Limited Atonement?

People often talk about the Five Points of Calvinism, under the anacronym TULIP

• Total Depravity
• Unconditional Election
• Limited Atonement
• Irresistible Grace
• Perseverance of the Saints

The Five points actually were put together some time after Calvin at the Synod of Dort, a council called by the Dutch Reformed Church to respond to Arminianism. There is a risk then with seeing a five point attempt to rebut and respond, turned into a memorable anagram as the be all and end all of what Calvinism, or Reformed Theology is all about.

The third point, Limited Atonement is a good example of this.  It’s probably the most controversial of the points.  Of course, a phrase beginning with the letter L fits nicely into the word Tulip but is it an accurate description of reformed belief?

I remember that when I first heard the term, I wasn’t too enamoured. What kind of God would limit the effectiveness of the Cross?  It also sounded somewhat like a really bad type of equation as though God calculated all the people who had lived and who would ever live and then did a rough sum to work out how many of them Jesus’ blood would cover.

Except that doesn’t get to the heart of the point that Calvinists were trying to make at Dort.  Their point was this.  That unless you believe in universalism (that in the end, God lets everyone off and no-one goes to Hell), then pretty much every Christian believes that atonement is limited.  If you emphasise the free will and choice of the unbeliever to decide whether or not they will follow Jesus, if you make grace resistible then you limit the atonement in two ways. First you limit it because you say that Jesus’ death did not actually, at that time accomplish salvation, rather it made salvation possible. The grace of the Cross isn’t effective until people respond. It would then be possible that no one might have responded to the Gospel and Jesus’ death would have been an ineffective waste of time. This takes us to the second limitation.  We are the ones who limit and control atonement. It is limited by our free will. This means that Free Will becomes the most important thing that we value.

So, the Calvinist counter point is two-fold, first that Jesus’ death on the Cross was truly effective, it didn’t just set up the possibility of atonement being made. Atonement really was made, the penalty was taken, the price paid, God’s wrath satisfied, justice done, your sin forgiven at Calvary.  The work was finished.  What this means is that secondly, the responsibility for who is atoned lies with God and his perfect will rather on our finite, fallen wills. 

The result of this is that whilst Calvinists will grin and bear the use of the memorable word TULIP, they prefer other words and phrases to describe this point. Sometimes it is referred at  as “Particular Redemption” (hence Particular Baptists) focusing on the point that God had his people specifically in mind at the Cross. Better still, I think is the term “Definite Atonement” which puts the focus in the right place on the primary point that those at Dort were trying to make. The Cross wasn’t just about possible or potential atonement. It was about real, actual, certain, definite atonement. 

The pastoral aim them of the doctrine is to do two important things by reminding us that our redemption is completely in God’s hands. First, it takes away any sense of pride from us, it humbles us. We have no basis for self-reliance. Second, it builds assurance. If my salvation is not dependent upon me, then it is dependent on the one who will never lose me from his hand and never turn his back and walk away from me.