Scriptural Support
To build a case for particular redemption, one must first consider what was intended in Christ’s death, and then move to what was accomplished by it. From Jesus’ own mouth, Luke 19:10 reports, “…the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.” Paul gives similar claim in 1 Timothy 1:15, “…that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” These “lost sinners” are elsewhere identified. Matthew 20:28 reads he, “gave his life as ransom for many.” Galatians 1:4 that “he gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age.” Titus 2:14 adds, “He gave himself for us…a peculiar people.” The ambiguous pronouns are cleared up in Ephesians 5:25, “Christ loved the church and gave himself for it.” These texts conclude that the intent and design of the atonement was to save individuals. The actual effect of his saving death is also clear from Scripture. Romans 5:10 explains, “God was in him reconciling the world to himself.” The saved are “justified by his grace…through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” according to Romans 3:24. Ephesians 5:27 claims that Christ died to “sanctify and purify it (the Church), that it should be holy and without blemish.” According to Galatians 4:4-5, “God sent forth his Son…to redeem those who were under law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” Scripture is clear in its teaching that Christ came to save sinners and his death resulted in the reconciliation, justification, and sanctification of the recipients of his redeeming work.
To make Christ’s atonement extent universally—as proponents of universal atonement do—presents a dilemma. If all are in agreement with the above assertion—that according to Scripture, Christ came to save sinners and his death effected reconciliation, justification, and sanctification—those who hold to universal atonement will find that one of two things must follow: Christ failed to accomplish what he intended, namely, to save sinners; or that all persons are inevitably saved. Certainly God’s sovereign decrees cannot be thwarted. It is doubtful that Christ’s death failed to arrive at its end. Peter and John believed that the crucifixion was what the “hand and counsel of God had before determined should be done (Acts 4:28).” God “sent his Son into the world that the world though him might be saved (John 3:17)”—a plan that was “ordained before the foundation of the world (1 Peter 1:20).” This plan was pleasing to God according to Isaiah 53:10—“Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.” God’s sending of his Son presupposes a bestowing of the fullness of God’s perfections towards the ends desired in that sending. Puritan John Owen writes, “There is no grace that is not in Christ, and every grace is in him in the highest degree: so that whatsoever the perfection of grace…by the collation of his Father for this very purpose, and for the accomplishment of the work designed…is boundless and endless.”[1] Yet despite the limitless efficacy of God’s mighty will, it would stand—according to universal atonement—that Christ’s death failed to save universally due to the large number of apparent unbelievers.
The alternative would hold the opposite difficulty. Christ’s atoning work in fact has covered all humanity, securing salvation for all regardless of many individual’s rebellion. This is the heresy of Universalism. Universalists’ arguments generally include: “(1) The character of God is incompatible with the idea of the eternal suffering of anyone, therefore his grace extends to all eventually. (2) The power of God is sufficient to restore lost humanity. (3) God’s sovereign will and purpose (according to 2 Peter 3:9) will be fulfilled when all are finally saved. (4) Perfected souls in heaven could never experience eternal bliss knowing the souls were suffering forever.”[2] Few that hold to universal redemption consider themselves Universalists. Still the dilemma is not resolved, and neither option is reconcilable with sound doctrine.
Particular atonement, on the other hand, avoids this theological trap by asserting Christ’s death achieved that which it was intended—the salvation of the Church, the elect of God. Jesus states, “I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. (John 10:15).” Paul understands the “sheep” to be the church. Acts 20:28 reads, “Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.” Further, Jesus—as our High Priest—intercedes only for those whom he died. John 17:9 reads, “I (Jesus) pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.” It is evident that Paul continually intends to communicate a particular group as the recipients of Christ’s saving grace. Romans 8:32 asks, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” The next verse defines the “us all” as the elect—“Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies (Romans 3:33).” His basis for the vindication of the elect against any charges is the justification attained by Christ’s death. John Murray comments, “It is the elect and the justified that Paul has in mind here in his appeal to the death of Christ and there is no reason for going outside the denotation provided by election and justification when we seek to discover the extent of Christ’s sacrificial death.”[3]
Election requires some elucidation due to its seemingly inherent link with particular atonement. Charles Hodge remarks, “if God from eternity determined to save one portion of the human race and not another, it seems to be a contradiction to say that the plan of salvation had equal reference to both portions; that the Father sent His Son to die for those whom He had predetermined not to save, as truly as, and in the same sense that He gave Him up for those whom He had chosen to make the heirs of salvation.”[4] Election defined by Wayne Grudem is an “act of God before creation in which he chooses some people to be saved, not on account of any foreseen merit in them, but only because of his sovereign good pleasure.”[5] Scripture clearly teaches that God determined beforehand who will be saved. Acts 13:48 reads, “as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.” Romans 8:28-30 confirms, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” Ephesians 1:4-6 supports this view—“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.” Again in Romans 9:11-13 Paul writes, “though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—she was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.’ As it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’” John Piper dismisses the common notion that in these passages election refers to corporate entities rather than individuals, calling the position exegetically untenable. He writes, “The interpretation…must ignore or distort the problem in Rom 9:1-5.”[6] The problem involves Paul’s distress over individuals from among the nation of Israel that are cut off from Christ, damned because of their unbelief. “Therefore the solution…must address the issue of individual, eternal salvation.”[7] Particular redemption presupposes the election of individuals for whom Christ’s death was intended. The atoning sacrifice, according to Scripture, procured salvation and by that death effected reconciliation, justification, and sanctification for God’s chosen people. On the contrary, universal redemption necessarily makes the atonement a failed endeavor or supposes that all souls will eventually find their way to glory.
…next week we’ll conclude with some common objections and a call to reclaim the gospel.
>The Anthropologist
[1] John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ (Edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1852; reprint, Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2002), 55 (page citations are to the reprint edition).
[2] Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 1233.
[3] John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1955; reprint, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992), 67 (page citations are to the reprint edition).
[4] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2 [internet]. Accessed from http://www.ccel.org/ccel/hodge/theology2.pdf. 29 November 2007.
[5] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI.: Zondervan, 1994), 670.
[6] John Piper, The Justification of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1993), 73.
[7] Ibid., 65.
