sermon: Limited Atonement
Each In His Own Order
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 19-Sep-18; Sermon #1453; 77 minutes
Description: (show)
In my office, among my small assemblage of racing collectibles, are two items that are supposedly a cut above the rest of the junk... well, the various cars and cards and books and pictures and other assorted bits and pieces designed to separate a man from his money, not to mention tickets, hats, t-shirts, jackets, and all the other paraphernalia of the racing scene.
But these two special items that I am talking about are both 1:64 scale model stock cars. That is the size of a Hot Wheel. One is Rusty Wallace's 1995 #2 Ford Motorsport Ford Thunderbird in Miller Genuine Draft colors. And the other is Bobby Labonte's 2006 #43 Cheerios Dodge Charger. Both are in their original packaging, both are unopened. They are collectibles, by the way. Did I mention that? They are about the few things that I have that actually might be worth something—and probably not. But the packaging on this Rusty Wallace car trumpets that this collectible is a "premier" edition. And the Bobby Labonte car, its packaging says it is a limited edition.
Now I guess premier edition is one up on unlimited edition. Because the serial number of the Wallace car is 9925. And the Labonte car serial number is 111625. So, they could have made up to 999 of these Bobby Labonte cars, but maybe they only made 99,999 of the Wallace cars. So, I am good on these. I have a really low serial number for the Wallace car. And if I were to resell them I would probably get more from the Wallace car than for the Labonte car because it is premium, not just limited. I am sure I could recoup the $10 I shelled out maybe for the Labonte car. The other was a gift, the Wallace car, and I have got to thank Heather Skidmore for that.
So when we hear something is limited, we understand that what it is describing has restrictions. It might be that there are just a few in the set. Or whatever is limited only goes so far, or it covers only so much, or is valid for only certain times, or it is only for certain people. If it did not have restrictions, we would not call it limited, we would call it unlimited. That is just the way the language works. It is like the word mortal as compared to immortal or finite as compared to infinite. Very similar type words, limited and unlimited.
For example, a limited edition of an art print, a casting, or a book, or even some silly NASCAR replica cars, means that only a certain number are made and sold. And they do this on purpose because if only if you only make a few of them, then they become rare. They are rare items and the value increases. A limited partnership is a business organization in which ownership and control of the business by any investing member or partner is limited by the amount of his investment in the company.
The recent example of this was when David Tepper bought the Carolina Panthers. He had been a limited partner in the Pittsburgh Steelers, and he only had a small percentage of the company and so because it was under 50%, he had no managing control of the Pittsburgh Steelers. So being a billionaire, he decided to buy a team where he could be the sole owner of the company. I do not know if maybe they will put out limited partnerships later. I have not heard much on that in that regard, but David Tepper, being the owner and the managing partner eventually of the Carolina Panthers, has control. He is not limited because he owns the whole thing right now.
If someone or a company has limited liability, if anything goes wrong, they are only on the hook up to a certain designated amount. You will find this on your insurance policies. That usually there are limits of so many, so much per occasion, and so much for the life of the policy. So you get in a car crash and it causes all kinds of problems. You have a limit maybe of, I do not know, $30,000 or something on your medical payments and up to maybe a million dollars over the lifetime of that insurance policy. Whatever it happens to be, I do not know what yours says. We can fiddle with the numbers to make sure our premiums aren't too high, but that is how it works. You have limited liability, and the insurance company only has limited liability.
But there is another thing that is limited that specifically concerns us here on the Day of Atonement. Because we are not in the trenches of worldly Christian theology, we may never have heard of this particular doctrine that I am going to speak about today. We tend to talk about theology, not in a scholarly way, but in a biblical way, because we are familiar with the Bible and its terms that it uses. But these intellectual scholars they have got to use their own highfalutin Latinate terms so that nobody else understands what they are talking about. But we understand these things because we have learned about them from the Bible, and we may actually have a very thorough understanding of this particular doctrine, but we do not normally use the highfalutin terms that the scholars use for this sort of thing.
So what I am going to talk about today is what is called limited atonement. Please turn with me into the Old Testament. We are going to begin in Leviticus the 16th chapter, verse 29. We will go through verse 34. I am just going to make a blatant excuse right here. It is the fact I have not eaten for a long time.
Leviticus 16:29-34 "This shall be a statute forever for you: In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and do no work at all, whether a native of your own country or a stranger who sojourns among you. On that day the priest shall make atonement for you, to cleanse you, that you may be clean from all your sins before the Lord. It is a Sabbath of solemn rest for you, and you shall afflict your souls. It is a statute forever. And the priest, who is anointed and consecrated to minister as priest in his father's place, shall make atonement, and put on the linen clothes, the holy garments; then he shall make atonement for the Holy Sanctuary, he shall make atonement for the tabernacle of meeting and for the altar, and he shall make atonement for the priests and for all the people of the congregation. This shall be an everlasting statute for you, to make atonement for the children of Israel, for all their sins once a year." And he did as the Lord commanded Moses.
Today is this Day of Atonement commemorating the covering of sins by a great sacrifice that pays the penalty for our transgressions, cleansing us with the blood of Christ so we could be presented as pure and righteous before God. We are under His blood at that point and our sins are forgiven us, and we are righteous, we are clean.
As this passage mentions a few times, the high priest makes this atonement for the people and that is exactly what happened in the fulfillment: that our High Priest, Jesus Christ, made atonement for us by giving His own sinless lifeblood for us.
Now, notice as we went through here between verses 29 and 34, that this particular atonement here in the Old Testament, here when the children of Israel were in the wilderness and they were supposed to do this once they got into the land as well, but this particular atonement, this ritual, if you will, as defined right here, is limited. I do not know if you picked up on that. It says in verse 30 the atonement is made for you. That the priests shall make atonement for you. And if we are not aware of who He is talking to at the time, we can go down to verse 34, where it talks about that this is atonement is made for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year. So the "you" He was talking about in verse 30 is actually the children of Israel.
It also says throughout this passage that the atonement was made for the holy sanctuary. That is, the sanctuary of the Tabernacle and later on for the Temple. But this is the sanctuary inside the Holy Place. And then it says, it was made for the tabernacle of meeting. Atonement was made for that particular tent. Then it says that atonement was made for the altar and for the priests. And it then puts everything together and says for all the people of the congregation. So, it is done for all the people, all the children of Israel, it is done for the holy sanctuary, it is done for the tabernacle of meeting, for the altar, for the priests. And we can look at that and say that sounds like a lot, that this particular atoning sacrifice covered a lot.
But in the grand scheme of things, it actually leaves out quite a bit. Think about it. Did God Himself not call Israel the least of all peoples? What this atonement sacrifice left out was, in fact, all the nations, all the people of those nations, all the things in the rest of the world that were in those nations. The atoning sacrifice here as it is shown in Leviticus 16 is limited to a particular people and their holy things. So this gives us a major clue, then, that the anti-type, Jesus Christ's atoning sacrifice, His atonement for us, is also limited because the reality always parallels the shadow. It usually expands on the shadow, but the shadow, like this ritual here back in Leviticus 16, gives us a lot of the groundwork of the actual sacrifice, gives us the types that we can understand the meaning of the actual sacrifice from.
So, theologically, what is limited atonement? From the doctrinal name alone we can surmise that it means that Christ's atoning sacrifice, which is our true subject, not necessarily the type here in Leviticus 16, but His true sacrifice, is not unlimited. Or put it positively, it is limited, that Christ's atoning sacrifice is limited. It is confined to certain parameters. It contains conditions or stipulations. And it does not cover everyone or every sin. Another name for it, often used to avoid suggesting that Christ's atoning work is in any way deficient—it is not—but the term that they use rather than limited atonement is particular redemption. It means basically the same thing. Limited atonement and particular redemption are essentially the same.
While we consider what Christ did for us in giving Himself as a sinless sacrifice to cover sin, we consider this to be awesome and wonderful and truly worthy of all praise and honor, to be honest with Scripture, to fit it into to what Scripture reveals, we must admit that our Savior's sacrifice is limited, or particular. Especially that it is specific to those who meet certain conditions.
Now most Catholics and mainstream Protestants and their theologians teach or believe an unlimited atonement, also called general redemption. So you have limited atonement, unlimited atonement; you have particular redemption, general redemption. Most mainstream Christians believe in unlimited atonement or general redemption. They believe that now that God, or Christ in particular, has proclaimed the good news of salvation and died on the cross, God's offer of salvation is open to every human being. This is why most churches have evangelistic campaigns, where they are trying to bring people in. This is why there are altar calls in their services or wherever they do this, because they believe that God has called everyone. This is why they say at the end of their telecasts or whatnot that go ahead and pray this prayer asking God to forgive you and you accept Him as your personal Savior, that they will be saved.
For such an offer from God, that He would save everyone, that is, that because this atonement has been made and the gospel has gone out, for such a thing to be sincere (we are trying to think about this logically), the atonement or payment for sin must have already have been made and it must be accessible to all, or we could say open to everyone or freely available to one and all. And so many people, many Christians out there, citing God's love, vigorously deny any limitation on Christ's sacrifice, arguing that God's offer to be fair to everyone must apply to all without exception. And so anyone can be saved.
Now there are some verses that seem to support this mainstream view. And we are going to go through them as quickly as we can here with very little comment. But I want you to see ones that they use. Let us go first to John.
John 1:29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"
This certainly sounds like He has come to take away everyone's sin, and all sin.
Let us jump to chapter 3, verse 16. Everyone knows this one.
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
It is in the Bible. It is true.
John 6:51 "I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world."
Again, another fairly clear scripture.
Let us go to II Corinthians 5, verse 19. Just jumping into a sentence here. He says,
II Corinthians 5:19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
That one seems to suggest that God has already forgiven all their sins.
I Timothy 2:6 [Again, jumping into a sentence talking about Jesus Christ] who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
Well, that last phrase actually does a great deal of conditioning what is said there about "for all." Anyway, we will go on. We will not dwell on that for the moment.
Hebrews 2:9 [another well-known scripture] But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.
And finally, let us go to I John 2. John writes, speaking of Jesus again,
I John 2:2 He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.
These scriptures appear to say pretty conclusively that Christ died for all, for everyone, for the whole world, for every man, however it is phrased in your Bible. It is very inclusive of everyone. And it is true that He did this in both a general and an ultimate sense. He generally did give Himself for the sins of the world and ultimately His sacrifice will pay for those sins. But it does not mean necessarily that it applied then. Mainstream theologians usually use these verses as proof text. They take them out of context or they do not explain other verses that seem to contradict them or modify them. They do not allow other scriptures to clarify what is said in these particular proof texts.
Those other scriptures, many of which we will go to as we go through this sermon, modify these statements that we just saw in John, II Corinthians, I Timothy, Hebrews, and I John, to mean not that His sacrifice applies immediately to all people, but that it could apply to everyone in time. As a finished work it is available to pay for all sin. He gave Himself. It is a done deal. It is a work that is accomplished. Christ's perfect, sinless sacrificial death is indeed sufficient to pay the penalty for all of mankind's sin for all time, because the precious blood of the Creator God is worth more than all of His creation by far. So when He gave Himself, it is available and sufficient to take away all sin.
But the mainstream view takes this to an extreme. It essentially claims that His sacrifice, since it is already a finished work, has already paid for all human sin. Let me say that again. Since Jesus' sacrifice is a finished work, they say it has already paid for all human sin. It has already been applied. In other words, forgiveness of all sin according to this particular doctrine is a done deal. Really?
Let us think about this. Let us apply a little bit of logic and reasoning. But we have got to think this through. If Christ's death has already paid for all the sins of all humanity, for all time, then there is no penalty left for anyone to pay. In fact, this would mean that all future sin is already forgiven. So this unsound doctrine, essentially "abracadabra," eliminates all sin. It completely removes it from existence because as soon as what the Ten Commandments calls a sin is committed, it is already atoned for. It is like it never happened.
So logically, under this unsound doctrine, nothing is truly sinful. Nothing requires the death penalty. There is no sin, according to this, so we can live as we wish even though clinging to the salvation that they have sought. Maybe this is what they want anyway. I think for most carnal people it is. This theology is twisted in that direction. To want there to be no sin, to have it already covered. Perhaps their subconscious leads them to think in this direction to follow their own desires. I mean, who wants to be accused of sin? Or maybe it is Satan on their shoulder, putting out a deception that this is the way it should be. I mean, is it not something like that, that he told Eve in the Garden of Eden? You shall not surely die. There is no great penalty for sin.
Further, just to poke at this doctrine one more time, this doctrine would guarantee that everybody would be saved. Everybody. It does not matter what they have done or whether they have made any move toward repentance. Because their sins are already forgiven. But the Bible clearly shows that there are some that go into the Lake of Fire. If this doctrine were true, then the beast and the false prophet's sins would be atoned for and they could be in the Kingdom of God. But we find in Revelation 19 that they both go into the Lake of Fire. Why? Because their sins mounted up to heaven, and that is what they deserved under God's judgment.
So this cannot be true. This idea does not fit the facts that are in the Bible. So this traditional view has major problems with it and I am not going to dwell on it anymore. I want to focus more on our own view of limited atonement. We will see a few passages in Scripture that point to a limited or particular atonement, and these are just a few among many. I just kind of picked them out almost at random. Just kind of flipping through and finding them in the New Testament.
Let us go to Matthew the 7th chapter, right toward the end of the Sermon on the Mount. I mean, this one should be a dead giveaway that general atonement or general redemption is wrong.
Matthew 7:21-23 "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesized in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!"
These people are not going to be redeemed. Their sins are not atoned for. Christ rejects them. Because as He says here, they do not do God's will and they do not obey Him. They do not fit.
Let us go to chapter 22, one of the parables here, the Parable of the Wedding Feast. We will quickly read through this down to verse 14.
Matthew 22:1-14 Jesus answered and spoke to them again by the again by parables and said, "The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son, and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding; and they were not willing to come. Again he sent out other servants, saying, 'Tell those who are invited, "See, I have prepared my dinner; my oxen and my fat fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.'" But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business. And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them. When the king heard about it, he was furious, and he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.
Then he said to his servants, 'The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. [Somebody does not qualify, as it were.] Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the to the wedding.' So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good. And the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. So he said, 'Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment?' And he was speechless. The king said to the servants, 'Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him out into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' For many are called, but few are chosen."
That one is pretty easy to see. That even though this person was called out of the world, as it were, he still did not qualify because he did not have on a wedding garment. He was not worthy of the great honor that God was going to give him because he did not follow instructions. He was lacking.
Let us go to the gospel of John, chapter 5, verses 28 and 29.
John 5:28-29 "Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation."
Uh oh, He got it wrong, did He not? All those who were supposed to come up out of their graves, they are supposed to go into heaven, are they not? That is the way it would be, I guess, under their theology, if everyone was saved, if all sin was forgiven. But that is not how it is. He says some will go to life and some will go to condemnation.
Let us move on to I Corinthians 1, verse 18. This is an interesting one from the apostle Paul.
I Corinthians 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God.
What Paul says here is that there are some who are being saved, their particular group. But there are others, and from what we will see many others, who are perishing. They are dying. Now Paul is not saying here that they are going to go in the Lake of Fire. He is just saying that at this time right now, those hearing the message of the cross, it is good for those who are believing, but those who are perishing are going to go ahead and die at this time. They believe that this is a very foolish message. That is all he is saying there. But it does add a little bit of a weight to the idea of limited atonement.
One more scripture in Hebrews the 6th chapter, verses 4 through 8. This is one of what you would call the Lake of Fire type of sins here.
Hebrews 6:4-8 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God and put Him to an open shame. For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God; but if it bears thorns and briers, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned.
These people who have been enlightened by God's Word and then reject it, this is their fate. We find here that the Atonement—Christ's sacrifice—cannot be applied twice to the same person. It can only be applied once. You get one chance for salvation. And if we reject it by being willful and doing those things that are against God and spurning Him, then this is the doom that we receive.
So with just these few verses, it is easy to see that God places limits or conditions on who receives the atonement. There is no such thing as blanket salvation for the whole world. But Christ's sacrifice, His atonement, benefits certain or particular people.
Let us go back to the gospel of John. We will begin to see this more fully. And I think these particular verses are the clearest of all. John 6:44, we will also read 65, where it is essentially repeated.
John 6:44 "No one [no one, get that through your skull] can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day."
Jesus is very emphatic here. He means zero people. Not a one can come to Him unless the Father first draws that person to Him. This is a work, a particular work of the Father. Let us go to verse 65.
John 6:65 And He said, "Therefore I have said to you that no one [He repeats this] can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father."
So the Father has to grant or gift or give permission for a person to come to the Son. He has to draw him to the Son, lead him to the Son. It is not something that is just generally thrown out there, but it is a particular individual calling by the Father. So Jesus is clear here that no one comes to Him, no one truly seeks Him. No one can find God on his or her own. The Father must first invite or call a person and lead him or her to the Son. No one knows the true God or can find Him without the revelation and election of God.
This is a vitally important pair of scriptures. It even says here in verse 44 that it is only these particular people that the Father has called to Him that He will resurrect on the last day. He will resurrect no others than those whom the Father has called or elected to come to Him. It is a group that is special.
As we understand it, it is those whom He has brought into the church, the elect whom He has converted and worked with over a period of time until they understand and have grown in the very character image of God. A very elect group. The atonement at this time, for now applies only to them, only to that small group of people. But that does not mean it ends with them. There is a principle that we can find in I Corinthians 15:23, we will not go there. I will just give you the phrase that is used there, where Paul says that people will be resurrected, each in his own order. It means that God has a principle in which He does things in stages. He is converting His elect now, His firstfruits, as it were, those that are in Revelation 14:1-5 that follow Jesus wherever He goes. It is that particular group, these firstfruits that He is working with presently. It is their day of salvation now.
But it is not the day of salvation for others, who have their day of salvation in a particular order. So the Feast of Tabernacles talks about the Millennium, a time when Israel predominantly, and other Gentiles, and then eventually the whole world as it goes out from Jerusalem will have an opportunity for salvation. Then things will be more open for them, and they can come to God and be brought into a relationship with God, into Israel, as it were, and part of the Kingdom. And then, of course, the Last Great Day, we understand, shows a far greater harvest of the second resurrection in which all the people from past ages will be raised up and allowed to live a certain amount of time and be given a chance for salvation.
And so, ultimately, Jesus Christ's sacrifice will be effective for all of them, for all those who accept Him, but for now it is limited, and it will remain limited until that second resurrection when it is opened up more fully. But even then not everyone will accept it. So ultimately it is limited—limited to those who accept it after having been called by the Father.
Now, if we were to go between these two verses, verse 44 and verse 65, we would see that in His discourse there, Jesus adds more limitations to this. He shows that it is not for everyone. For instance, in verse 47, He says,
John 6:47 "Most assuredly I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life."
And so it is limited to those who truly believe in Him. We will not read verses 53 through 58, but He says there (I will summarize) only those who drink His blood or come under His atoning sacrifice into the life of God and eat His flesh, that is, live by His Word, have eternal life. Those are two more distinctions, two more qualifications. We have to both come under the blood and live by His every word. How many out there are willing to do that?
And as the epilogue teaches us here, as it implies, this idea of drinking His blood and eating His flesh is offensive to most. It is offensive in terms of cannibalism and it is offensive spiritually in terms of what He asked them to do: Trust in His sacrifice, be under the blood, and live by every word of God. And what did the people who heard this do? Even His disciples, except for the twelve, they forsook Him.
And Jesus turned to Peter and said, Are you going to go also? And he said, Where would we go? You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. He got it. He knew that he was one of those few that had been called specifically by the Father. He had heard the words come out of Jesus Christ's mouth, "Follow Me." He knew that he had been specifically chosen and elected for this truth, for this wonderful opportunity. And so he said, Where would I go? I have got all that I need right here. And Jesus said, Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yes, they were the ones that got it. They were the ones who were not offended by the restrictions that He put on this. And so these few chosen ones have the quality of wanting to cling to Christ because they understand their election, their calling, and how wonderful and special it is.
Let us go a few pages forward to John the 10th chapter. We are going to read verses 7 through 16. Jesus here lays out a few more limitations, not that we have not seen them before.
John 10:7-16 Then Jesus said to them again, "Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But he who is a hireling and not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd."
Maybe I should just add here that in Luke, it talks about Jesus saying that He has a little flock. I cannot right now remember the exact verse, but it is there.
So the primary limitation here in John 10 is that Jesus, as the good Shepherd, identifies for whom He specifically lays down His life. The sheep here is specific, not general. The sheep. In verse 14 and elsewhere they are specifically My sheep, He says. Christ's own sheep, the ones that He bought and leads. They are the ones who came in through Him, as it says there in verse 9, if any one enters by Me he will be saved. They entered by Him because the Father brought them to Him. And He opened the way for them through His death and in other ways as well.
He says here too, I should add, that He says there are hirelings, thieves, strangers, and other shepherds who have their own flocks. They are their sheep, those in those flocks. And there are other sheep in other folds out of which He brings certain ones into His flock mingling them with His own sheep, and as we saw there in verse 16, they are all combined into one flock, and they are all under one shepherd. By the way, this "other sheep" in verse 16 are probably the Gentiles that He is speaking about who are not of the fold of Israel, whom He will call into His church. But ultimately they will be the Israel of God, all one flock. So here, the limitation is that there are particular sheep in His flock. It is not the whole world who are His sheep.
Now there are several other verses of this variety and all of them indicate to some degree or another that Christ's sacrifice and all of its benefits, which we might call generally, salvation, was performed for and granted to a particular group of people. And we are just going to go through like we did before on the other doctrine, various scriptures here that show this. Let us go back to John 6:37 through 39.
John 6:37-39 "All that the Father gives Me [Like we talked about there in John 6:44] will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. For I have come down from heaven not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day."
So He is entirely concentrated on these ones whom the Father gives Him and He is going to do His best to make sure that they are all there for the resurrection at the last day. It is His intention to lose nothing. And that is how hard He is going to work.
Let us go to chapter 17, verse 9. As part of His prayer there on the Passover evening, He says,
John 17:9 "I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours."
He takes this as a sacred trust that He would keep and help; and requests help from God for those particular ones whom God had given Him.
John 17:20 "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word."
So not just the apostles that He was talking about there, but also those of us who have learned through the apostles' teaching. So, slightly bigger group than it was there few verses earlier, but same things apply.
Let us go to Acts 20, verse 28. Paul's speech of exhortation to the Ephesian elders. He tells these elders,
Acts 20:28 "Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which he purchased with His own blood."
He has put the sheep into a flock, and this flock here is identified by Paul as the church of God. That is the church, the people in the church, those are the ones that the atoning sacrifice covers. He purchased them with His own blood. He did it for them. Those are the ones that get to use it as, it were, at this time.
Let us move on. The epistle to the Galatians, the first chapter.
Galatians 1:1-5 Paul, an apostle (not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead), and all the brethren who are with me, to the churches of Galatia: Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
He had just told here at the opening of this epistle who he meant. Now, this was not the only group of people, but they were still part of the church of God, and he mentions here that Christ gave Himself for our specific sins at this time. He delivered us from the present evil age and no one else. So he is speaking here to the church of God as mentioned there in Acts 20:28.
A few chapters over, just one verse out of chapter 3, verse 13. Similar thing.
Galatians 3:13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree")
Here, this group of Jews and Gentiles, as is mentioned in the next verse, were the ones that were specifically called to Jesus Christ, and He, for them, became a curse to pay the penalty for their sins.
Second Thessalonians 2, verses 13 and 14. He just warned them about the apostasy that will come at the end time. But he says,
II Thessalonians 2:13-14 But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So he says that God here from the beginning, from a long long time ago, had His eyes on a certain people, and He chose those certain ones for salvation. He did this through the sanctification by the Spirit. He made you holy by giving you His Spirit once we believed in the truth.
We will leave that there and just go a couple pages over to Titus, the second chapter for a final one in this series of verses.
Titus 2:11-14 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.
So Paul says here that He is crafting a nation, a special people for Himself, and He is putting them through the paces during this time. Teaching us, as he says here, to live soberly, righteously, and godly, even though in this present age there is all kinds of sin and wickedness and anti-God fervor and whatnot going on around us, we have to overcome all this with our eyes forward to the blessed hope of His appearing. And so we are being prepared, as he said there in John 14. He is preparing us for the place, or He is preparing a place for us, and that is what He is doing now. He is making sure that those He wants closest to Him in His Family are ready. So He is starting with a small group of His firstfruits that He will train, like boot camp will train a soldier and get them ready for the fight that is coming on.
Let us go to Philippians 1, verses 27 through 29. It kind of goes on from what is said there in Titus 2.
Philippians 1:27-29 Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel, and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that from God. For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, having the same conflict which you saw in me and now hear is in me.
Notice that it says here, in verse 29 especially, that our belief in Christ, our calling, or our election has been granted to us specifically. It is not open to everyone. Remember, there are enemies here that he is talking about that we have to suffer from their persecution. It is clear, I think, from all these passages that the doctrine of election or our specific calling by God is the proof that God's atoning sacrifice is limited. Unlike nominal Christianity, we do not believe that the offer of eternal life is open to everyone who hears. In fact, when we preach the gospel, we are not necessarily preaching it to convert people. We are to preach the gospel as a witness to all nations, as it said there in Matthew 24. If the Father decides to call somebody by our preaching, well and good, we will do everything we can to help them.
But the gospel from our point of view is to be preached as a witness. And so Christ's sacrifice is not available to everyone but only to those whom the Father calls and brings to Christ. And this is not unfair. Because as I mentioned before, all will have an opportunity for salvation. God, to counter this claim of unfairness, makes sure that each person will be called at a time when it is best for them specifically. He is actually doing them a favor by not calling them at this time. Another time will be better for them, and they will have the rewards of salvation.
Let us go a few pages forward to Colossians 1, verses 12 to 14. This is all over the Bible, by the way, all over the New Testament. You could barely go from one page to another without seeing some proof of it. We are jumping once again into the middle of a sentence.
Colossians 1:12-14 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us [oh, bad word again] to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
Here again, we have further proof that we must be qualified. That is, initially called and gifted with belief and then led to repentance and forgiven or covered by the blood of Jesus Christ. That is all the qualification that we need, but it is a lot. God actually has to do a lot with us at the beginning to make sure that we are ready for being part of the elect. And then by doing so, He delivers us from the world. All this is done by the Father. He is the one that is doing all this behind the scenes, and then He translates us, or he transfers us, or He spiritually moves us. It is hard sometimes to think of this, but He moves us into Christ's Kingdom. We become part of that Kingdom, part of that Family. Everyone else is left out until the time of their salvation. Right now, there is a small flock that makes up Christ's Kingdom.
And Paul here gives credit where it is due. Because that is the first verse we read. He says we have to give thanks to the Father for all of this, otherwise it would never happen. He does all this work to bring us to Christ.
Now an unsaid implication of this is that if the Father did not initiate all of this and show us this grace we would not have the opportunity for salvation. It would never happen. This is what is going on in the lives of the people in the world. This process has not been initiated by the Father for them. They will have their chance in time. But this has been done for us, and we need to give Him thanks and praise and glory and honor for thinking of us, for choosing us, and allowing us to have the opportunity to come under Christ's atoning sacrifice. So that sacrifice, His atonement, is limited only to those whom He calls at this time.
Let us quickly go back to Romans the 5th chapter. This is, like I said, everywhere. I could have gone to, I do not know, dozens of scriptures. But I want you to see that it pops up in the theology throughout the New Testament.
Romans 5:1-2 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into the grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Romans 5:5 Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which was given to us.
Here he is talking to a group of people who have been brought to Jesus Christ by the Father. We have been given access into this grace, and we have had the Holy Spirit poured out upon us, and thus the love of God has been shown manifest in us.
Romans 5:6-11 For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man some one would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
Like I said, bits of this doctrine continue through the rest of the chapter and in chapters 6 through 8, which we will not go through.
This particular passage starts the ball rolling of Paul's instruction and doctrinal teaching on this particular thing. And Paul says that indeed Christ's death occurred at a fixed time in history, took place there as we believe in 31 AD. That is a real time that you could put on a timeline—Passover 31 AD. It was long before our birth and more importantly, before our calling. So it is a finished work. Christ did it as an actual act in history. It is done. He finished it there, and that is a wonderful thing. It had to be done at some point, and he chose that point, at about the 4,000 year mark of man's history, to come to this earth and be that sacrifice for us.
But Paul says here that we were enemies until we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son. That is, though he does not mention God's calling, Paul's thought is that at some point, while we were still in our sins, God the Father acted to reconcile us with Him. It does not matter when you happen to be living. But at some point, God the Father initiates this calling and brings us to the Son. When He initiates our calling, we are at that point, His enemy. The reconciliation has not quite occurred yet. That time when God opens up our belief in Him, belief in Jesus Christ, is when Christ's atoning sacrifice becomes available. No time before that. Only when as an enemy, our minds are opened up and God says, "Will you accept this?" And we either do or we do not. But that is when we receive it, when Christ's atoning sacrifice actually begins to have an effect.
So we could say that His atonement for us has a kind of delay feature, if you will. While completed in the historical past, it does not go into effect until the Father calls a person to Christ, and he or she believes, repents, and is converted in baptism and the receipt of the Holy Spirit. That is when it becomes available. Until then, the covering blood of Christ is in a state of abeyance, or suspension, if you will. It does not work until it is graciously applied to cover the individual upon acceptance of the sacrifice of Christ.
Christ's limited atonement applies on a person-by-person basis. There is no blanket salvation. A person must experience life with Christ to grow in character. As Mr. Armstrong said so many times, this is something that cannot be done by fiat. It cannot be done by a wave of a wand, abracadabra, poof, you are perfect. It does not work that way. And so He selects people for His church and He gives them time to come to this point where they are putting on the character image of Jesus Christ. It is not just done to everyone. It does not work that way.
We have a few more minutes. (I am sure you are still hungry. . .) But we will go on to Hebrews the 9th chapter. (I had to make you aware of your stomach, did I not?) We will read verses 6 through 8, then we will drop down to verse 11. Paul, or the author of Hebrews, had just been speaking about the Tabernacle and some of those things that were there in the ritual under the Old Testament.
Hebrews 9:6-8 Now when these things had been thus prepared, the priests always went into the first part of the tabernacle, performing the services, but into the second part the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people's sins committed an ignorance; the Holy Spirit indicating this, that the way into the Holiest of All was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was standing.
It was limited, was it not?
Hebrews 9:11-15 But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His only own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason, He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.
Hebrews 10:11-18 And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. [Notice the verb tense. He has by one offering, He has been he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.] And the Holy Spirit also witnesses to us; for after He had said before, "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them," then He adds, "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more." Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering of sin.
I think these passages explain it so well. Christ's sacrifice is different from the one that was made on the Day of Atonement in the sense that He offered Himself only once to pay for the sins of all. But that sacrifice did not apply to all people when He died there on the cross. As I pointed out there in chapter 9, verse 15, He redeemed a specific group of people: those who are called to inherit eternal life. Hebrews 10:14 puts it slightly differently. As I emphasized there, it was for those who are being sanctified, those who are being made holy, those who are prepared for God's use. These, as we have called them throughout this sermon, the sheep, the chosen, the elect, the church, the firstfruits, however you want to to call them, are those, as he says here, who are offered and accept the terms of the New Covenant. They are God's peculiar, special people.
Go ahead and just jot down I Peter 2:4-5, 9-10 where he says, we are being built up into a spiritual house and spiritual priesthood, His own special people.
We are going to conclude then in Amos 3. This is how it was under the Old Covenant with Israel.
Amos 3:1-2 Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O children of Israel, against the whole family which I brought up from the land of Egypt, saying: "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities."
It is kind of a negative verse, but I want the positive point there that He had only known Israel. Under the Old Covenant, He had worked exclusively with Israel. And under the New Covenant God has a special exclusive relationship with what Paul calls in Galatians 6:16, the Israel of God. He is still working with Israel, but another Israel. And at this time, Christ's atoning sacrifice is limited to those people, to the Israel of God. But one day it will be opened up to all of physical Israel.
Paul says in Romans 11th chapter, "then all Israel will be saved." He is confident that the majority of Israelites will one day be saved. And Peter tells us in II Peter 3 that God wants all to come to repentance and hopefully the whole world will be saved in time.
It is those things that we will be commemorating, that glorious time we will be looking forward to as we go through the Feast of Tabernacles.
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Sermon Topics
The Gospel
