Thoughts About Limited Atonement

After my recent (from the perspective of the denizens of the blogosphere, “recent” might be a slight exaggeration here) articles on this blog about W. G. T. Shedd’s interpretation of 1John 2:2, I paused to ponder the implications of Shedd’s view for a Calvinistic approach to soteriology. Specifically, I asked myself why we speak of limitation in the atonement.

First let me try to defuse the bomb before I throw it. I do affirm that God had a special intention for the elect in delivering Christ up to death. I do affirm that Christ intended to do the will of His Father, and that this obedience included obedience to the special intent of God to save the elect through the death Christ died. I do affirm that God actively regenerates the elect and none others through the reading and preaching of the scriptures and the illumination of the Holy Spirit. Apart from this work of grace, no man will desire or accept the salvation offered in Christ. The work of the Holy Trinity has special reference to those whom God has chosen from eternity. Eph. 1:4

On the other hand, I also affirm that God had a general or universal intent in the atonement. I believe I have established from Shedd’s work that he too believed there was a universal intent in Christ’s sacrifice.

For the Scriptures everywhere describe God as naturally and spontaneously merciful and declare that all the legal obstacles to the exercise of this great attribute have been removed by the death of the Son of God 'for the sins of the whole world' (1 John 2:2). * * * Now the only obstruction, and it is a fatal one, to the exercise of this natural and spontaneous mercy of God is the sinner's hardness of heart.

W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 3d. edition, pages 930-931.

Calvin, in his comment to 2 Peter 3:9, says something similar:

So wonderful is his love towards mankind, that he would have them all to be saved, and is of his own self prepared to bestow salvation on the lost.

John Calvin, Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles, Comment to 2 Peter 3:9.

If we have this view of the grace of God — that God would be merciful to all and that the only obstruction to the exercise of God’s mercy is the sinner’s hard heart — then it seems inappropriate to speak of limitation in the atonement. When we speak of the grace of God, we ought to speak of the fullness of his grace to the elect, and the wideness of the offer of his grace to all men. To speak of limitation in the atonement is to speak of man’s sinfulness, of the rejection of grace proffered, not of God’s love and mercy. Rather than speak of a limitation in God’s grace, we ought to speak of what Calvin called that "free promise in Christ," the knowledge of which is the foundation of saving faith. Institutes 3.2.7. Rather than speak of a limitation of God’s grace, we ought, as the church of Jesus, to speak words of invitation to all men:

And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

Revelation 22:17.

There is, of course, a limitation. But let us keep in mind what Shedd taught us: the limitation is not in God, but in the sinner who will not have the salvation offered to all in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for all.