that God took an innocent animal, sacrificed it for their shame, and gave them coverings. Notice this, that God graciously did that before he exiled them out of the garden.

What a wonderful thing for God to do. That is substitutionary. So we see the thread in the garden begins with, there is a substitutionary thread that comes out of the garden. Then we go to Genesis chapter four, verse seven, and I'm gonna read verses two through seven.

Again, she gave birth to another son, and it was Cain's brother, Abel, and Abel was a keeper of the flock, but Cain was a tiller of the ground, so it came about that in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground.

Abel, on his part, he brought the firstling to the flock in the fatted portion, and the Lord had regard for Abel in his offering, but Cain, for his offering, he had no regard. So Cain became angry, and his countenance fell, and the Lord said to him, why are you angry?

Why has your countenance fell? If you do well, your countenance will be lifted up, but if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you, and you must master it. This is what happens right before the first murder, and you say, well, why would you use this passage?

Well, my understanding of this passage, and Keith, when he was teaching through this passage, he gave two to three different interpretations of that, and mine is, par for the course, is the minority. The word that is translated here for sin is the Hebrew word hatah.

Hatah is used 33 times in the Pentateuch. Only three times is that word translated into the word sin. Three, three. Every other time, it's translated as a sin offering. Every time Moses used that word, but three times, it was a sin offering.

So if I was going to translate this, and if it was translated literally, it says, if there is not acceptance for you, and you do not do well, at the opening of the door, a sin offering is crouching. Its desire is for you, you must rule it.

Do you understand? Whether you agree with my interpretation of that or not, you understand, if my interpretation of that is correct, he brought an unworthy sacrifice, which angered God. God says, you didn't do what you were supposed to do, and you're not gonna do what you're supposed to do because you're angry with your brother, but you know what I have done?

I have provided a sin offering for you. All you have to do is take it. That's what God did for Cain, but what did Cain do? Instead of receiving the substitution that was provided for him, he murdered his brother.

Let's go on down to Job. Job chapter one, verses two through five. Job had seven sons, three daughters, and they were born to him, and he had 7 ,000 sheep. He had 3 ,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys.

He had many servants, and that man was the greatest of all men of the east. His sons used to go out, and they would hold a feast in the house with him each on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat, and they would drink with them, and when the days of the feasting had completed their cycle, Job would send.

He would consecrate his children, rising up in the morning early, and would offer a burnt offering according to the number of them all, and Job did this continually because perhaps his sons and daughters have sinned and cursed God in their heart.

Do you see what Job did? Job got up early in the morning, and because of the sins of his sons and daughters, and as the priest of his family, what did he do? He used a substitute to placate the God of all creation for the wrath that was kindled against him.

Burnt offering is a reference to a sin offerings, and how do we know that? Because he says he offered up burnt offerings according to them for perhaps they had sinned and cursed God. So we see here, too, a substitute was provided for the wrath of God against the children of Job.

Then you go on down to the last chapter of Job. Remember, Job had some pretty good friends that told him what a dirtbag he was, and they gave him all kinds of bad advice. Well, listen to what happens at the end.

It says in Job 42, verses seven through nine, and it came about that after the Lord had spoken these words to Job, that the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, my wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends because of what you have spoken about me was not right, but my servant Job spoke right of me.

Now, therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls, seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up a burnt offering, and he will offer up a burnt offering for you, and my servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept him, so that I will not do what I want to do to you because of your folly, because you spoke not good of me, and you did not do what was right, but my servant Job has.

So Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar went and did as the Lord commanded, and the Lord accepted them on behalf of Job. Amazing. Here it is, these men who thought they were doing God's work, found out that all they did was kindle the anger of God towards them because they had misrepresented God, misrepresented Job, and then God says, if you want me to not act according to you as I should because of your foolishness, then you're gonna have to go to the priest with a substitution that I will provide, and that's what he did.

Job was the oldest book written. It was written before Moses, and you know Moses wrote Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. So let's go on to the patriarchal time, Genesis chapter 22. He said this, Abraham.

God said, Abraham, take now your son, your only son, whom you love. Interesting, was Isaac his only son? No, he was the only son of promise there. Take now your son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him up there as a burnt offering.

Once again, a burnt offering was what? A sin offering. Take him and offer him as a sin offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you. And then in verse seven it says, and Isaac said to his father, father, here I am, son.

He said, I've got the fire, I got the wood. Where's the lamb for this offering? And Abraham said, God will provide for himself a lamb for this burnt offering, my son. So the two of them walked on together.

They came to the place where God told him. Abraham built the altar, they arranged the wood. He bound his son Isaac, he laid him on the altar, and he laid him on top of the wood, and Abraham stretched out his hand, took the knife to slay his son, but the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham.

And he said, yes, here I am. He said, don't stretch your hand against the lad. Do nothing to him, for now that I know that you fear God, that you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. And then Abraham raised his eyes and he looked, and behold, there was a ram caught in the thicket, caught by its horns.

And Abraham went, he took that ram, and he offered him up as a burnt offering in the place of his son. First of all, I can't imagine the face of Isaac going, you want me to be laid on top of this? We don't have any interaction of what Isaac said, but the submission of the young boy to get up on that altar.

We talk about the faith of Abraham, what about the faith of Isaac? And then God said, don't do it. And he provided a offering in place of his son. Hey, if you can't preach Jesus Christ from Genesis 22, you have no business being standing in a pulpit.

None at all. That clearly is a substitutionary sacrifice. So let's move forward from the patriarchal times to the time of the Exodus. The time of the Exodus were the events that would lead up to the greatest deliverance in all of Israel.

In short, 430 years they have been in bondage. 430 years, they had been mistreated, they had been whipped by the taskmasters, and God tells Moses, you're gonna go to Pharaoh, and you're gonna say, let my people go.

He ain't gonna listen, so what I will do is I will send plagues. I'm gonna send everything from turn of the water to blood, frogs, lice, hail, all of these things. And at the end of it, he ain't gonna listen, I'm gonna kill his son.

But listen to what happens. As all those things unfold, it's not until the fourth plague that God says, I'm fixing to make a distinction between my people and those people. And that distinction came when that distinction was becoming with the loss of life.

God was fixing to kill something. And he says, I'm gonna make a distinction now. There's gonna be a difference between my people and Egypt. And it came with the plague of killing the livestock, and it came with right before God rained hail down from heaven, pulverizing men and beasts to death, is what it says.

But then you come to this passage. Exodus 12. Verses one through three. The final plague in the Passover. It says, now the Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, this month will be a new beginning for you.

It'll be the first month of the first year. Speak to all the congregation, saying on the 10th month, there take each one of you a lamb for themselves according to their father's household. That lamb will be for each household.

Now in that household is too small the lamb, he and his neighbor, the nearest to him, they will eat together. And it will be divided. That lamb shall be a unblemished male of one year. You will take it from the sheep or from the goats.

You will keep it in the house until the 14th day of the same month, the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel. And then at twilight, you will kill it. Moreover, they shall take some of the blood, and they will put it on the doorpost and on the lintel of each house.

They shall eat the flesh that same night. They'll roast it in fire. They shall eat it with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs. Do not eat it raw or do not eat it while it's been boiled in its water, but rather roast it upon fire, both its head, its legs, its entrails.

And you shall not leave any of it until the morning, but whatever is left until the morning, you shall burn with fire. Now, you shall eat it in the same manner, girded with your loins, your sandals on your feet, your staff on your hand, and you shall eat it in haste.

It is the Lord's Passover. For I will go through the land of Egypt on this night, and I will strike down the firstborn of everyone in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. And against all the gods of Egypt, I will execute my judgments, for I am the Lord God.

This blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live. And when I see that blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you, and the destroyer will not strike you in the land of Egypt.

God made a concession for the people of Israel. That plague was coming through, and he was gonna kill every firstborn. And I want you to, if you don't remember what was said in Ezekiel, God's intent was to strike their firstborn down, too.

Let me read for you what was said by the prophet Ezekiel. Prophet Ezekiel, chapter 20, in verses five through 12, says this. Thus said the Lord on the day that I chose Israel and swore to their descendants, in the house of Jacob I made known to them.

And when I swore to them that I was gonna lead them out of the land of Egypt, which I had selected a land for them with milk and honey, which is in the glory of all the lands. And I said to them, you cast away all of the idols of Egypt because I am the Lord God who will lead you out of Egypt.

But they did not listen. They rebelled against me and they were not willing. And they did all these detestable things before my eye because they did not forsake the idols. And I resolved to pour out my wrath on them to accomplish my anger because they did not listen to me.

But I acted on for sake of my own name that I should not be profaned among the nations where I would send them that I would not be taken advantage of. So I looked on them while they were in the land of Egypt, withhold my wrath and brought them to the wilderness.

You understand? He made a provision for them as well. He didn't go to Pharaoh and say, hey, I'm gonna kill the firstborn. But if you take a lamb and you slay it and you put its blood over the doorpost, your firstborn will not be killed.

No, no, no. He only made a distinction between his people and Egypt. And what did God say he should have done? He should have killed the firstborn of the nation of Israel too, but God did not. But what did he do?

He provided a penal substitution, penal substitution. The penalty for idolatry is death. And God says, you know what? Because of your idolatry, I will provide a substitute and I will do it not for you, but for the glory of my own name.

God leads those people out of the land of Egypt and as they're being chased by Pharaoh and his army, God drowns their oppressors in the Red Sea. Then he gets them to the Sinai Peninsula. He gives them the Mosaic Covenant, which has all the laws and statutes and ordinance.

And in this covenant, God provides a codified sacrificial system. One that would deal with the covenant people that God has given and has taken out of the land of Egypt and it would handle their sin problem, but only temporarily.

Here's what it says. Under this covenant, day after day, the offering of burnt offerings, sin offerings, guilt offerings were to be obeyed. Every Sabbath, the show bread would be removed from the holy place.

It was to be replaced with fresh bread on the Sabbath. Every morning and evening, a priest would burn incense at the veil of the entrance of the Holy of Holies on the golden altar of incense. But once a year, that high priest would enter that veil and he would make atonement for the sins of the nation of Israel.

But those sins he would atone for would only be the ones done in ignorance. Not willful sins of the high hand. Ones that they did not know that they had committed. This was called the Day of Atonement.

It would be on this day that God would make a covering. Leviticus 16, verses 15 through 22 say this. This is the codified law. Then he shall slaughter the goat on the sin offering, which is for the people.

He would bring its blood inside the veil. He would do with its blood as he did with the bull's blood. He would sprinkle it on the mercy seat. He would sprinkle it on the front and the sides. He shall make atonement for the holy place because of its impurities of the sons of Israel and because their transgressions in regard to their sin.

And thus he shall do for the tent of meeting, which abides with them in the midst. So he had to sanctify not only himself but all the stuff around him. When he goes in to make atonement in the holy place, no one shall be in the tent of meeting until he comes out.

He will go in, he would make atonement for himself, for his household, and for all the assembly of Israel. Then he shall go to the altar that is before the Lord. He will make an atonement. He shall take some of the blood of the bull and some of the blood of the goat and put it on the horns of the altar and on all sides.

With his finger, he shall sprinkle some of the blood seven times. He will cleanse it from its impurities from the sons of Israel so it would be consecrated. And when he finishes atoning for the people and the holy place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall offer the live goat.

Then Aaron will lay both of his hands on the head of the live goat, confess it, and the iniquities of Israel and their transgressions. And this one will be led out into the wilderness by a hand of a man who stands in readiness.

This goat will bear the iniquities in a solitary land and will be released forever into the wilderness. This was the scapegoat. We've heard that a lot. You know, you hear, oh, that guy was a scapegoat.

You understand the scapegoat idea? It came from the Mosaic legislation. It was never heard of until then. So here's what happens. God says, hey, you're gonna cast a lot for two goats. You go and you take from among God's people two goats.

Take, no, no, no, take, not offered, take. You take those two goats. They're to be examined. Teeth have to be perfect, gums have to be perfect, ears gotta be perfect, tails gotta be fluffy, hooves, all that stuff's gotta look good.

And you're gonna take one, you're gonna slit its throat, you're gonna put it on a burnt offering, you're gonna offer its blood up, then you're gonna take one in which the lot falls on to live, you're gonna lay his hands on it, you're gonna lead it off into the wilderness, never to return.

And it says it was done for the sins of who? The people, the nation of Israel. Substitutionary penal atonement for who? Was it for the Jebusites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Rephidites, Girgashites, Canaanites, Amorites, and I could just go on and on and on.

No, it dealt with the sins of one people, and it was God's covenant people. That day it would deal with the propitiation, and a lot of our new theologians do not like the word propitiation because it has to deal with placation.

You know what placating is? It's appeasing the wrath of a deity, and that's exactly what's taking place. I don't have a problem with placating because that's exactly what it did. They sacrificed this animal.

It appeased the wrath of God temporarily, temporarily, for one year, one year. Sin wasn't taken care of. The sins actually weren't removed. It was a symbolic thing for that animal to be led out into the wilderness.

Did that actually take away the sins of the people? No, why? They had to do it next year, again, and again. This is penal substitutionary atonement, and this happened for 1 ,400 years. Look, when that guy came to pick up them goats, them goats weren't going, hey, I'll go.

Hey, let me be, let me be the one. No, they took it by force, took it by force. This is penal substitution. God's wrath would be placated one more time. Now, I understand that we think about being taken by force, and sure, in my mind, when I read that, I go, well, Jesus was the fulfillment of that.

And sure, was there a cohort, 600, 200, 300, whatever it was, men that came down to Kidron Valley to get Jesus that night in the Garden of Gethsemane? Sure. Did they come to take him by force? Well, they did bind him, but you understand, when he came up there and he says, hey, we're looking for Jesus, he said, I am, and every one of them fell to the ground.

Nobody took Jesus. He willfully laid his life down. Willful. Although this penal substitutionary atonement was provided, God's wrath was only placated, and his justice was not satisfied. 700 years before the eternal Son of God steps into time and space and became flesh, which we talked about this morning in Sunday school, to dwell among his people, the prophet Isaiah begins to make these prophecies about Yahweh's servant.

And these prophecies are often called the Servant Songs. And before I go any further, some people may take this as being snarky, but there are some men in our camp, and I don't mean within our church, but within, quote, the Calvinistic teaching, that believe that the Servant Songs are not talking about Jesus Christ, that they're talking about the nation of Israel.

Well, I would tell those men that they are swelled up with human pride and with scholastic pride, and they need to repent, because here's what happens. In chapter 42 of Isaiah the Servant Song, it says that servant will establish justice, and Matthew chapter 12, 1521 says he's the one.

Isaiah 52, 13, 53 through 12 says that Jesus is a suffering servant, and if anybody says that's the nation of Israel, then they gotta take it up with Philip, who crawled up into the chariot with the Ethiopian eunuch, and the Ethiopian eunuch says, hey, man, I wish I knew who this person was, and Philip hops up in there, and he says it's the son of the living God.

So these prophecies were the Servant Songs. 42, one through 10 says that servant will establish justice. 49, one through seven says that servant will be a light of salvation to both Jew and Gentile, to all the nations.

Chapter 50, verses four through nine say that that servant will demonstrate faithfulness, but that faithfulness will lead to great suffering, which leads us to the Suffering Servant Psalm of 52, 13 through 53, 12, and I'm gonna read that passage and just briefly walk through it.

I'll begin in verse two. And he grew up before him like a tender shoot, like a root out of a parched ground. He had no stately form or majesty. There was nothing that they would wanna look upon him. His appearance was not attractive.

Look, Jesus was just a normal guy, but he was despised, and he was forsaken by men. He was a man of sorrows. He was acquainted with grief. Of course he was acquainted with grief and sorrow. He was the son of the living God who had subjected himself to being a man.

And like one from whom they would hide their face, he was despised, and we did not esteem him. Surely his griefs he himself, our griefs he bore, our sorrows he carried away, yet we esteemed him stricken.

He was smitten by God. He was afflicted by God. He would be pierced through for our transgressions. He would be crushed for our iniquities. The chastisement for our well-being would fall upon him, and by his scourging we would be healed, and all of us like sheep have gone astray, each one of us turned to his own way.

But the Lord has caused the iniquity, the iniquity of us all to fall upon him. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted. He did not open his mouth. He was like a lamb that was led to a slaughter and like a sheep before it, he was silent before it shears.

So he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away, and as for the generation who would consider, he was cut off from the land of the living for the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due.

You see that? The transgression of God's people was for them, and it says that God laid it upon this person, this servant. His grave was assigned to wicked men, yet he was with the rich man in his death because he had not done any violence nor was there any deceit found in him, but it pleased God to crush him, putting him to shame, putting him to grief.

If he would render himself as a guilt offering, he will also see his offspring. He would prolong his days, and the good pleasure of the Lord would prosper in his hands, and as a result of the anguish of his soul, he who's the he, the Lord would be satisfied, and his knowledge of the righteous one, my servant, he will justify the many.

He will bear all our iniquities. Therefore, I will allot him a portion with the great, and he will divide the booty among the strong because he poured out himself even unto death and was numbered among transgressions, yet he himself bore the sins of many and interceded for the transgressors.

That is a description of no longer of an animal that would bear the iniquities of the people. That is no longer the description of a goat or a turtle dove or a lamb that would be sacrificed. This was a man.

So now we know that the satisfaction of God's wrath would not come through a animal. It says here that God would look upon him being crushed and he would be satisfied. He would be satisfied. No longer was this to be an animal.

It was to be a man. Substitutionary penal atonement, once again, at its finest. There would be a person that would come and pay the penalty that sinners were due. It would be the substitute, which mean that person would be a sacrifice.

And that atonement means that it would take away the sins of the people and that God's wrath would be satisfied. And if you read that passage slowly, you will see that it never one time, never one time says for all men everywhere, the many, the many.

He will justify who? The many. He will die for who? His people. He will die and he will bear the transgressions of his people. And this is not hermeneutical hopscotch. From Genesis to Isaiah, this is speaking of a specific type of atonement that is limited to a central group of people.

I'm not reading that into the text. That's simple exegesis. Fast forward 700 years. The Virgin Mary has conceived the Messiah by the Holy Spirit. Here's what it says. Matthew 1, verses 18 through 21. Now the birth of Jesus is as follows.

When his mother had betrothed Joseph, before they had come together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And Joseph, being a righteous man, not wanting to bring her disgrace, planned to put her away secretly.

But when he had considered this, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. He said, Joseph, son of David, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid to take her as your wife. Mary is with child.