The Extent Of The Atonement

1st Timothy 2:1-7 (NIV) - the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul:


1 I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone-- 2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3 This is good, and pleases God our Savior, 4 who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all men--the testimony given in its proper time. 7 And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle--I am telling the truth, I am not lying--and a teacher of the true faith to the Gentiles.


One of the key points any comprehensive definition of the Gospel of Jesus Christ must contain, is an acknowledgement of who the Gospel is for.

Is it just for some, or is it for all?

That question cannot be answered until another question is considered, and that is the scope, or the extent, of the atonement.  This is because the ground, the basis, of anyone's forgiveness in Christ is the atonement:  the reconciliation God effected between Himself and the world, through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross.

In the simplest terms, the atonement is simply Jesus Christ paying the sin debt for sinners.  As the old song goes:  we owed a debt we could not pay; He paid a debt He did not owe.  And thank God for sending Him to do just that!  Jesus is the only person in all of human history that met the requirements for a comprehensive atonement:

• Jesus had no sin of His own, thus He was morally flawless and suited to be a perfect sacrifice before the Lord.  (Hebrews 4:15, Hebrews 7:26, 1 Peter 2:22, Philippians 2:5-7)
• Jesus was fully human just as we are fully human.  Animals cannot truly be a substitute for a person because they do not share in our humanity - Jesus did. (John 1:1-14, Hebrews 2:14-18, Romans 1:1-4)
• Jesus, while being fully human, was also fully God.  As God He could work in ways that were not bound by space and time.  The atonement He bought with His own blood stretches from the very first human sin forward to the end of human sin. (John 1:1, John 1:14-18, Philippians 2:5-7, John 10:27-33, Hebrews 7:22-27)
• Only Jesus, as fully God, could offer a perfect sacrifice.  Part of the nature of substitutionary atonement that God instituted in the Old Testament involved the sinner confessing their sin and in effect 'placing' that sin upon the sacrificial animal.  The ancient Israelite would 'lean' on the animal, placing his hands on its head and allowing it to support and brace his body as he confessed his sins before the Lord.  The animal then became their sacrificial substitute.  This was a foreshadowing of the eventual sacrifice of Christ Himself.  But we don't realize all of the sins we commit.  In the atonement brought about by Jesus, God Himself laid our sins upon Jesus; He didn't miss one of them.  Jesus, with the full awareness of God, could offer a perfect sacrifice for us because there is nothing that is hidden from His sight.  (Leviticus 4:4 ["Lay" is the Hebrew "Samake" - it means to sustain, to uphold, to be braced, to be steadfast], 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2, Hebrews 9:12-15).

For these reasons as well as others, Jesus is the only one through whom we can have a right standing before God the Father, because Jesus is the only one who could function as a sacrifice on our behalf.  Our sin was so great, our need so dire, only God could do it!  Consider God speaking in Isaiah 63:5:

Isa 63:5 I looked, but there was no one to help, I was appalled that no one gave support; so my own arm worked salvation for me, and my own wrath sustained me.

In the cross of Jesus Christ, we have both love and justice proclaimed:  God's love, in that He sent His Son to die in our place so that we could live; and God's justice, in that once our sins were placed on Christ, it was inevitable that God's judgment must fall.  And fall it did, in all of it's horrible, bloody, painful horror.  That is also God's proclamation to us that if we reach the end of life still in our sins, it won't matter how much God loves us.  Just as He loved His own Son on the cross with all of His heart, he will still have to loose His wrath on us because of our sin.  If it happened to Jesus when sin was laid upon Him, it will most certainly happen to us if we choose to remain in our sin. 

God made this sacrifice of Christ a provisional sacrifice, meaning that it isn't automatically applied to anyone.  It is entirely possible to treat the shed blood of Jesus Christ as an 'unholy thing', and to spurn the forgiveness that could have been realized.  God's 'grace' in the cross, the unmerited favor and love of the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf, is only apprehended through faith.  God has made the exercise of personal faith the condition upon which the benefits of the atonement are realized and made active.

That is the nature of the atonement, but what about it's 'scope'?  How far does the atonement go?  Was it really for everyone or just some?

This question was a non-issue for the first few centuries of the Church of Jesus Christ upon the Earth. John the Baptist, the last of the Old Testament prophets, declared the extent of the atonement in saying, "Behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"  (John 1:29).  Jesus claimed a comprehensive atonement (John 3:14-21).  The Apostles taught a comprehensive atonement (1st Timothy 2:1-7, 2 Peter 3:9).  The men who came after the Apostles also understood the atonement as being comprehensive in nature.  How could they not?  For they had learned these things from the Apostles themselves.

Consider what the men who came directly after the Apostles had to say about the extent of the atonement.  Listen to the words and thoughts they use to convey their conviction that the atonement was for everyone and everyone's sin:

Justin Martyr (100AD - 165AD; writing about 160AD):
Dialogue of Justin, Philosopher and Martyr, with Trypho (A Jew) - Chapter XCV (95)
If, then, the Father of all wished His Christ for the whole human family to take upon Him the curses of all, knowing that, after He had been crucified and was dead, He would raise Him up, why do you argue about Him, who submitted to suffer these things according to the Father's will, as if He were accursed, and do not rather bewail yourselves? For although His Father caused Him to suffer these
things in behalf of the human family, yet you did not commit the deed as in obedience to the will of God. For you did not practice piety when you slew the prophets. And let none of you say: If His Father wished Him to suffer this, in order that by His stripes the human race might be healed, we have done no wrong.   If, indeed, you repent of your sins, and recognize Him to be Christ, and observe His commandments, then you may assert this; for, as I have said before, remission of sins shall be yours. But if you curse Him and them that believe on Him, and, when you have the power, put them to death, how is it possible that requisition shall not be made of you, as of unrighteous and sinful men, altogether hard-hearted and without understanding, because you laid your hands on Him?


Justin Martyr (100AD - 165AD; writing about 160AD):
Dialogue of Justin, Philosopher and Martyr, with Trypho (A Jew) - Chapter CXXXVII (137)
 Say no evil thing, my brothers, against Him that was crucified, and treat not  scornfully the stripes wherewith all may be healed, even as we are healed.


Melito (Bishop of Sardis - circa 190AD):
Thou slewest thy Lord, and He was lifted up upon the tree; and an inscription was fixed above, to show who He was that was slain.  And who was this? (that which we shall not say is too shocking to hear, and that which we shall say is very dreadful:  nevertheless hearken, and tremble.)  It was He because of whom the earth quaked.  He that hung up the earth in space was Himself hanged up; He that fixed the heavens was fixed with nails; He that bore up the earth was borne up on a tree; the Lord of all was subjected to ignominy in a naked body--God put to death! the King of Israel slain with Israel's right hand!  Alas for the new wickedness of the new murder!  The Lord was exposed with naked body:  He was not deemed worthy even of covering; and, in order that He might not be seen, the luminaries turned away, and the day became darkened because they slew God, who hung naked on the tree.  It was not the body of our Lord that the luminaries covered with darkness when they set, but the eyes of men. For, because the people quaked not, the earth quaked; because they were not affrighted, the earth was affrighted.  Thou smotest thy Lord:  thou also hast been smitten upon the earth.  And thou indeed liest dead; but He is risen from the place of the dead, and ascended to the height of heaven, having suffered for the sake of those who suffer, and having been bound for the sake of Adam's race which was imprisoned, and having been judged for the sake of him who was condemned, and having been buried for the sake of him who was buried.


Irenaeus  (130AD - 200AD; Bishop of Lyons, as a boy taught by Polycarp, who was a disciple of the Apostle John; writing about 180AD):
Against Heresies -Book V (5)
who, redeeming us by His own blood in a manner consonant to reason, gave Himself as a redemption for those who had been led into captivity. And since the apostasy tyrannized over us unjustly, and, though we were by nature the property of the omnipotent God, alienated us contrary to nature, rendering us its own disciples, the Word of God, powerful in all things, and not defective with
regard to His own justice, did righteously turn against that apostasy, and redeem from it His own property, not by violent means, as the [apostasy] had obtained dominion over us at the beginning, when it insatiably snatched away what was not its own, but by means of persuasion, as became a God of counsel, who does not use violent means to obtain what He desires; so that neither should justice be infringed upon, nor the ancient handiwork of God go to destruction.  Since the Lord thus has redeemed us through His own blood, giving His soul for our souls, and His flesh for our flesh, and has also poured out the Spirit of the Father for the union and communion of God and man, imparting
indeed God to men by means of the Spirit, and, on the other hand, attaching man to God by His own incarnation, and bestowing upon us at His coming immortality durably and truly, by means of communion with God,--all the doctrines of the heretics fall to ruin.


Irenaeus  (130AD - 200AD; Bishop of Lyons, as a boy taught by Polycarp, who was a disciple of the Apostle John; writing about 180AD):
Against Heresies -Book V (5)

so also, in [the times of] the end, the Word of the Father and the Spirit of God, having become united with the ancient substance of Adam's formation, rendered man living and perfect, receptive of the perfect Father, in order that as in the natural [Adam] we all were dead, so in the spiritual we may all be made alive.


Clement of Alexandria  (150AD - 215AD; writing about 195AD):
 For this also He came down. For this He clothed Himself with man. For this He  voluntarily subjected Himself to the experiences of men, that by bringing  Himself to the measure of our weakness whom He loved, He might  correspondingly bring us to the measure of His own strength. And about to be  offered up and giving Himself a ransom, He left for us a new  Covenant-testament: My love I give unto you. And what and how great  is it? For each of us He gave His life,--the equivalent for all.


Victorinus  (150AD - 215AD;  Bishop of Poetovio in Syria;  writing about 280AD):
Commentary On The Apocalypse Of The Blessed John (Revelation) - Chapter 4

And when for man's salvation He was made man to overcome death, and to set all men free, and that He offered Himself a victim to the Father on our behalf, He was called a calf.


And there are many, many more.

The idea of a limited atonement did not come from God's Word, and it didn't come from the first several centuries of the church.  Although it was an idea that came into its own in the middle ages with the Reformers, some of their ideas were perhaps based upon the writings of Augustine from the 5th century AD.  That is a highly debated topic and I am certainly no expert on that account.

But no matter how the false belief has crept in, it most certainly has crept in.


So what is the danger?  Why do I get so exercised about doctrine (correct theology as given by God in His Word the Bible)?

Believe me, in pointing out error that contradicts God's Word, I am making no friends.  I realize I am stepping all over some people's beliefs as well as the beliefs of people they hold dear:  brothers and sisters, moms and dads, grannies and grand-dads.  I get that, and I hate it, but I must.

Here are at least a few of the issues:

1. One of the core sins God has shown to us in the Bible is men and women attributing things to God that He has not attributed to Himself.  Adam and Eve, Eliphaz and crew in the book of Job, the children of Israel en masse... and on and on.  I hate to see it in the church as well.  We are supposed to have the Spirit living in us and one of His functions is to guide us into all truth.  But how easily we sometimes shut him out when our traditions clash with His sure testimony.  Israel for the most part rejected God's witness.  Why is the church following in their footsteps?  The answer to this is even less popular than the things I've already said.
2. God's revealing of Himself to us is a crucial point because we can only know about God what He has shown us.  Shouldn't we be concerned with getting it right rather than functionally setting it aside and adding accretions to it just like Israel did in their own sad past?
3. Mankind in our own nature, religious or atheistic, struggles with deity.  We either try to find God in the extremes of scale the universe offers (down through the microscope and up through the telescope), or we seek to define truth for ourselves - thus seeking to raise ourselves to divinity.  But in God's Word, we in essence have a love letter from deity to us.  In it He shows us Himself, and He shows us ourselves, and He asks us to love and trust Him.  This great and mighty God, the one and only, *asks* us to trust and love Him.  It stops me in my tracks and I just have to wonder at Him and worship Him.  He conquered me, not with threats of hell, but with power and might shown to be at its core this thing called love.  What an astounding surprise!  One doesn't encounter that in the world of man, but it cannot be avoided when listening to God's testimony about Himself.  God's love and goodness, His humbleness in His infinite might astounds and humbles me.  Truly, Christ has shown us the Father - one Who's burden is light and Who is humble in heart.  Isn't this person worth listening to and taking as He has given Himself without changing His Word?

But my biggest concern is this:  The Bible is under a very strong and sustained attack on practically all fronts.  The question, "Can the Bible be believed?" is on the lips of those outside of Christ in ways that I don't think we've ever encountered before.

What kind of testimony does it give to them, the ones we are to love as ourselves and pray for their salvation - the ones for whom we are to sacrifice - the ones for whom we are to abridge our own freedoms in Christ - what kind of testimony does it give to them when even Christians who claim Christ change what His Word says?  If not with the knife or the pen, certainly with interpretation.

How can we escape censure from God for treating His Word like a child's paper that we feel needs our editorial skills?  If we stopped at explanation that would be fulfilling our task as His children.  But when our explanations "explain away" what He has clearly and repeatedly said, how are we not unfaithful and evil before the God we claim to serve?

The answer is:  we aren't.  So we had better knock it off.