Inefficient Love - Part 1

Note: I wrote this piece after reading some Calvinist authors on the subject of Christ's atonement. I wrote it more as a way for me to study the issue than to present it to others. As a result, many of the arguments are not original with me (although some are), but rather more of a compilation of my building a defense as to why I believe Christ suffered for the sins of both the elect and non-elect alike. Although I am "heavy" against limited atonement adherents in this piece, I do try to be honest about where I assume things about the Bible from my own, non-Calvinist, theology.

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Theology is a wonderful thing.

After all, it is the study of God Himself. It reveals His character. It helps us when we read the Bible. Systematic theology can even be a good thing. It’s good to organize your beliefs in a rational way. It’s good to examine what the whole Bible has to say about a particular subject. It’s good to build a rational system of Who God is and how He works.

But theology can also be dangerous.

Why? As our theological system gets bigger and better, it becomes harder and harder to make it all consistent. It’s harder for us to adjust our theology when we come across Bible verses that don’t seem to fit with how our theology says we should understand God. If we’re not careful, we can began fitting the Bible into our systematic theology rather than fitting our systematic theology into the Bible. J. C. Ryle verbalizes this danger: "I have long come to the conclusion that men may be more systematic in their statements than the Bible, and may be led into grave error by idolatrous veneration of a system."

This is one of my greatest concerns with the theological system many call Calvinism. It’s big. It’s complex. It’s impressive. It’s respectable. Many theologians––the best theologians––have added not a small amount of bricks and materials to its large structure.

But it’s only that. A structure. Nothing more. In spite of the claims of the likes of Charles Spurgeon, Calvinism simply is not the gospel. Calvinism is not the Bible. The gospel is the gospel. The Bible is the Bible. Calvinism is a system of theology. It’s not infallible.

And I believe it gets things wrong.

Like Limited Atonement

I mean no disrespect to my Calvinist (for the purpose of brevity, my use of the term Calvinist or Calvinism will be used exclusively to refer to 5-point “high” Calvinists as opposed to “fewer-point” Calvinists) brothers and sisters, but to me, the doctrine of limited atonement exemplifies what happens when we let our system of theology dictate how we understand Bible passages rather than allowing those same Bible passages to dictate our theology.

I am convinced that at least some Calvinists would not hold to the doctrine of limited atonement if they didn’t have to.

But they do. Their theological system requires that they do (I do admire the desire of those called 4-point “moderate” Calvinists to drop this one point if I do not admire their consistency).

But rather than holding what I see as the most natural way to read the Bible when it comes to the subject of Christ’s atonement for sinners, those who adhere to the five Doctrines of Grace (as the five points of Calvinism are also called) seem to be required to prioritize an unnatural reading of a subset of texts over and above texts that I am convinced speak otherwise.

In the process, an interesting “switch” of conventional roles takes place.

Let me explain.

You see, usually (I’m generalizing, I know) the non-Calvinist is the one encouraged to put aside all his presuppositions about God (like love and goodness), which are sagely chalked up to his sinful nature; to abandon any logic that might get in the way of simply accepting “what the Bible says”. It is not uncommon at all to hear someone admit that he is Calvinist not because his logic or his natural ideas about God led him to that position, but because he felt he simply had to submit before the “overwhelming evidence” of the biblical texts.

But on this particular doctrine, I believe it is the non-Calvinists who are bringing the pressing weight of scriptural texts that seem to so clearly espouse unlimited atonement against those of the Calvinist persuasion, and it is the Calvinists who are resisting––and for what reason?

Logic. Presuppositions. It doesn’t make logical sense to them. It doesn’t fit with what they’ve already assumed about God from the other doctrines of Calvinism. When presented with biblical texts that seem to say in almost every way possible that Christ died for the sins of every single human being (save Himself) to walk the face of this earth, their response always essentially boils down to this: To understand this verse or that verse in its natural sense is incorrect because it doesn’t fit in with “theology”. It doesn’t fit in with what they’ve already assumed about God.

And I feel that’s a double standard.

Limited Atonement Verses

It is my least desire to offend in any way my Calvinist friends, but it seems to me that the Calvinistic defense on this issue is one more of honing in on a small subset of texts and ignoring the rest than one of looking at the entire biblical witness.

To build their basic defense from Scripture, Calvinists generally present the following verses, of which I will display a few that are representative of the group. The reason they use these verses is because these verses all speak of Christ’s death as being applied to a specific subset of the human population:

Matthew 1:21 | She will give birth to a son, and you are to name Him Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.

Matthew 20:28 | Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life–a ransom for many.

John 10:15 | …as the Father knows Me, and I know the Father. I lay down My life for the sheep.

Ephesians 5:25 | Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

Hebrews 9:28 | So Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

John 15:13 | Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

(See also: Isaiah 53:8,12; Matthew 26:28; Acts 20:28; John 10:11; Romans 8:32-35; Revelation 5:9)

As we see, different words are used to describe those for whom Christ died––like His people, the many, the sheep, the church, and His friends––the point being that Christ is spoken of as dying for these certain people, indicating His atonement work must have been limited.

(A short note: any idea that the use of the word “many” in these passages limits the extent of the atonement should be put to rest by the fact that in context, the word “many” is used in contrast with the word “few”. The Greek and Hebrew words for “many” mean “many as opposed to few”, not “many as opposed to all”. In other words, Christ did not die for the few, but for the many. John Calvin himself notes, “By the word ‘many’ He means not a part of the world only, but the whole human race.”)

Every time these verses are presented I feel like I’m missing something. I feel like I don’t get it.

Because of course Jesus died for His people! Of course Jesus died for the church! Of course Jesus died for the sheep! Of course Jesus died for His friends––He died for everyone! It naturally follows that if Jesus died for everyone, than he certainly would have died for His people, the church, His sheep, His friends, etc.

But the Calvinist expects one to read these verses differently. One is expected to read them as saying: “Christ died for the [enter subgroup of human race here] to the exclusion of everyone else in the world”.

But nobody assumes that.

Nobody [without a presupposition implanted by the Calvinist system] approaches a text and says, “Well, because Christ did this for these people, I guess He never did that for anybody else.”

Pardon me if I offend, but that is absurd! Yet we call it theology. Let’s see what happens when we apply that logic in other areas:

• If you were to state that Jesus loves you, than I must necessarily assume that Jesus does not love me.
• If I were to assert that 7 is an odd number, than you must necessarily assume that no other numbers can be odd.
• We would need to believe that Christ died only for Israel, since John 11:51 states “that Jesus was going to die for the Jewish nation” and Isaiah 53:8 states that “He [Jesus] was struck because of my people [Israel]'s rebellion.”
• We would need to believe that Jesus only died for the apostle Paul, who writes of Jesus as the one “who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
• We must believe that Christ restricted His prayers to Peter, since Luke 22:32 says, “But I have prayed for you, Simon.”

These passages do not present a difficulty for the one holding to an unlimited atonement. We rejoice that Christ died for these subgroups in the knowledge that they represent the larger group of people we believe Christ died for: the entire world.

Unlimited Atonement Verses

There are many verses in the Bible that affirm that Christ died for all people. I will try to state and expound on the majority of them.

John 1:29 | The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world [kosmou]!”

John 3:16-17 | For God loved the world [kosmon] in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that whosoever [pas] believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world [kosmon] that He might condemn the world [kosmon], but that the world [kosmos] might be saved through Him.

This most famous passage in the Bible asserts God’s whole-hearted desire––that the world be saved through His Son Jesus Christ! It is God's clear, undeniable desire that none should perish but that all should come to salvation (2 Peter 3:9, 1 Timothy 2:4, Ezekiel 18:23, 33:11). Note how an advocate of limited atonement seems to read this passage:

John 3:16-17 | For God loved [all the elect in] the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that whosoever [of those who are elect] believes in Him will not perish [even though they couldn't because they are elect] but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world [of the elect] that He might condemn the world [of the elect], but that [those who are already elect in] the world might be saved through Him.

There are other verses:

John 6:51 | I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world [kosmou] is My flesh.

1 Timothy 2:3-6 | This is good, and it pleases God our Savior, who wants everyone [pantas anthropous] to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and humanity, Christ Jesus, Himself human, who gave Himself—a ransom for all [panton], a testimony at the proper time.

Titus 2:11 | For the grace of God has appeared with salvation for all [pasin] people.

Hebrews 2:9 | But we do see Jesus—made lower than the angels for a short time so that by God’s grace He might taste death for everyone [pantos]—crowned with glory and honor because of His suffering in death.

1 John 4:14 | And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent His Son as the world’s [kosmou] Savior.

John 4:42 | And they told the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior of the world [kosmou].

Against the weight of these passages, what can an advocate of limited atonement say? I would like to remind us of a general logical principle:

No matter how many verses say that Christ died for some subset or part of the whole human race, all it takes is one verse that states that Christ died for the entire human race to reach the conclusion of universal atonement.

Allow me to give a mathematical example:

Imagine I said to you: “Multiples of 3 are integers.” That’s a true statement. Now imagine that I repeated that statement twenty more times.

Imagine then that I told you just once: “Multiples of any whole number are integers”.

Based on the statements that I gave, which is more logical:

1. To assume that since I told you far more often that “multiples of 3 are integers”, therefore only multiples of 3 can be integers to the exclusion of all other multiples of a whole number?
2. Or to assume that even though I only told you once, my statement that “multiples of any whole number are integers” proves true without the slightest contradiction to the twenty times I told you that multiples of 3 are integers?

The second is undeniably more logical. That’s what I mean when I say it only takes one verse describing universal atonement to prove it true for all cases.

And there are far more verses than just one!

So what is the Calvinist to say? How is he to retain his belief under the force of these passages?

The major way someone who holds to limited atonement avoids the meaning of these passages is to suggest that the words “all”, “everyone”, and “world” do not really mean “all”, “everyone”, and “world”. So, for example, they will use passages such as the following to make the point:

(I quote the versions which most clearly bring out their point):

Luke 2:1-3 (NKJV) | And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world [oikoumenen] should be registered. This census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. So all [pantes] went to be registered, everyone [hekastos] to his own city.

John 12:19 (NIV) | So the Pharisees said to one another, “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world [kosmos] has gone after him!

The point? The phrases “all the world”, “world”, “all’, and “everyone” are used to refer to a group of people that clearly does not make up the entirety of the human race.

Therefore, it is surmised, we cannot use words like that anywhere to refer to the whole human race.

I feel this is weak. Why?

1. First, to argue like this is to completely ignore context. It is blindingly obvious from the context of Luke 2 and John 12, and other passages like it, that these words do not have a universal scope. Caesar Augustus was not governor of the entire human race. He could not force everyone who ever lived to do what he said, so when this passage speaks of everyone, it is obvious that it refers to everyone within the scope of his jurisdiction. But on the other hand, God does not have a limit to His jurisdiction. If he wants to save the entire world, then He most certainly can. Furthermore, the phrase “whole world” used by the Pharisees in John 12 was an expression of exasperation, not precise definition. Yet while there is context in these verses, there is no context in any of the unlimited atonement verses that gives the slightest hint of any restrictions or qualifications on the extent of the words “world”, “all”, and “everyone”.
2. Secondly, this argument takes the natural way to understand the use of these words in passages like Luke 2 and John 12 and attempts to force that understanding into words in verses whose natural context would indicate that these universal-sounding words include every single human being. Robert Lightner states my own frustrations succinctly: “Those who always limit the meaning of those terms [all, world, etc.] in contexts that deal with salvation do so on the basis of theological presuppositions, not on the basis of the texts themselves.”
3. Thirdly, the root word for world, kosmos, (which isn’t even used in the Luke 2 passage, by the way––oikoumenen is), as it is used in John identifies the world as “God-hating, Christ-rejecting, and Satan-dominated. Yet this is the world that Christ died for. Particularly in John's writings, interpreting ‘world’ as ‘world of the elect’ seems a great distortion of Scripture” (Ron Rhodes). Says B. F. Westcott, “The fundamental idea of kosmos in St. John is that of the sum of created being which belongs to the sphere of human life as an ordered whole, considered apart from God....the world comes to represent humanity in its fallen state, alienated from its Maker.”
4. Fouthly, to say that the Greek word pas does not always mean everyone who ever lived is true. According to Strong’s Concordance, pas “means ‘all’ in the sense of ‘each (every) part that applies.’” But this does not mean that pas never applies to a universal context. When I state that all natural numbers are positive, you naturally assume I mean every single natural number that exists, even though our word “all” can be used to indicate a limited context (for example, I could be speaking in a class where we were only examining the prime numbers one day, and then my use of the word “all” would naturally be restricted to prime numbers). All that to say, just as with the word pas, we naturally understand the English word “all” to refer to as broad a spectrum as context will allow––and there is no grammatical context in these unlimited atonement verses that indicates any restriction should be made on the atonement’s extent.
5. Finally, as is always the case in biblical hermeneutics, it is never good practice to take a few isolated verses in a peculiar context and to use them to interpret many general verses in a general context, and I feel this is exactly what Calvinists are doing here.

In short, these unlimited atonement verses are able to stand on their own two feet.

Nonetheless, clear as they may be, these verses are not the only passages in the Bible that speak of Christ’s unlimited atonement.

For the one who chooses not to accept these verses, the journey is only beginning.

On to Part 2 >