CHRIST DIED FOR “GOD’S ELECT”

compiled by Michael Jeshurun

Limited or Particular Atonement is one of the most difficult truths to accept! Our business is not to REASON about it, but to BOW to Holy Scripture. Our first duty is not to UNDERSTAND, but to BELIEVE what God has said.

R.C. Sproul is right when he says – “There are a host of folks who call themselves four-point Calvinist because they can’t swallow the doctrine of limited atonement. Sometimes they say, “I’m not a Calvinist and I’m not an Arminian, I’m a Calminian.” I think that a FOUR-POINT CALVINIST IS AN ARMINIAN. I say that for this reason: When I have talked to people who call themselves four-point Calvinists and have had the opportunity to discuss it with them, I have discovered that they were NO-POINT CALVINISTS. They thought they believed in total depravity, in unconditional election, in irresistible grace, and in the perseverance of the saints, but they didn’t UNDERSTAND these points”. [The Truth of the Cross pp. 140-42 (Capital letters mine)]

For WHOM did Christ die? We answer, Christ died for “God’s elect”. “And she shall bring forth a Son, and thou shalt call His name Jesus: for He shall save HIS people from THEIR sins [Mt. 1:21]. Christ died not simply to render sins pardonable, but “to PUT AWAY SIN by the sacrifice of Himself” [Heb. 9:26]. As to WHO’S “sin” has been “put away”, Scripture leaves us in no doubt—it was that of the elect. “For the transgressions of MY PEOPLE was He stricken [Isa. 53:8]. Again the Lord’s own words are, “I lay down My life for the SHEEP” (not the goats)! [John 10:15]

“Christ did not intend to save those He knew He would not save. If He intended to and NOT FOR THE WORLD. It was the elect that Christ came to save. Since God eternally decreed not to save others Christ would not be engaged in a FOOL’S errand.” [Edwards]

People’s fanciful delusion of an Unlimited Atonement is reduced to this – “IF the sinner believes, then Christ died for him; if the sinner does not believe, then Christ did not die for him; thus the sinner’s act is made the cause of its own object, as though his believing WOULD MAKE THAT TO BE WHICH OTHERWISE WAS NOT”. [A.W. Pink]

“Calvinism isn’t a produce stand from which we can pick and choose which doctrines we wish to keep and pass over the rest in a sort of hermeneutical reprobation. Calvinism is an interwoven system of theology which must be accepted or rejected as a whole. From the acceptance of one point, one is compelled by simple logic to the acceptance of all the rest. You can’t deny one without denying them all. The four-point Calvinist is as consistent as a Psalm-singing atheist”. – Author known only to God!