The Reformed faith and Limited Atonement

The Reformed faith maintains, on the basis of Scripture, that the death of Christ was limited vicarious atonement. That is, Christ atoned as a substitute not for all and every man, but for His elect people alone.

The term atonement occurs sometimes in our King James Version where it could better be translated either by "reconciliation" or by "propitiation, covering." The terms limited and atonement are simply dogmatic terms which have grown up in the church's vocabulary and which are used to describe briefly a thoroughly Scriptural and confessional concept. The term atonement covers such confessional terms as redemption, redeem, purchase, satisfy, propitiatory sacrifice, etc. And it covers such Scriptural terms as reconciliation, propitiation, ransom, purchase, etc. It simply looks at all these various Scriptural and confessional terms from a very basic point of view, a point of view which as far as the term is concerned is closely related to the idea of reconciliation. Atonement is really in its root idea at-one-ment. It refers to the fact that through the death of Christ God wrought reconciliation.

The doctrine of limited atonement is the Reformed doctrine concerning the death of Christ and the redemption of men thereby (as Canons II puts it in its title) as it was officially set forth over against the Arminian heresy of general, or universal, atonement.

I want to point out by way of introduction, first of all, that it is in this truth of limited atonement that the doctrine of sovereign election (and, in fact, sovereign predestination with its two aspects of election and reprobation) comes into focus. The cross is the objective realization and revelation of God's predestinating purpose. That revelation of God's sovereign predestination in the cross is painted upon the background of the reality of man's total depravity, of man's totally, hopelessly lost estate by nature. On the other hand, there is in the cross the focal point of the whole of the truth of salvation by grace as far as the irresistible calling and the preservation and the glorification of the saints are concerned, - from this point of view, that it is in the cross and the atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ, that centrally and objectively all of the salvation of God's people, as it is actually realized in their hearts and lives, is concentrated. It is in the atonement that we have the guarantee, the absolutely certain guarantee, of the calling and of the preservation and of the final glorification of God's people. Salvation by sovereign grace is a closed system, - closed to any work and any boasting of man. It is from beginning to end the work of God alone. It is the realization of that which is set forth in Romans 8:29, 30 in the well-known words: "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified." What according to God's counsel was fixed and finished from all eternity, from before the foundation of the world, is realized and revealed in time.

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