I was in the Reformed Pub recently, as one does, and was in a discussion regarding the doctrine of Limited Atonement.
The conversation was specifically centered around whether it's possible to find security or comfort in a God who uses the reformed view of limiting the atonement.
For those who are unaware, there are two views of limited atonement.
1. The non-reformed view is that the atonement is limited in its power.
That is to say, God has decided to give the authority for salvation to man.
Ultimately, God wants to save everyone, tries to save everyone, but can't save everyone, because He purposefully limits the power of the atonement.
2. The reformed view is that the atonement is limited by scope.
That is to say, God has decided to not save everyone.
Ultimately, God decides who He wants to save, and is successful in doing so. Those whom He chooses not to save, He leaves in order that they will, effectively, send themselves to hell.
He purposefully limits the scope of the atonement.
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Often, you will hear people say that they can't serve, love, or believe in a God that would not attempt to save all people.
Despite this being the exact thing shown in scripture from Genesis to Revelation, the fact that they would even utter such words, is at times, completely mind-boggling.
The question will sometimes be put forth, how can any love, serve, and believe in such a God.
How does believing this about God give us any sort of comfort?
Well, let's take a brief look at this doctrine and how it should cause us to find comfort in God.
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The first thing we need to briefly address is that God limiting the scope of not only His salvation, but even His other more general blessings to humanity, is something clearly taught throughout scripture.
God is not obligated by the fact of being our creator to treat everyone the same.
He is free to choose what we wants to do to and for the creatures He makes.
God directly states this exact thing.
Exodus 33:19 (ESV) And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.
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God even puts this very idea into practice
Deuteronomy 7:1-2 (ESV) When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction.
You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them.
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Joshua even reiterates this sentiment...
Joshua 11:20 (ESV) For it was the Lord's doing to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, in order that they should be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy but be destroyed, just as the Lord commanded Moses.
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The Holy Spirit inspired the apostle paul to pick up on this, in regards to God being free to differentiate between two people as He sees fit and treat them differenyly based solely upon His own will and so he penned the following...
Romans 9:6-18 (ESV) But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”
This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.”
And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—
she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”
As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means!
For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.
For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
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So, we see that God, from the beginning, has always chosen some over others by His own will, for His own purpose.
So this God, who limits the scope of His blessings, both eternal and temporal, is the God who is described all throughout scripture.
Let that sink in.
The doctrine of limited atonement points us to who God is, and the inherent characteristic of His nature - the freedom to choose.
So, even if we didn't recognise it all throughout the scriptures, the doctrine brings it to the forefront of our minds.
Join us next time as we continue our brief look at why and how limitied atonement should give us comfort in the God of our salvation.
Amen
