Objections to Calvinism Part 8 of 5
I come back again to this ongoing series that addresses some objections that I hear raised against Calvinism. I return to the issue of Evangelism and how it relates to Reformed theology. Unlike the previous post that just tried to show that a Calvinist has grounds to evangelize the lost, specifically it is the Lord and the believer sharing in a joy that only comes from telling the lost about Jesus (cf. Luke 10:17-22
). A common objection that I have heard recently comes from within my own backyard, so to speak. It is that limited atonement (a.k.a. particular redemption or definite atonement), the L in TULIP, prevents one from telling anyone that Jesus died for that person. Let me clarify and then respond.
Let me further explain what this objection is by first explaining what Limited Atonement is. Limited atonement is the doctrine that teaches that Christ’s death is only for those people whom the Father has predestined to enter into eternal life, or the elect. Christ’s death secures for the elect all that is necessary and required for their salvation, including propitiating God’s wrath, imputing Christ’s righteousness, the awakening of saving faith to trust in Christ. Thus the extent of who are the recipients of this death has been limited to only those whom the Father has predetermined to be the beneficiaries of Christ’s crucifixion. The opposite side of this coin is that Christ’s death has made salvation possible to all men and women universally. Some push this universal or general redemption so far as to say that Christ has atoned for all sins committed and therefore the only thing that keeps a person from entering eternal life is that person exercising his/her free will to believe in Jesus or not. As some say, “It’s not the sin question, it’s the faith question. Have you believed in Jesus Christ as your Savior.”
Now let me illustrate the objection. John is a Christian who is out in the park speaking to whomever will listen to him talk about Jesus. He meets Will in the park and he begins to talk about Jesus. He tells Will that Will is a sinner and has offended a just and holy God. Now, as a non-Calvinist/Arminian, John says something like this to Will, “But there is good news, Jesus has died in your stead. The wrath that God had stored up for your sins has been poured out upon Jesus upon the cross. Jesus died for you! All you have to do is believe in him as your savior and you will go to heaven.”
If John were a Calvinist, according to the objection, John could not tell Will that Jesus died for Will. Rather he must say something like this, “There is good news for you Will. Jesus has died for sinners. He substituted himself for a particular group of sinners that had predetermined to save and bore the wrath of God against their sin. All you need to do is trust Christ as your Lord and savior and you will be saved!” As a Calvinist John cannot tell Will that Jesus died for him. John doesn’t know for whom Jesus died. Thus to be honest John has to say that Christ died for sinners. Thus while the Calvinist doctrine is about particular sinners, the evangelist must speak in general terms. But the Arminian doctrine is about humanity universally (this also includes all who are in hell suffering for their sin, by the way), the evangelist can speak about the particular person (s)he is speaking to.
This is a major argument leveled by Arminians in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), of which I am an ordained minister in. My doctrine is unbiblical because I cannot tell Will that Jesus died for him specifically. But here is my response: Where is this form of evangelism in the Bible, specifically in the New Covenant records of Jesus and the Apostles preaching? Let me break this down a little bit futher.
First, where in the Bible does God actually speak about what Jesus death means and what it accomplishes? The answer is in the epistles, mostly Paul and Hebrews. In other words, only in texts specifically addressing Christians and teaching Christians about what Jesus has done for them on the cross do we find the idea that Jesus died for people. There is no text where we see Jesus telling an unbeliever that he is going to die for that specific unbeliever. There is no text where an Apostle is preaching and he ends his sermon/message by saying that Jesus died for everyone who hears him/her so they should trust Jesus. Instead what you see in the New Covenant texts are Jesus and the Apostles telling people that Jesus is the Messiah of God and the judge of all mankind. He commands all men everywhere to repent and trust in Jesus to save them. No presentation of a doctrine of the atonement. Read a text like Mark 1:14-15; Acts 2:14-41; Acts 3:11-26; Acts 13:13-52; Acts 17:22-34 and tell me that what my fellow SBC objectors are evangelizing like the early church. I’m not trying to discredit what they are doing in terms of their evangelism technique. What I am saying is that don’t tell me that I can’t evangelize biblically when the very method you advocate cannot be found anywhere in the biblical witness! Isn’t the most biblical method of evangelism to say to the sinner that s/he must repent and believe in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin lest they die and go to hell, judged by an eternally holy and righteous and just God?
There is another response and that is this: the objector hasn’t demonstrated that their view of the atonement is correct. For John to tell Will that Christ died for him does not prove the extent or the efficacy of the atonement. It presumes upon John’s part that he knows that God has determined to save Will. But how does it prove that the atonement isn’t for a particular group of people chosen by God before the foundations of the world and the ages began and Christ did to secure their salvation, rather Christ died for all men in the same way and that only their faith in the Lord Jesus enables it to become effectual? It doesn’t! Will could be one of the elect. As a Calvinist I would not presume to say that Will is but John could actually have picked one of God’s elect. What has been proven is that if Will trusts Jesus as Lord and Savior then we will know that Will is elect (no matter if you view election as a Calvinist or an Amrinian) because only believers are elect. Also, who would dispute that Jesus’ death saves those who believe in Jesus?
This is a poor objection and one that those who use it should rethink. If you are not a Calvinist and you have problems with the idea of Christ’s death being only for a group of people whom God has predetermined apart from any act of will/believing or any work then you should go to the Bible and prove that Limited Atonement is not what is found in the New Covenant understanding of Christ’s death. Exegete Hebrews and Romans and Galatians and demonstrate that Jesus death is for all humans for all time in all places, including hell. Derive the doctrine from Scripture. Don’t use objections that really prove nothing and fails to disprove anything. The kind of objection above only gets someone’s emotions going and doesn’t actually teach them Scripture and what God has revealed in it.
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While you don’t defend the idea of limited atonement(and you did not really set out to do that), you do an admirable job answering the objections of your hypothetical objector. The biblical record definitely has instances of “evangelists” asking for all to hear to repent and believe.
I would agree with Honzo’s reference. I guess as a former Calvinist myself, I understand why Calvinists can and do call evangelize (though I can understand why people think they don’t). So, I think you answer that question, but I’m not convinced that L.A. is anything more than a logical deduction from the other 4 points.
I have a different response, actually. I take it that when people tell someone unsaved that Jesus died for their sins, what they mean is simply that if they repent the cross will cover their sins. The statement is already hypothetical. They don’t mean that the atonement already does cover the person’s sins, or they’d have to see evangelism as pointless. The person’s sins are already atoned for. So telling someone that Jesus died for their sins is true, in the sense that Jesus died so that their sins could be atoned for (even if they won’t actually be), but limited atonement is compatible with that, as you said in your initial explanation of the doctrine. So I don’t see the problem to begin with.
Tom, there’s something that hyper-Calvinists call limited atonement that’s much more than a deduction from the other four points. They mean that there’s no sense in which Jesus even potentially died for the non-elect. They don’t accept potentiality at all, and thus there’s no sense in which the atonement could have covered anyone’s sins besides those it does cover. If you mean limited atonement that way, then it certainly doesn’t follow from the other four points, and I’ve seen mainstream Calvinists slip into it. John Owen even has a famous argument for limited atonement that assumes this view of limited atonement, although a friend of mine who knows Owen’s thought better than I do insists that that famous argument was Owen on a very bad day. It really is a fallacious argument, so I hope so.
Jeremy,
The objector I had in mind is the typical Southern Baptist from my experience. Most that I have run into contact with argue that Christ as already removed the sins of everyone whoever lived. Thus what is left to damn a person to hell is unbelief in Jesus Christ as Savior.
Yes, that’s a crazy view. It’s just not one that I’ve ever run into anyone seriously defending. Objections to limited atonement that I’ve run into all get the view wrong, and it turns out they don’t even deny the view that I think limited atonement ever consisted of.
[...] would the church be doing to stand beside our brothers and sisters? Henry T (Hank) Imler presents Objections to Calvinism Part 8 of 5 posted at Think Wink.. Does the New Testament discuss Limited Atonement? Henry M Imler presents [...]
Hi there
Found you through the Carnival.
On the previous 2 comments, I ask myself, “What do Calvinists do with John the Evangelist proclaiming that Christ is the atoning sacrifice for sins, not only for us but also for the whole world?” The Calvinists I’ve met start playing “what does ‘world’ really mean?” Which, y’know, “world” means the whole planet if it’s used geographically, and it means “opposition to God” if it’s opposed to heaven or spirituality, and it means “all the people in the world” if it’s used as a shorthand for people. But it doesn’t mean “the elect”.
Jeremy, I wonder if this (atoning sacrifice for the whole world) is part of what you mean by ‘potentiality’? I’ve never quite understood how the Calvinists of the non-hyper variety would see ‘potentiality’ in light of the Calvinist take on predestination.
(Full disclosure for those who don’t know me: I’m Lutheran. We think Calvinists and Arminians are both all confused. Consider the question ‘Have you stopped beating your wife?’”. Just because there are only two answers doesn’t make either of them right.)
Take care & God bless
WF
WF,
Glad to see you’ve found me. I really enjoyed your comment about being a Lutheran. I really laughed–though not sure if you meant it to be funny.
You spoke of 1 John 2:2
and it is a very valid text to bring up in opposition. I wouldn’t play word games with κόσμου (world) until I have asked what one does with ἱλασμός (propitiation/atoning sacrifice). Did Christ actually satisfy God’s wrath upon the cross or not? If so, then do people go to hell? Some say that you have to believe. But then I have to ask that person if Christ’s death is not enough to get one into heaven. Also, does not Christ’s death remove God’s wrath against unbelief as well? These are important questions about ἱλασμός. Once one understands ἱλασμός then s/he can speak about κόσμου. I happen to believe that κόσμου here refers not to every single individual but rather is used against Jewish exclusivism to say that both Jews and Gentiles are part of the people of God (cf. John 11:51-52
; John 10:16
).
Hi Hank
Yes I was trying to stay friendly so I put a little humor into the mix. Glad to see you’ve got a sense of humor.
And the direction you’re taking the conversation is directly where you would probably want to address an Arminian. Meantime, Lutherans part company with both Calvinists and Arminians before we even get to that point. Everything pertaining to salvation is mediated through Christ. That’s the point where we usually have trouble getting people to see what we mean, not for lack of trying but because you know how theological conversations go: everyone uses the same words to mean different things, and if a concept has a few similarities they may even think they have the same understanding of a word when they don’t.
Speaking of which, “world”. “Not only ‘us’ but also the ‘whole world’” could only have “world” meaning “all races” if “us” had meant one particular race. I can’t see “us” in that sentence being Jewish Christians. Who is the “us” John intends in that sentence? The same “us” in “if ‘we’ say ‘we’ have no sin ‘we’ deceive ‘ourselves’” (etc)? Looks like it’s Christians in general; I don’t see anything in the letter to link “us” and “we” to a specific race. If it’s Christians in general, then “the whole world” is everybody, not only Christians.
So back to Christ as the mediator. By that, we mean that there are certain spiritual blessing that come only through Christ. Forgiveness is found in Christ. Atonement is found in Christ. Eternal life is found in Christ. Or as our friend John puts it in his first letter, he who has the son has life and he who does not have the son of God does not have life. That’s the part we have the most trouble communicating to other groups: the centrality of Christ. The centrality of Christ as the mediator of all blessings seems to be fairly alien to the shared part of the Calvinist / Arminian paradigm, at least as far as what we Lutherans mean by it. Calvinists and Arminians both, as far as I can tell, look at Christ on the cross, say “How does that apply to me?” and start looking around for the answer: either in their own decision while still in dead in their sins (as if!), or in God’s election to bring them *to* Christ. But (per Ephesians 1
) that’s got the cart before the horse. Election is another of the spiritual blessings that is found in Christ and comes through Christ. Election is not directly applied any more than forgiveness is; Christ is the mediator of that blessing, to go by Ephesians1.
So yes, Christ atoned for the sins of the whole world, and where Lutherans and Calvinists part company (as best I can tell) is whether a person’s atonement can be meaningfully discussed as a transaction in isolation from whether a person has Christ, or whether it is actually misleading — and a misunderstanding of Christ’s role — to separate those two things (namely, whether a person has received the blessing of forgiveness and whether a person is in Christ).
Take care & God bless
WF
WF, the Greek word for “world” is “kosmos”. In John, it almost always (with one clear exception) means the world order set against God. John 3:16
says God loved the fallen world set against him so much that he gave his only Son so that whoever (there we got with a term of potentiality) believes in him will be saved. So I think I John 2:2
is overwhelmingly likely to mean that there’s some sense in which the atonement at least potentially includes the entire human order set against God. Christ’s death is for the whole world in the sense that anyone who does believe will be saved, even if it’s true that those whose sins are actually paid for are only those who have identified with him in his death by actually believing. It’s still true that Christ died for them in that if they believe they’ll be saved. The atonement is for them in that it’s available to them if only they were to repent.
Hi Jeremy
I think we’re on the same page, at least for that much.
Take care & God bless
WF