This post was destroyed by the infection of my old blog. This is a recovery of what I think was an earlier version of it.
Over the last few days I have written over 15,000 words on the subject of limited atonement. Whilst limited atonement is an issue that I have discussed at considerable length on Internet fora on a number of occasions in the past, I have never properly expressed my opinion in a single blog post. I thought that it might be worthwhile to sum up my position on the issue, collecting together thoughts from my various comments and putting them into some sort of order. At the very least it would provide me with something that I can direct people to in the future and save me the trouble of outlining the whole of my position every time I enter into a new debate on the subject. I apologize for the rather rambling character of many of my points. As the following material is largely culled from comments it is unwieldy and hard to work into a clearly structured argument.
Personal Background
Before I start out it might be helpful for me to give a brief sketch of what has led me to my current position. A number of years ago I became convinced of the limited atonement position. I felt that it was the only way to hold that the cross actually achieved something, avoiding the ‘possibility-realization’ model that makes my personal response the deciding factor. I believed that the limited atonement model was demanded by the doctrine of penal substitution, which I was convinced was a biblical atonement model. I was also convinced that the scriptural doctrine of election demanded a limited atonement; universal atonement would be inconsistent with the fact that God has only chosen a particular number of individuals to be saved. Whilst I would happily grant infinite worth to the cross of Christ, I was not willing to say that it was God’s purpose to save everyone.
As time went on, I began to feel uneasy about the doctrine. The thing that made me feel most uneasy was the manner in which I had to construct elaborate explanations for so many biblical verses. The biblical authors seemed to feel no need to qualify statements that, at least on the surface, seemed to directly oppose limited atonement. I started to wonder whether anyone who held the doctrine of limited atonement could speak in such a manner, without feeling an irresistible urge to qualify. I also started to study particular biblical books in more depth, rather than just studying doctrines with their associated proof-texts and problem texts. As I did so I encountered proof-texts for limited atonement in their original context and they did not seem to carry the weight that I had put upon them.
I also found myself re-examining the issue of election, as I started to study the way that the NT spoke of the subject. As I arrived at new conclusions on this subject I found that new possibilities were opened up for my doctrine of the atonement, possibilities that would relieve much of the tension that I had felt between the doctrine of the limited atonement and the text. I also found that I could take on board most of the concerns on both sides of the familiar debates over limited versus unlimited atonement. In particular, I realized that it was not necessary to abandon a belief in penal substitution or an effectual atonement if I was to move away from the doctrine of limited atonement.
Although I have moved considerably in my understanding of the atonement and election over the last few years I feel a strong continuity in the whole movement. Throughout the whole movement I have been guided by particular biblical principles that I was not willing to sacrifice under any circumstances. I am convinced that a truly Christian theology is one in which these principles are given full expression.
In many respects this could be understood as an aesthetic sense of Christian truth. There have been many occasions when I have not been able to see any logical flaws in a particular position, but am convinced that such flaws are present because the position seems unbalanced or ill-proportioned in certain aspects. Some doctrines just are not as beautiful as they ought to be.
Limited atonement has always seemed to be one such an aspect within the ‘Calvinist’ system. There are facets of the Calvinist system that are truly beautiful. The focus on the priority of God’s grace and the centrality of God’s glory is truly beautiful. When you first see these things, their beauty almost takes your breath away. I might be wrong, but most people who become Calvinists don’t find themselves drawn to the position by the doctrine of limited atonement. They hold the doctrine of limited atonement because they believe that it is necessarily required by the other doctrines that are so dear to them.
What if it were possible to consistently stress such things as the priority of God’s grace, the centrality of God’s glory and an effectual atonement without actually holding a limited atonement position? I am suggesting that we can retain the beauties of the Christian faith that the Calvinist system highlights, whilst avoiding the sides of Calvinism that so many find problematic and ugly — things like double predestination, the idea that God purposed the Fall of mankind, the doctrine of a limited atonement and the charge of determinism that the Calvinist system finds so hard to shake.
1 All or Not All?
Limited atonement is a response to an ‘all or not all’ question about the atonement. It seems to me that this is a bogus question in many important respects. There are a lot of assumptions bound up in the question that need to be unpacked and examined. Having examined these assumptions we may well find that the question itself needs to be rejected.
2 Limited Atonement in Calvin and Dordt
The ‘all or not all’ question seems to have assumed a centrality in many modern Reformed understandings of the atonement that it did not have historically. Whether or not the question is a good one, the prominence that it has in modern Reformed thought is significant.
It has always interested me that, despite the amount that Calvin wrote on the subject of the atonement, no consensus can be reached on whether or not he held to the doctrine of limited atonement. Not only is Calvin’s theology not orientated to the answering of this question, it is not easy to ascertain how Calvin would have responded to the question had he been asked it.
I agree with Bavinck and Berkouwer in their claim that Dordt was not responding to an ‘all or not all’ question in its doctrine of the atonement. Dordt was opposing a ‘possibility-realization’ model of the atonement. It taught a doctrine of efficacious atonement. Its purpose was not to argue for limited atonement. Whilst it might affirm some moderate form of limited atonement, we should not see this as the main thrust of the document.
3 Forms of the Doctrine of Limited Atonement
It appears to me that there are a number of different forms that the doctrine of limited atonement can take and also some views that affirm the doctrine of election whilst denying the doctrine of limited atonement. There are some important, but fine distinctions that need to be drawn if we are to recognize the significant differences between these.
Just about everyone agrees that Christ’s death is of infinite value. When many people say that they believe that the atonement was sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world they mean nothing more than this. It is like saying that the amount of ingredients in a particular type of baked cake is sufficient to make three other different types of cakes. Although the ‘ingredients’ of the atonement (i.e. the Incarnate Christ’s sinless life) are regarded as being sufficient to save the whole world, the actual atonement (the ‘cake’) precludes that even being a possibility. The ingredients have been committed to a particular form and the cake cannot be unbaked.
This position is held by those, for example, who argue from the idea of penal substitution for particular individuals, and rule out the possibility of double jeopardy. The notion is that on the cross the infinitely valuable life of Christ was sacrificed in the place of particular individuals, who cannot then be expected to pay the price themselves. Christ’s sacrifice is of potentially infinite value, but it is actually limited in its effect to the bearing of those sins that were imputed to Him, which were the sins of elect individuals alone. The sacrifice of Christ is of infinite value, but its provision is inherently limited to the elect.
For others the limitation of the atonement comes at the level of design. The provision of the sacrifice of Christ is not inherently limited, but is limited in regard to God’s design in the death of Christ. The sacrifice of Christ itself is like the ingredients for the cake in the previous illustration. There is nothing about the sacrifice of Christ considered in itself that rules out the possibility of God’s using it to save anyone or everyone. However, God has a set purpose for the sacrifice of Christ. He gave up His Son with the purpose of saving particular individuals rather than others. The provision of the atonement is not essentially limited, but is limited in the design for which it has been made.
A number who hold such a position will be quite comfortable speaking about Christ bearing the sins of the world, and using other such universal-sounding statements. There may also be a willingness to think in terms of multiple designs behind the atonement that greatly soften the particularism of an atonement governed by individual election. They will be able to acknowledge senses in which it is appropriate to speak of the cross truly being for all, whilst still maintaining that it is governed by the purpose of individual election.
There are others who, whilst believing in the doctrine of individual election, deny that the design of election should be regarded as the controlling design behind the atonement. The atonement is guided by a broader salvific purpose that is not limited (with respect to individuals). This need not mean that the design of the atonement is necessarily to save every individual — ‘unlimited’ atonement need not mean atonement with the purpose of saving each and every individual (although often it does). Such an atonement is ‘universal’, making provision that is sufficient for all and is not limited by any design to save one individual rather than another.
The fact that the atonement is limited with respect to its final result (i.e. in the individual elect) cannot be taken as proof that the atonement itself is limited. There is seen to be a need to hold universalism and particularism in tension in a way that limited atonement fails to. Such an approach, without denying individual election, seeks to deny it teleological priority. God has more important purposes than that of saving a particular set of individuals, even though that is one of His purposes.
Such an approach tries to do justice to the fact that God desires all men to be saved and seeks to demonstrate that God’s grace is not as essentially particularistic as most Calvinists claim. Amyraldianism falls under this category.
4 Denial of Limited Atonement not Denial of Election
I don’t believe that any of the three positions listed above is necessarily inconsistent with itself. I think that the third position is particularly important. It demonstrates that limited atonement is not necessarily implied by a particularistic understanding of election. To affirm limited atonement is to affirm more than a belief in unconditional individual election demands of us. For example, I am quite happy to affirm God’s comprehensive sovereignty, but totally unwilling to affirm limited atonement. This is not a debate about God’s sovereignty, but about the teleological priority that we are going to give to God’s decision to save particular individuals.
The problem that I have with the doctrine of limited atonement is its anthropocentricity. By subordinating the cross to the design of individual election we make the cross and God’s work in history in general to focus far too much on me and my salvation. God’s expansive covenant and redemptive historical purposes are given the backseat, whilst individual salvation takes the front seat. This is one area where I believe that the spirit of the Reformed faith must oppose the letter of the Reformed faith — ‘L’ in particular. God has a great and glorious purpose in His world that is focused, not directly on me, but on His Son. As an individual member of the human race I have been caught up in the powerful flow of God’s purposes, and I am profoundly aware that I am not ultimately what it is all about.
My understanding of the atonement is similar to that of the third position outlined above. The one important difference is found in the fact that I deny Reformed doctrines of election. Whilst affirming that, in His sovereign grace, God saves certain individuals rather than others, I do not believe that this is what the Bible means when it talks about election. Further differences will become apparent as I proceed. I have written at greater length on the subject of election here, here, here and here (however, there are many aspects of my position that I left unexplored in those posts that will be explored in this one).
5 Denial of Limited Atonement not Denial of Effectual Atonement
A denial of limited atonement need not be a denial of effectual atonement. The atonement is not a mere hopeful shot in the dark on God’s part. It is undertaken for a purpose and it fulfils that purpose. That purpose may well be a broader purpose than that of saving a specific set of individuals.
I will be arguing that one of the major purposes for the atonement is that of bearing the old humanity to death so that a new humanity could be formed. This purpose is perfectly fulfilled by the cross. The new humanity that the cross aims to form need not be formed of any one particular set of individuals. Whilst it will certainly be formed of particular individuals it is not the purpose itself that it be formed of those individuals. Indeed, it could conceivably be formed of all individuals. It is amazing how easily this simple point is misunderstood.
Once one has recognized that an effectual atonement need not be a limited one we can appreciate that the choice that we have here is not as simply as a choice between Calvinist limited atonement and Arminian possibility-realization atonement, where everything comes down to man’s decision and the cross is merely God putting the ball into our court. There are further options open to us. There are plenty of theologians within other Church traditions who appreciate this. The dilemma that Reformed people all too often work in terms of is simply unnecessary.
6 The Object of the Atonement
The atonement does not have a particular set of individuals as its direct object. Rather, it has a personal solidarity and those who belong to it as its direct object. Christ dies for His body, the Church, His flock, etc. We only become the objects of Christ’s atonement when we are brought into this personal solidarity (I will later explore ways in which we must biblically say that Christ died for all humanity).
Some might argue for a ‘limited atonement’ with Israel or the Church being the direct object, and individuals the indirect objects as they come to participate in the body. I would not really disagree with such an understanding in principle. I would just point out that this is a relatively novel way of understanding what it means for the atonement to be ‘limited’ and is not really the same as the common Reformed position under that name (at least not in my reading).
There are others who seek to argue that both individuals considered apart from the personal solidarity and the personal solidarity that they belong to are direct objects of election and the atonement. This is a slightly nuanced form of limited atonement, but limited atonement nonetheless. Even whilst there might be an appreciation of the corporate character of the solidarities for which Christ dies, the solidarities are generally regarded in a manner that makes particular individuals essential to their constitution.
7 What is a ‘Personal Solidarity’?
What exactly is meant by a ‘personal solidarity’? A personal solidarity is a unity that is shared or participated in by many persons. The unity is not an impersonal unity, but a personal one. The unity of the personal solidarity is secured, not merely by some legal framework or personal attribute or property that its members have in common, but by the living person or persons from whom the shared life originates. The existence of the personal solidarity, however, necessitates the existence of more persons than those from whom the life originates.
A personal solidarity does not work in terms of a simplistic individual/corporate divide. The individual/corporate paradigm suggests a tension between the personal ‘individual’ and the impersonal ‘corporate’. The personal solidarity model works in terms of a one/many distinction. However, the ‘one’ is one of the ‘many’ and is a person, not an impersonal system or social construct.
Within the type of personal solidarity that I will be speaking of the one and the many are mutually constitutive. There cannot be one without the other. The following are some examples. A (nuclear) family is a form of personal solidarity, whose life originates from parents and is participated in by children. There can be no parents without children and no children without parents. Both parents and children are essential to the existence of a family and both are members of the family. Israel is another example of a personal solidarity. Israel’s common life flowed from the patriarchs and was participated in by their seed and by those who were brought in from outside.
The Church (understood as the totus Christus — Christ, Head and body) is a further example of a personal solidarity and is the particular case that I will focus on within this post. The life of the Church flows from Christ the Head to the members.
The important thing that needs to be recognized about such personal solidarities is that some members are integral to the identity and essential to the existence of the solidarity in a manner that others are not. Whilst a family doesn’t cease to be a family when one of its children is adopted into another family or when a child from another family is adopted into it, there would be no family apart from shared parents. Whilst parents by themselves are not sufficient to form a family, parents are essential to the existence of the family and integral to its identity in a way that a particular child within the family is not.
The same can be seen in the case of Israel. Israel’s identity is derived from the patriarchs. If it were not for the patriarchs Israel as such would not exist. However, individual Israelites could be cut off from the nation, but the nation would still persist.
This is crucially important in our understanding of the Church. Christ is integral to the identity and essential to the existence of the Church in a manner that I can never be. I could be cut off from the totus Christus and the totus Christus would not cease to be the totus Christus. If Christ were cut off from the totus Christus, the totus Christus would cease to exist.
8 Covenant-Election Distinction
It is through its failure to think in terms of a personal solidarity model that the Federal Vision’s covenant/election understanding collapses, in my opinion.
One of the problems with many Reformed understanding of the object of election is that the object of election is understood in terms of an individual/corporate polarity. The Church is seen to be much like a bag containing many individual marbles. The marble/bag dichotomy corresponds to the individual/corporate dichotomy. The marble is conceived of as an entity with independent existence from the bag. God’s choosing of the bag would not necessarily mean that He had chosen the marbles inside the bag.
It seems to me that the Federal Vision’s (hereafter FV) covenant/election distinction is merely a variation on this basic theme and fails to truly overcome the root problem, which is the polarity itself. The covenant more or less functions as the bag and election has reference to the marbles. God’s election is the choice of particular marbles within his chosen bag.
The covenantal way of speaking speaks in terms of that which is within and that which is without the bag, because ultimately it will be the contents of the bag that will be saved. Those within the bag are ‘covenantally’ elect, though they may not be elect on a ‘marble’ level. The ‘bag’ gives us a conditional promise of unconditional ‘marble’ election. Those marbles which faithfully remain in the bag can gain assurance that they are among the chosen marbles.
I don’t hold to the FV covenant-election distinction. I did for some time, but it ended up raising more questions than answers. I do not believe that there really is a election-covenant / marble-bag / individual-corporate polarity at all. I believe that this is something that we have imposed upon Scripture, rather than something that arises from Scripture itself.
The FV position is certainly moving in the right direction by paying more attention to the place of the Church and the covenant in our understanding of election. In many respects, what the FV has done is reverse the traditional election-covenant polarity and privilege the covenant pole over the election pole (understanding election through the lens of covenant, rather than vice versa). However, the decisive step still has to be taken: that of rejecting the polarity completely.
Thinking in terms of a personal solidarity gives us a new way of looking at this. Within the personal solidarity model the members of the solidarity do not exist independently of the solidarity. To be a member of a family is not to be an individual element within a set, but to be a person bound up in certain relationships. For me to be a member of my family, for example, is for me to be a brother and a son. Abstract me from my family and I cease to be a brother and a son. It would be meaningless to speak of me as a brother or a son in such abstraction from my family. God’s choosing of a family is a choosing of particular persons, but only as they are in relationship with other family members and, most importantly, the Head.
The FV covenant-election approach really follows on from the traditional Reformed understanding of election, which tends to think of the objects of election in terms of individual members of a set. Consequently, even though it is argued that they can’t be identified, it is considered meaningful to speak of elect people outside of the Church and non-elect people within the Church.
My claim is that the object of election is a personal solidarity — the totus Christus. If I am right then it is quite inappropriate to speak of elect people outside of the Church (except perhaps in some very clever and sophisticated sense).
Election is essentially the choosing of a family. It does involve the choice of particular persons, as every family is composed of particular persons. However, individuals are not the direct object of election. They are chosen as members of the family, not as individuals considered in abstraction from the family. We should also recognize that the family cannot be viewed in abstraction from its members either. The object of election is not an abstract ‘set’ or ‘bag’, but a concrete people.
Once one has appreciated the character of personal solidarities a few further things emerge. If the object of election is the personal solidarity of the Church, then the place that individuals have within it is quite different from that which they have within the marble-bag model. Within the personal solidarity model the individual member of the Church is neither integral to the Church’s identity nor essential to her existence. Individual persons can be removed from the Church or brought into it without the Church ceasing to exist. Only Christ is integral to the Church’s identity and essential to her existence. By seeing election as akin to the choice of a bag containing particular marbles, Reformed doctrines of election have made particular individuals intrinsic to the identity of the chosen people of God.
9 Election Mediated by Christ
What results is an election that is not entirely mediated by Christ. Election must be exhaustively mediated by Christ if we are to be consistent with the Scripture and have true assurance of our own status. We become elect when we are united to Christ in history. We would cease to be elect if we were cut off from Him. The Book of Life is Christ. Those in Him are elect; those outside of Him are not. We have no elect status apart from Him. By retaining a covenant-election distinction the FV acknowledges the existence of elect people (in some sense) outside of Christ. Such people’s election is not exhaustively mediated by Christ.
They are elected as individuals to be in Christ, rather than elect because they are in Christ. There is a very important distinction between these two positions. Some seek to get around this by arguing that we are elected in Christ as individuals before the foundation of the world. This seems to arise from a misreading of Ephesians 1:3-4. It also damages the doctrine of union with Christ by making it a decretal union at root. The elect have always been united to Christ in a decretal sense, even when they are alienated from Christ in every other sense.
The problem with this proposed solution is that Christ still does not exhaustively mediate election. What we have is a large static and fixed group of individuals in decretal union with Christ being the object of election. This seems to be the type of problems that you will be left with when you make the particular individuals that constitute the body of Christ essential to its identity. I am arguing that this is an unbiblical route to take. The Church derives its essential identity from its Head, not from its members. The object of election is the totus Christus, which is formed by personal union with Christ by the Spirit, rather than merely being a decretal union. If this is the case then we only become elect when we are brought into this personal union. At no point are we essential to the identity of this personal union.
What constitutes the decretal elect’s identity? To be the true group of the elect, according to Reformed theology, it would have to contain a fixed number of particular individuals in union with Christ. The presence of elect person Joe Bloggs is essential to the existence of the decretal solidarity. Remove Joe Bloggs and the decretal solidarity is no longer truly present.
Incidentally, understand election in the way that I am suggesting and you need no longer believe in double predestination; nor do you need to believe that the Fall is necessary for the fulfilment of the decree. God could have fulfilled the decree of election — understood as the election of a personal solidarity — without a single individual perishing. By giving such teleological priority to the choice of the individuals who will finally constitute the totus Christus Reformed theology has set the purpose of God on its head.
If election is the choice of fixed number of particular individuals then it is essentially hidden, because its object is unknown. We do not know the particular individuals that God has decreed to save. Christ enacts a decree that remains hidden behind Him. Although we know that all of the members of the decretal union will one day be brought into full personal union with Christ we cannot truly see God’s purpose of election revealed in the personal union itself because the purpose is not the creation of a personal union per se, but the creation of a personal union with individuals B, F, Q and Y rather than others.
I am arguing that it is the creation of a personal solidarity that is God’s electing purpose. Seen this way the object of election is the totus Christus and its members. This decree of election is completely revealed in Christ. We know the object of God’s election. We can know that we are elect. We can also know that others are elect (Philippians 4:3). There is no election that lies behind the personal covenantal union that we enjoy with Christ. In retaining the FV covenant-election distinction we are holding to a hidden decree that is not fully mediated by Christ. It seems to me that it is as simple as that.
Incidentally, it should be noticed that I am not denying the equal ultimacy of the one and the many in the totus Christus. The One — Christ — is always constituted by the many, just as He Himself constitutes them. What is being denied is that the particular individuals that are within the one-many solidarity of the body of Christ have an equal ultimacy.
10 The Salvation of Particular Individuals
It might be questioned what difference all of the above makes for one who holds that God orders ever single event in history. Surely we will end up with the same thing: God in His sovereignty saves some and not others and we have no way of knowing which He will save and which He will not and, more importantly, which of the two categories we fall into. I believe that it still makes an important difference.
First, the great purpose of election that God is seeking to work out is fully revealed. Whilst we may not know the exact way that God is going to work particular events to that great purpose, we do know the final goal. The exact set of individuals who will be saved simply does not have the teleological centrality that it does in most Reformed systems.
Second, we do not have a fixed position relative to God’s purpose. We can either positively participate in its outworking in believing allegiance to Christ or we can resist it. Such a purpose calls for a response of faith on our part.
Thirdly, we can know where we stand relative to God’s election. We know this by virtue of our relation to Christ. There is no more fundamental decretal union hiding behind covenantal union with Christ. The Church is the elect; those outside the Church are reprobate. There are no elect outside of the Church and no non-elect within the Church. My status as elect or reprobate and my knowledge of that status are both completely mediated by my relationship with Christ. The hidden manner in which God’s providence guides my life is no threat at all, because I know that God’s providence is ultimately focused on the outworking of His good purpose in Christ Jesus, which is no secret. I do not need to question whether God’s purpose is my salvation or damnation.
Fourthly, I do not believe that the decree of God (understood as His determination of the outcome of all events) takes place in eternity past. It is not a closed and completed event and does not take place in our absence. Consequently, God’s providential ordering of my life is very much a relational reality and is not deterministic or fatalistic in the slightest. I have argued that the idea that God has determined the outcome of all historical events in eternity past tends to collapse into a form of deism (towards the end of the sixth comment here).
Understood this way, the God who secretly orders the events of my life is — if I am a Christian — a God who is known to me in Christ. I know where I stand with this God and I can be certain of His love for me, because He has expressed His love for me in Christ. I can be sure that His intentions for me are good. The problem with the covenant-election distinction is that I can never be exactly sure where I stand with the electing God. His love expressed to me in covenant seems genuine enough, but I can never be certain that I have not been chosen for damnation and His purposes for me are not good. The face of the electing God is always hidden from me.
The FV covenant-election distinction tells us not to speculate about the hidden things, but to concentrate on what God has revealed and recognize the manner in which we can come to a knowledge of our election by means of what God makes known in the covenant. This is an improvement on most popular Reformed positions, but such a position still has the face of the electing God obscured. No matter how comforting God’s words to me in covenant may appear, I know that the final word is the word of election and I don’t know what that word says. Behind all of the covenantal love of Christ we have the Deus Absconditus of election and this is terrifying. Both Calvin and the FV rightly insist that we must look to Christ, but until they show that the electing decree is open and revealed in Christ they are failing to solve the root problem.
Alastair's Adversaria 
I believe your comments there are tightly connected to the Doctrine of Perseverance as well. Part of what is so distasteful about each of these doctrines–as they are presented within contemporary Reformed circles, I should say–is that, though they pretend to say a great deal, they hardly say anything at all.
It seems that the chief objection to your comments is whether the church can be abstracted from the particular individuals it comprises. My response would be, of course it can. If God purposes to hand over victory to Liverpool’s soccer club, while he certainly hands victory to the individuals who continue playing for Liverpool, how could one say that God has given victory also to those who go and play for another club? That’s nonsense. I guess one could put it another way, but it’s less easy to say that God has granted victory to an inscrutable list of players who may or may not currecntly play for Liverpool, but not the entire team, lest some among them go and play for another club. I believe the story of Israel, and by extension the gospel, is that though players come and go, Liverpool will always prevail. Perhaps a helpful way of conceptualizing imputation, then, would be in terms of covenant markings. I guess I’m not saying anything you haven’t already said, but all of the rights of Liverpool’s imminent victory would then be imputed through the donning of a Liverpool jersey.
This is where it links with the Doctrine of Perseverance. It is easy enough to say “once saved, and always saved,” but only if one means two different things by the english word “saved.” To be saved is literally to be saved from. I have not been saved from a thing as long as I am at risk of it. And thus, the result of salvation is by definition permanent, because it is to be saved from a thing; else we are not dealing with salvation at all. For instance, perhaps a fellow may profess the tenets of Christianity, even in earnestness; but salvation is necessarily a salvation from, and if a fellow is after all eternally damned in the hereafter (or x eschatological scheme), in what sense had he ever been saved— that is, what had he been saved from?
If a fellow were to profess the tenets of Christianity in the Sinner’s Prayer and live within the fold for a time, but then at some point in the future fall away from the faith, never to return, Reformed doctrine would merely say of him that clearly he was not apart of God’s elect. So what is it, then, to say of those who profess the tenets of Christianity and also are one of the *mysterious* elect that they have shored up their salvation? All this says is that an inscrutable list of people have secured their salvation—this being a particular merit of the doctrine of perseverance, that is, security in one’s salvation. There is no security to be found in the doctrine that says that only the elect will go to heaven. Or, put another way: only those who go to heaven will go to heaven.
I have commented on the issues of perseverance and assurance here.
1) Once you start making an omelette you can’t remove some of the eggs and put new ones in. To make the language of the New Testament that is specific about people secondary to the corporate entity seems to be bring philosophy and preference to the text more than the traditional reformed position does. What comfort is there to believe “Christ died for me” if it is subject to qualification?
2)The reformed position sees eternal individual election without making individuals central to God’s purpose–it asks “why me instead of others? I could just as well have been passed over like them.”
3)There will always be debate about how much we should conclude about eternity from history. One pastor has said that Jesus is not the Son of God from eternity, but only as the historical God-man.
Is it okay for me to say that the only possible alternatives to limited atonement are either no atonement for anyone, or else universal atonement?
I don’t think we want to subscribe to a doctrine of no atonement for anyone, especially since that flies in the face of what the Bible teaches.
On the other hand, if we talk about universal atonement, then we have to figure out what to do with the doctrine of eternal damnation — it just won’t do to have people suffering for sins when the penalty has already been paid in full. So we are faced with the alternatives of universal salvation or annihilationism. If either of those is true, I’m going to go out and celebrate every Sunday by having a wild romp in the hay with the hottest little vixen I can lay my horny hands on.
Alastair,
I think most of your comments are on the money. The individualistic emphasis in LA has disturbed me for quite some time, causing me to nuance my position a bit. I wrote a short essay a while back suggesting a change in Reformed terminology with regard to the atonement, posted on my blog in response to some comments made by “Pontificator” on assurance:
http://ecclesialawakening.wordpress.com/2006/05/23/reformed-soteriology-examined-toward-a-more-catholic-view-of-the-atonement/
John K,
1. You are taking that particular analogy too far. Let’s try another one instead. The olive tree remains the olive tree even as it grows through the gardener’s removal of some branches and engrafting of others. As this is a biblical analogy I think that you need to take proper account of it. It shows that no single particular person (apart from Christ Himself) is essential to the Church retaining its identity as Church. Whilst the existence of members may be essential to the Church’s identity, the particular individuals that are those members are not.
The same can be seen in the case of Israel. When God saved Israel He saved each and every person within the nation. However, the particular individuals that made up the nation were not essential to Israel’s identity. If God wanted to He could cut them off and raise up children for Abraham from the stones. This does not mean that God’s dealing with and salvation of individual Israelites was not personal. This does not mean that an individual Israelite could not say that God worked, in His goodness, to rescue him from Egypt. However, he would have to recognize that God’s purpose in saving him was subordinate to and contingent upon God’s purpose in saving Israel.
The problem that I see is that limited atonement ultimately gives us no way of knowing for sure that Christ died for us. How exactly do we know who exactly Christ died for? You might say that Christ died for the Church and that we know that Christ died for us as we abide faithfully within the Church. This is better than many limited atonement positions that do not make enough of the ‘covenantal’ dimensions.
However, if we follow your position to its logical conclusion we are left with problems. When someone falls away from Christ we are left with the question of whether Christ ever really died for them in the first place. How can I know that Christ really died for me if the statement is one that directly applies to me and is not entirely mediated by my being a member of Christ?
If Christ only died for a particular number of chosen individuals, we really have problems in answering the question of whether He died for us. If we know that Christ died for the Church we have a very clear way of knowing whether He died for us. We have been baptized. Christ has truly died for us.
I am arguing that our ability to say that Christ died for us (in one sense of the terminology; in other important senses everyone can and should say this) is something that is ours as we are brought into the Church. I am arguing that we cannot give the idea that Christ died for particular individuals equal ultimacy to the idea that Christ died for the Church. The problem is that Reformed people have generally given these things equal ultimacy and eventually one of the two ideas will have to give way to the other.
Where does Christ inform the person who believes in limited atonement that He died for them? I know that Christ died for me because I have been baptized into His death in my Baptism. He told me that He died for me when He brought me into His Church. But this position isn’t open to the person who wants to argue that Christ only ultimately died for a particular number of individuals chosen from eternity.
For a believer in LA like yourself, there is no Word or Sacrament that says: ‘John, Jesus died for you.’ The identity of the elect simply is not revealed like that (in your system). Perhaps you want to argue for a conditional promise that Christ has died for us: ‘Christ has died for you if you believe.’ But this will not do either. Where is the object of our faith in such a scenario? Our own faith becomes its own object, because I will only know that Christ died for me if I believe that I believe. Our own faith becomes the proof that Christ has in fact died for us. The priority of Christ’s Word is also lost. Christ’s Word is made contingent upon our faith. Faith ceases to become unreflective and can easily fall into a navel-gazing position.
This, of course, is devastating for assurance. Our faith is directed away from Christ and His Word to ourselves. Peter Leithart has a good treatment of these issues here. The Reformed doctrine of LA (even in qualified forms) gives me no comfort whatever (I know, I have been there) because it gives me no warrant in God’s Word in Scripture and Sacrament to believe that Christ died for me. Any belief that I have that Christ died for me is a belief arising out of the belief that I believe. Many people have this belief, so I am not arguing that it is impossible. I am just arguing that it is an unhealthy misdirection of faith away from its true object and will tend to lead to doubt and lack of assurance.
2. I am well aware that the Reformed position denies that there is any cause for election in ourselves. Election is wholly unconditional. I appreciate this emphasis, but it is not dealing with the problem. The problem with the Reformed doctrine of election is that, in the final analysis, election is God’s choice of a fixed number of particular individuals. This is what I mean by making individuals central to God’s purpose. Particularly in supralapsarian forms of the decree, the salvation of individual X and the damnation of individual Y become far too central to God’s purposes.
What I am arguing is that God’s election is His determination to form a new humanity in His Son. This is the electing decree. To be elect is to be united to the Son. We become elect in history as we are united to Christ in Baptism. This, I maintain, is far more consistent with the way that the NT speaks of election. Christ is the Book of Life. Those in Him through Baptism and faith are elect. Those outside of Him are reprobate.
God’s sovereignly and purposively brings certain individuals rather than others into Christ. However, whilst in the outworking of His electing purpose God saves some rather than others, no particular individual’s salvation is demanded by the decree of election itself. God has purposes for my life, but those purposes are always subordinate to His far greater purposes in Christ (we also need a healthy understanding of divine permission; not everything that happens to me can be regarded as ‘God’s purpose for my life’).
3. Certainly. However, it seems to me that Reformed systems are more prone to speculate in this area. I do not see clear biblical evidence for an election of a fixed number of particular individuals in ‘eternity past’ anywhere in the NT. It seems to me that this is a logical construct imposed upon the text. In fact, I find the whole idea of ‘eternity past’ deeply problematic. If God is not bound within time Himself, but is its Creator then I think that we need to question the notion of ‘eternity past’. The notion of ‘eternity past’ can suggest that history is merely the ‘print-out’ of an eternal decree that is closed off in the past.
I think that this issue is of crucial importance, as I believe that most Reformed understandings of election and God’s decree are hardwired with the notion of ‘eternity past’. Destroy the notion of ‘eternity past’ and most Reformed understandings of election collapse with it.
We might be better off thinking of God’s relationship to time according to analogies like that of an author’s relationship to characters within his novel (although this analogy certainly has its own limitations). The characters within the novel would be mistaken to say that their fate was determined beforehand. The author does not determine the events of the novel from within the time of the novel itself. The determination of the author simply cannot be projected into the time of the novel itself, except where it is revealed through prophecy, for example.
The ‘eternity past’ notion suggests that the will of God is temporally prior to the will of human beings, takes place in their absence and is a closed and completed event in the past. Consequently, the decisions that we make have already been decided beforehand, before we ever came into existence. The future has already been entirely determined from within history.
Within the novel analogy the relationship of the will of the author to the will of the characters is far more complex. The course of all events is determined by the author. However, it is not determined from within the temporal world of his novel. From a perspective within the temporal world of the novel it would be possible to see the future as genuinely open in many senses, without denying that the author comprehensively orders all events. The point is that the determination of those events is not conceived of as a closed event in the past.
Whilst, as He is the author of history, we can God’s purpose etched on historical events as we look back over them, God did not purpose these things from within history, so we cannot speak of God having determined all events at some previous point in history, prior to the events taking place. Such a position, I believe, swiftly becomes fatalistic.
As I look back over my life I am able to see the way in which God set me apart in various ways and saved me from many things, guiding and superintending various events of my life. However, I do not take a deterministic perspective on my actions. I do not regard my future actions as if they have already been determined. From my perspective within history they have not (not just apparently, but really).
The focus thus shifts from a decree in eternity past to God’s active providence in the present. This shift of focus, I believe, is healthy and biblical. The future is genuinely open in many of its aspects (we do know the general shape of God’s intended dénouement) from the perspective of history and is worked out by divine providence according to eternal purpose. We are active (but not autonomous) participants in this process.
Once we appreciate this we will recognize that God’s outworking of His purpose is something that we can participate in. God’s purpose is not a closed event in the past, but is present to us just as the eternal God is present to us. As we are brought into relationship with the willing God we find that we are brought to share in His working out of His purposes for the future. There is a genuine reciprocity in our relationship with God, a reciprocity that is, I believe, a participation in God’s own Trinitarian reciprocity and therefore grounded in God Himself, rather than in creaturely autonomy.
When we pray for certain events to take place we should not believe that the outcome of those events is necessarily already determined. It might be better to regard God’s determination of those events as occurring in part through His moving of His people to pray. The idea of God’s decree occurring in eternity past undermines all of this divinely-established reciprocity. What we have in such a case is merely apparent reciprocity. Such a god never genuinely interacts with His people. Such a god has already determined everything in our absence in eternity past. Such god puts on a show of responding to prayer, but both our prayers and his apparent response were already determined in eternity past. All of the covenantal openness and reciprocity is merely a façade.
I find the idea of a decree in ‘eternity past’ to be nothing more than incipient deism. God’s decree winds up the clock of history, deciding the outcome of all events; God then leaves the clock to run. The only difference between such a view and classical deism is that, in this system, God Himself is part of the clock’s working. However, the willing God still becomes absent from history and history becomes closed and deterministic. The god who acts in history is merely the projection of the God who once willed in eternity past.
Berkouwer puts it well:
The danger is that we may detach the will of God from ‘the willing, deciding God Himself.’ In His salvation in history God is not merely enacting His own will that was put in place in ‘eternity past’. Rather, He is willingly acting from eternity.
With such a different paradigm for relating eternity to time I believe that we can cut through the fatalistic character of many forms of the Reformed doctrine of election and can begin to move towards an understanding of election as something other than a closed decree.
Christopher,
You ask:
No, I don’t think that it is. I think that the ‘all or not all’ dilemma is unhelpful from the start. The question is wrong and so we are doomed to bad answers.
In one sense the atonement clearly is limited. The only people who will benefit from the atonement are those in Christ. Consequently, with regard to its final end the atonement is limited. This is not universal salvation.
This limitation of the atonement is not essentially a division between two sets of individuals (the elect and the non-elect), but a division between two humanities — humanity outside of Christ and humanity in Christ. The particular individuals in Christ are not the direct object of the atonement (or election, for that matter). The final object of the atonement is the body of Christ, whichever individuals are its members.
The atonement is universal in some important senses. Christ gave Himself as a ransom for all (1 Timothy 2:5-6). He gave Himself bearing the divine judgment that lay over the whole old creation, dealing with the whole entail of Adam’s sin (Romans 5 & 6). The incarnate Christ dies as one who sums up the whole of humanity in Himself, not just certain elect individuals. He died in order to become Lord of all (Romans 14:9; 2 Corinthians 5:14-15). The reconciliation accomplished by the cross is universal in its scope (Colossians 1:20); the whole creation is set to rights through the death of Christ, not merely a few chosen individuals within it.
It is God’s purpose to form a new humanity in Christ. It is God’s desire that all should come to participate in this (1 Timothy 2:4), a desire that is expressed in the universal preaching of the gospel. God’s purpose cannot be thwarted. However, God does permit people to go against His good desires for their lives. God’s purpose is not intrinsically limited (as I have argued here). God’s electing purpose would be compatible with universal salvation.
Reformed people traditionally deny this, maintaining a position in which God’s electing purpose by its very nature necessarily excludes many individuals. Consequently, the idea that God should desire the salvation of all is problematic as God’s purpose necessarily denies the fulfilment of God’s desire. We have God purposing contrary to His desire and we are left with a tension. We are left with a picture in which the purpose that God is working towards rules out the possibility of His desire being fulfilled.
You might argue that all who do not hold to universal salvation are on the same ground. No, we are not. I believe that the fulfilment of God’s purpose is perfectly compatible with the fulfilment of His desire for universal salvation. God does not purpose the frustration of His desire. God permits events to go contrary to His desire, but it is not His purpose that they do so. Adam’s fall was not God’s purpose, for example.
God desires that all people be saved through the death of Christ. His purpose for the atonement does not preclude the possibility of this taking place. Christ’s blood covers all of those within His body and turns God’s wrath away from them. In the gospel God calls all men to come the covering of Christ’s sprinkled blood.
In preaching the gospel to someone we are perfectly justified in claiming that Christ died for them. This statement can be taken in a number of different ways. It could be taken to mean that Christ has, through His death, claimed you as His subject and you must respond with the obedience of faith. It could also be taken to mean that it is God’s desire that all men benefit from the death of Christ, having their sins covered. Christ died with the desire that all be saved through His death and each hearer of the gospel is called to believe and receive that salvation.
Alastair,
Whom does Christ intercede for? All who have been baptized? Just curious; because I think crucial to our doctrine of the atonement is Christ’s continuing priestly intercessory work. I’m inclined to agree with Al Martin who once said “If Christ intercedes for someone just once he’s as good as saved.”
How would you fit, if indeed you would, the covenant of redemption into your thinking?
Blessings,
Mark
Mark,
Christ intercedes for the Church and its members both collectively and individually. So, yes, He intercedes for the baptized. Christ’s intercession is so powerful that no enemy is able to pluck us from His hand or to separate us from the love of God that is in Him. Nevertheless, the Father who gives us into Christ’s care is also able to remove us from Christ’s care, cutting us off from the vine. This does not represent a failure of Christ’s intercession for His Church. His Church is kept secure. However, in divine judgment the Father can remove us from this security.
I believe in the covenant of redemption, but do not believe that it is appropriate to think of it as having taken place in ‘eternity past’.
I too have always struggled with the LA doctrine. I have heard enough Reformed ministers say off of their pulpits that “Jesus didn’t die for everyone; he only died for the elect!” (Quote)
Well if that were true, then how are the un-elect held accountable for not accepting his forgiveness and believing in Jesus if they weren’t died for in the first place? Our God is also a just God. If he didn’t die for them, they can’t really be judged now can they. If God were to say “hey, I didn’t send my son to die for you in particular but I’m going to condemn you for not believing anyway,” this would make him a tyrannical god found mainly in mythology and other mainstream religions.
As I progress through my adult life, I have come to one conclusion. Men think too much and sometimes delve too deeply into things that our limited logic can never understand. Because of this, I have made it my focus in life to believe the words of Jesus himself and not some document formulated by a bunch of fallen men, no matter how wise they are! (A real heresy in some Reformed circles!!) And the one I tend to come back to is this: “For God so loved the WORLD that he gave his one and only son, that WHOEVER BELIEVES in HIM shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16
I think that this is neither LA nor universal attonement. And I don’t think I need a healthy dose of metacognitive ability to understand the logic! Those who truly believe in Christ are saved; those who don’t believe are not and are condemned. Perhaps that is not heady enough for some of our esteemed Reformed theologians but hey, too bloody bad!
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Hello, I appreciate many of the contours of your thought here and I have benefitted immensely in my engagement with scripture through the works of you, Leithart, and Jordan (I’m leading a small group through Echoes of Exodus right now), but I have one hang up that comes to mind with respect to your comments on election: Revelation 13:8 and 17:8 both seem to locate the predestination of individuals to salvation (names in the book of life) in a pretemporal eternity (before
The foundation of the world) and at least Revelation 13:8 suggests that Chirst’s death was in view as well (the lamb that was slain). I don’t mean to proof text; I have a more
integrated reading of these passages, but I would like to hear how you interpret these texts. I think you hinted at them here or elsewhere by referring to Christ as the book of life.
The book belongs to the Lamb. It is a book of the living, a sort of genealogy. This book is being written from the foundation of the world to the present day. People can be removed from and added to the book in history. Many translations make this difficult to see.
This is helpful. So you read the ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου to modify τῷ βιβλίῳ τῆς ζωῆς in both texts? Something, to use a really wooden translation, like, “the before the foundation of the world book of life”?
If so, I never thought of reading it this may. My instinct is always to tie prepositions to verbals, which is probably why so many either read it with either γέγραπται or ἐσφαγμένου (although the latter is highly unlikely given 17:8). I will have to give this more thought. Thank you.
These issues are rather important to me. To give some perspective, I almost became a full-sale follower of Leithart and Jordan on these issues a bit ago, and I even convinced others to become something close to their perspective, but I ultimately doubled back to a modified Reformed (Sacramental) Baptist perspective. However, I have kept a foot in that world through some engagement with Theopolis as I attend Beeson Divinity School, and the issue is far from settled in my mind. Speaking of Theopolis, I hope to see you come again sometime.
At some point I’d like to hear you talk more about the doctrine of the Father’s peculiar agency in apostasy and how it relates to inseparable operations. I know balancing biblical language and theological reflection can be difficult, but something seems odd about saying that the Father removes people that the Son would never cast out. Or even, leaving the inseparable operations question behind, just that He removes them in judgment when Jesus says that the Father loves them “even as” He loves the Son (17:23). I understand that we must make sense of John 15:2 and 6, but your interpretation certainly stands in stark tension with other important biblical truths for me. I am of the persuasion that the warnings are real authentic means of perseverance (like Andrew Wilson, Schreiner, and others argue), so apostasy does not seem to be hypothetically impossible, but it strikes me as odd for the Father to ultimately refrain from giving the necessary grace for His people in Christ to ultimately persevere.
Thank you again for your time and engagement. I am always blessed by your writing (and podcast comments), and I hated to miss your lectures on a theology of the sexes, but I’m listening to them now, and there have been many eye-opening moments. Very thankful for your good and faithful work. It has made me and continues to make me a better and more attentive reader of scripture.
Thanks, Taylor.
My reading is that the Book of Life is written from the foundation of the world, rather than before it. This is akin to saying that I wrote a particular diary from my fifteenth birthday, the implication being that the writing (now completed) began at my fifteenth birthday, not that it occurred before that.
Thank you again for your response. I see your point about distinguishing between “from the foundation of the world” and “eternity past.” Your concern about not collapsing God into our timeline is something that I have not given sufficient thought. Although I have more questions about how you might characterize the relationship between time and eternity, that’s not my main objection here. I find the progressive writing idea to be entirely plausible and rather intriguing.
My concern is more specific. I wonder if the grammar of the text pushes subtly against some of your conclusions. It is significant that τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ is the subject of γέγραπται, not the book itself, and if ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου modifies γέγραπται (as you seem to suggest), then the text refers specifically to names not written in the book from (i.e. since) the foundation of the world. This is different from saying that the names are not in the book, which has been progressively written from the foundation of the world until now. To use the journal analogy, if you say that from your fifteenth birthday you have not written certain names in your journal, this does not suggest that you had written them in at one point but have removed them by now. It’s a different kind of statement.
Finally, I could be reading the text incorrectly, but it seems to suggest that these names both (a) have never been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world and (b) belong to a group of people equivalent with everyone that the beast was given authority over (13:7). If some had been written in but now are not, then the text awkwardly leaves them out of its purview, which would be odd in a text meant to inspire perseverance (13:10). Thus, while I find it entirely plausible that names are written in over the course of time, nevertheless, if ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου modifies γέγραπται, I find it harder to suppose that names are removed after being written in.
Perhaps much of this hangs upon the aspectual value of what has been called the perfect tense.
I’m interested to hear your response, whenever you have time.
It is important to stand back and see the bigger picture, before focusing on finer textual questions.
The Book of Life that John first refers to in 3:5 is one from which the erasure of a name is conceivable (see also Exodus 32:32). This is something that should inform our interpretations of 17:8 and 13:8 (I won’t get into the debates about whether ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου relates to the slain Lamb in that verse).
The point of the reference to the writing is not primarily to some past (non-)occurrence of the writing of the names, but to the fact that the names (do not) stand written in the book in the present.It is important to stand back and see the bigger picture, before focusing on finer textual questions.
The Book of Life that John first refers to in 3:5 is one from which the erasure of a name is conceivable (see also Exodus 32:32). This is something that should inform our interpretations of 17:8 and 13:8 (I won’t get into the debates about whether ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου relates to the slain Lamb in that verse).
The point of the reference to the writing is not primarily to some past (non-)occurrence of the writing of the names, but to the fact that the names (do not) stand written in the book in the present. Returning to the diary analogy, to say ‘from 2015, those details have been recorded in my diary’ would be a rather unnatural way to refer to material that was removed and destroyed at some point between the writing and the present—the perfect sense of enduring results of a past action is clear. To say ‘from 2015, those details have not been recorded in my diary’ wouldn’t seem to be a natural way of referring to details of which some were once included then later expunged, but this may be because the perfect sense of ‘have been written’ has been muted. I’d have to look more closely at the Greek and also at negations of the perfect tense more generally.
We should also bear in mind that the number of people whose names were written and later expunged will be exceedingly small relative to the larger body of persons being referred to here. Should we surprised if they are included in a statement that refers less naturally to their particular situation, when it refers very naturally to the situation of the rest of the group? Not having names written in the Book of Life since the foundation of the world is less a statement about detached individuals, than it is about ‘all who dwell on the earth’ who go after the Beast.
I was anticipating the reference to the book of life in 3:5 and Exodus 32:32. These are points where your view does fit more comfortably with the text. However, 3:5 does not simply state that all some will be removed, only that those who conquer will not be removed. I see warnings (as I mentioned above) to the means of guaranteeing the salvation of God’s people. It’s not that people being blotted out is inconceivable, only that it pushes against my reading of 13:8 and 17:8.
That was an accident. Sorry. Allow me to fix that.
I was anticipating the reference to the book of life in 3:5 and Exodus 32:32. These are points where your view does fit more comfortably with the text. However, 3:5 does not actually state that some will be removed, only that those who conquer will not be removed. I see warnings (as I mentioned above) to be the means of guaranteeing the salvation of God’s people. It’s not that people being blotted out is inconceivable, only that it pushes against my reading of 13:8 and 17:8.
As for Exodus, this is a powerful text, as is Psalm 69:28, which specifically records David’s request for the Lord to blot people out of “the book of the living” and equates this with them not being counted among the righteous. Moses asks to be cut off, somewhat like Paul in Romans 9:5, and the Lord denies his request. Such parallels argue for the texts to be referring to similar ideas. I’d be especially interested in exploring the connection between being among the elect, being written in the book, and being counted among the righteous. This is especially interesting given Psalm 69’s link with Judas through Acts 1:20, where it is applied to Judas through a Davidic typological pattern. Judas was among Jesus’ disciples, but he ultimately betrayed Him, and it has always unsettled me how Jesus includes Judas in an “except” clause in John 17:12. My gut instinct is to read in Exodus and the Psalm a parallel of imagery and an analogical pointer toward the book of life in revelation but not an exact parallel. But I do see the strength of those connections.
To me, however, perseverance seems to be a key feature of the New Covenant, one that distinguishes New Covenant believers, who come after Christ and live in the age of the Spirit, from those who came before Him, who largely waited in anticipation of His great salvation. For instance, it seems to me like Saul could and did actually fall away from the Lord (I was convinced primarily by Leithart’s comments in “A Son to Me”), but it also seems that God has now written His law on His people’s heart through the indwelling Spirit so that they won’t thus fall away.
Your point that John’s reference to writing primarily indicates “the fact that the names (do not) stand written in the book in the present” as opposed to any discreet act of writing in the past is one that carries weight. Middle/Passive Perfects tend to emphasize the ongoing reality more than the past completed action. However, it’s the fact that ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου, a strong past tense temporal qualifier, modifies γέγραπται that pushes me away from your reading. It seems like such an addition specifically stresses past-time, especially if, as Stephen Levinsohn argues, the final prepositional phrase in a clause is more prominent than the preceding prepositional phrase(s). But I too must study more on the negation of perfects.
Your comment about big-picture reading is most important. It was almost painful how atomistic my last comment felt, but I wanted to make that point clear. In the broader picture, I interpret this passage to be both a summons to endurance and a condemnation of those who rejected Jesus until the end. I think you are right to suggest that those people are most significant as a group, not as individuals, and I may be pushing it too far to demand the language of Revelation 13:8 and 17:8 to capture all possibilities, especially when apostates are relatively minor. Nevertheless, given the considerable persecution that the church had endured and was still enduring, it still seems odd to almost implicitly exclude them.
Finally, although I know you said that you won’t get into the debates about whether ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου relates to the slain Lamb in 13:8 or not, I would simply argue that we could then discuss 17:8, in which the slain lamb is not mentioned. I would also argue that the parallel syntax (minus that prepositional phrase) suggests a common pattern of modification with ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου.
Keith postulated
΅ If he didn’t die for them, they can’t really be judged now can they.”
They are judged for their sinful nature and the sins which they have committed.
First of all, consider Romans Chapter 3 verse 23
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”
What could be clearer than that?
As all have sinned, then all deserve condemnation and punishment.
And then what does the Bible actually teach about Godś mercy on sinners?
From Romans Chapter 9
What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? Far from it! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I have mercy, and I will show compassion to whomever I show compassion.” So then, it does not depend on the person who wants it nor the one who runs, but on God who has mercy
…
You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” On the contrary, who are you, you foolish person, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does the potter not have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one object for honorable use, and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with great patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction?
No doubt it is uncomfortable reading, but Scripture is clear that God creates some who will be saved and others who will not be saved.
And from Ephesians Chapter 1
“just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will”
And also in Romans Chapter 5
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Nowhere in Scripture does it teach that Jesus death and act of atonement was for those sinners whom God has not chosen to save, but rather the opposite is present.
So we may argue that is it all so unfair (according to our imperfect, sinful, humanistic philosophy) that God would not or even should not do whatever according to His own holy, perfect nature and purposes, but in doing so we deny God´s omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence (in both aspects of the created Universe’s spatial location and temporal location [past, present, and future]).
The crux of the Gospel (Good News) is that even though the news is very bad — all deserve condemnation because of their sins and every person being of a sinful nature has committed sins — there is salvation from our sins (past, present, and future) in this life through repentance, faith, and not works, in the atoning work of Christ on the cross specifically for our personal sins (not just the sins of the world in general).
If I may be permitted to add another thought about the point that it upsets our humanistic thinking that God cannot or even should not (from our perspective) be unfair.
Did not Jesus specifically teach as recorded in Matthew Chapter 20 that God IS unfair (unfair according to our perspective and thinking)?
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.”
In the parable is not the vineyard a representation of the Heavenly realm and landowner a representation of God.
…
“And so when those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; but each of them also received a d5 Is it not lawful for me to do what I want with what is my own? Or is your eye [j]envious because I am [k]generous?’ 16 So the last shall be first, and the first, last.”enarius.
When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner”
…
Thus those who had worked the longest thought it was just so unfair, because those who had worked the least got paid first and got paid just as much as they got paid.
But the landowner rebukes them and the parable ends with
“Is it not lawful for me to do what I want with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?’ So the last shall be first, and the first, last.”
The extract from Romans Chapter 9 parallels this teaching that God acts according to His own good and holy purposes, regardless of whether it appears unfair to our limited understanding.
The question “is atonement for everyone” can simply be anwered when you do a wordstudy of the Greek words that are translated “willing” in 1Timothy 2.4 (‘θέλω’)and in 2Peter 2.9 (βούλομαι). The meaning of this words are lost in translation, but the Greek is clear. (Compare the use of both words in Matthew 1.19.)