In the previous article, i began looking at the doctrine known as Limited Atonement, in order to get an understanding as to how this doctrine can help us to find comfort in a God who would intentionally limit the scope of His atonement, i.e. picking and choosing whom He will show love to by dying in th3 cross for their sins.
The first thing we looked at is the freedom that God has to treat one human different than another.
This reality is shown all throughout the scriptures.
The second thing we need to look at, is the fact that since the scripture teaches that this is indeed who God is, that God is not going to change Himself in order to make our sensibilities, which are corrupted by sin, at ease.
God is the perfect and holy creator and sustainer of all things.
He is who He is, and never needs to change because of His inherent perfection.
It is natural that there will be things about God that we don't understand, or perhaps don't like.
The reason for this is because we are sinners, while God is Holy.
We will not always see eye to eye with God, and in those instances, we should confess our sin of defiance before our creator and supreme authority.
As it is written...
Isaiah 55:8-9 (ESV) For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
---
It's one thing for the unregenerate to say that God should change His standard, or that His judgements aren't righteous in some way, but the believer is not able to say such a thing.
If it were true, then we are not worshipping a perfect God.
It makes perfect sense for a human to not agree with everything that God does.
For one, we are finite whereas God is infinite.
Furthermore, we hindered by the sin nature that dwells within us.
So there will be times when we think there is a better action that God should take, as opposed to what He is actually doing.
We may even find ourselves repeating the words of abraham.
Genesis 18:23-25 (ESV) Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city.
Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it?
Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked!
Far be that from you!
Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”
---
Look at abraham's concern. It's for the righteousness of God.
From abraham's perspective, if God kills the righteous during the judgement of the wicked, that isn't righteousness.
Is he correct?
No.
But from his limited point of view, he believes that he is correct.
The believer can't make such claims. We should always concede to God's judgements and His ways.
Why?
Because we confess that God is perfect in His attributes.
He has perfect wisdom, holiness, and righteousness.
He is not simply the most high in the sense that in all of creation He is above all but there is still a place above even that, that He hasn't attained.
That is not perfection. That is to be almost perfect/near perfection.
No. We state that God is the very example of perfection.
Since that is the case, we must confess, that even though we may not understand, every action that God takes is perfectly just and righteous.
What we should do, is to make sure our understanding of an action we believe God is taking is actually consistent with His character as revealed in scripture.
God limiting the scope of the atonement is very consistent with the way He deals with man.
So the claim that its wrong for Him to limit the atonement in this way or that God would be "better" somehow if He limited the power of the atonement instead, means that God is certainly not perfect in His attributes.
Meditate on that for awhile.
Join us next time as we look at another point in relation to the doctrine of limited atonement.
No comments:
Post a Comment