A Few Thoughts on the Doctrine of Limited Atonement

One of the greatest obstacles for me personally in embracing what is commonly known as “Five-Point Calvinism” is the idea of Limited Atonement.  On the surface, the doctrine states that Christ died for the elect.  Which of course infers that He did not die for those who are “not elect”, aka, the lost who will find themselves in Hell.

Now, my first objection was that this depends on divine predestination, for if God does not predestine who is to be saved, there is no good talking of Christ dying “for the elect”.  But this issue of God’s sovereign predestination I have dealt with several times over the last few posts, so to that I will say nothing more here.  But the more specific objection is that it appears to go against scriptures that state that Christ died “for all” (2 Corinthians 5:15) and of course John 3:16, which states that God so loved “the world” that He gave His Son.

Now, a theologian might get into a long talk about context and Greek and such with regard to passages such as these, but I will simply lay out the my own reasoning behind why Limited Atonement in no way contradicts Scripture.  Whether the theologian would approve of these arguments I’m not qualified to say, seeing as I am not one myself.  But from my own, smaller mind, the chief principle that stands out is this:

All believers (with the exception of universalists) believe in Limited Atonement in some basic form, whether or not they describe it in this manner.

Now, before anyone gets too upset with the above statement, let me explain what I mean:

If a person who rejects Calvinism (in particular, predestination and limited atonement) asserts that Christ died for all, what they generally mean (unless they are universalists) is that Christ’s death was sufficient for the salvation of the whole world, not that all will necessarily be saved because of it.  Generally speaking, this would also be heartily affirmed by a Calvinist.  Thus, if I tell you, as a Five-Point Calvinist, that there is a thing called “limited atonement”, I do not mean that Christ’s death lacked the power to save the world, or was in any way deficient, but what I mean is that Christ’s death only secured the salvation of those whom God predestined to be saved.  To put it another way, although Christ’s death was sufficient for the salvation of all, not all are actually atoned thereby.  Only those who believe in Christ and bow to Him as Lord actually have their sins atoned for; the rest, by means of their unbelief and rejection of God, persist in their sin and will be condemned.

In this way, the common ground is easy to see.  Although you may reject the idea that those who come to accept Christ do so through the predestination of God, yet (unless you are a universalist) you will never argue that Christ’s death secured an effectual, active atonement for all.  If it did, no soul would ever see Hell.  Thus, “Limited Atonement” is simply a statement that when Christ died on the cross, though His death was sufficient for all, He knew who He was effectively dying for (those who would believe and be saved).