The True Doctrine as to the Design of the Atonement Accurately Stated
I propose, then, to give an exact statement of the true question at issue between those who maintain the definite and personal and those who maintain the general and indefinite design of the vicarious work of Christ. Whatever may be the subject in debate, it is evident that the exact discrimination of the point in question is the first thing to be done, the well-doing of which is of the very highest importance. But this is far more than ordinarily true in the present instance, because it so happens that among those who agree as to the nature of the Atonement and as to the sovereignty of the divine decrees there is no thinkable difference here possible. The bare statement of the question will, itself, therefore, dissipate as irrelevant the vast mass of objections made to the orthodox doctrine by its adversaries, and manifestly reduces to a mere contest of words the only issue which can possibly be debated by intelligent and honest Calvinists.
The question, then, (1) does not relate to the SUF FICIENCY of the satisfaction rendered by Christ to secure the salvation of all men. The Reformed Churches have uniformly taught that no man has ever yet perished, or ever will perish, for want of an atonement. All Calvinists agree in maintaining earnest!)’ that Christ’s obedience and sufferings were of infinite intrinsic value in the eye of law, and that there was no need for him to obey or to suffer an iota more nor a moment longer in order to secure, if God so willed, the salvation of every man, woman, and child that ever lived. No man can have a moment’s doubt upon the subject who acknowledges the supreme divinity of the glorious Victim. It is insisted upon by Turretin, Witsius, and by John Owen,* as earnestly as it is by Jenkyn or any other. Not one of the advocates of general redemption, ‘Arminian or Calvinistic, has ever given stronger expression to the great truth of the infinite fulness, freeness and sufficiency of Christ’s expiatory work. We all heartily believe that after eighteen him’ dred years the stream of Atonement is found unexhausted alike in its volume and its virtues. Surely, this is even less than the glorious truth. It will be none the less true after eighteen millions of years. But this question has never been debated by the Reformed Churches. We unite with all other Christians in glorying in the infinite sufficiency of the satisfaction of Christ to reach and to save all men who have been or who will be created or creatable. 2. The question does not relate to the APPLICABILITY of the satisfaction rendered by Christ to the exact legal relations and to the necessities in order to the salvation of every lost sinner in the world. Christ did and suffered precisely what the law demanded of each man personally and of every man indiscriminately, and it may
* Turretin, L. xiv., Q. xiv., 9. Owen’s Death of Death, in Death of Christ. B. iv., cli. L 1. Witsius’s Economy of the Covenants, B. ii., ch. ix., § 2.
be at any time applied to the redemption of one man as well as to another, as far as the satisfaction itself is concerned. Putting these two things together, therefore, the sufficiency for all and the exact adaptation to each, it is plain as the sun in the heavens that the death of Christ did remove all legal obstacles out of the way of God’s saving any man he pleases. In this sense, if you please,J Christ did make the salvation of all men indifferently possible, a parte Dei. He can apply it to any whomsoever he will; but since his will never changes, there can be no distinction between his present will and his eternal design.
3. The question does not relate to the ACTUAL APPLI CATION of the saving benefits of Christ’s work to each and every man. All who stop short of maintaining universal salvation agree with us that all those who do not cordially accept and appropriate tl o salvation freely offered to them in the gospel must be lost. The doctrine of universal redemption cannot be shown, after all their parade of its superior liberality, to extend the real benefits of redemption to one single soul beyond those embraced by a definite Atonement. We believe that Christ died with the intention of saving all those whom he actually does save. They hold that the large majority of those whose salvation Christ designed to effect by his death finally perish. This certainly fails to convey any advantage to those that perish, while it materially detracts from the value of Christ’s death and from the efficacy of his purpose to save.
4. The question does not relate to the UNIVERSAL OFFER in perfect good faith of a saving interest in Christ’s work on the condition of faith. This is admitted by all. Since, then, the work of Christ is exactly adapted to the legal relations and need of each, and since it is abundantly sufficient for all, and since, in perfect good faith, it is offered to all men indiscriminately, it necessarily follows that whosoever believes on him, non-elect (if that were subjectively possible) just as truly as the elect, would find a perfect atonement and cordial welcome ready for him when he comes. In this sense we joyfully acknowledge that not only is the salvation of each and every singer rendered legally and morally possible to God, if he wills, but the Atonement of Christ is itself objectively most certainly and freely available to each and every sinner to whom it is offered, upon condition that he believes.
5. Nor does the question relate to the design of Christ in dying as it stands related to all th benefits secured to mankind by his death. It is very plain that any plan designed to secure the salvation of an elect portion of a race propagated by generation, and living in association, as is the case with mankind, cannot secure its end without greatly affecting, for better or worse, the character and destiny of all the rest of the race not elected. In deed it is impossible for us to know what would have happened to Adam and Eve if that gracious system, the meritorious ground of which is the Atonement of Christ, had not been introduced. The instant damnation of the heads of the race, or the introduction of a scheme of redemption, appear to be the only possible alternatives. But the scheme of redemption is conditioned exclusively upon the expiatory work of Christ. Hence all that happens to the human race other than that which is incidental to the instant damnation of Adam and Eve is part of the consequences of Christ’s satisfaction as the second Adam. For aught we know the propagation of the race in all of its successive generations may be in consequence of that work. The entire history of the human race, from the apostasy to the final judgment, is, as Candlish says, “a dispensation of forbearance” in respect to the reprobate, in which many blessings, physical and moral, affecting their characters and destinies for ever, accrue even to the heathen, and many more to the educated and refined citizens of Christian communities. These come to them through the mediation of Christ, and coming to them now, they must have been designed for them from the beginning.* We maintain the simple and apparently self-evident proposition that. Christ, in dying, designed to effect by his death all in every particular which he has actually accomplished. If he be God, there can be no discrepancy between his design and his accomplishment. He must accomplish precisely that which he designed, and he must have designed to effect precisely that which in fact he does effect.
6. But the question does truly and only relate to the design of the Father and of the Son in respect to the persons for whose benefit the Atonement was made; that is, to whom in the making of it they intended it should be applied. We contend that the following heads absolutely exhaust every possible question as to what is called the extent of the Atonement: (a.) Its essential nature, involving its exact adaption to the legal relations and necessities of each and every man indifferently; (6)
* Cunningham’s History of Theology, vol. ii., p. 332; Witsins* Econ.of the Covenants, B. II., chap, ix., 4; Turretin, L. 14, Q. 14, 11.
its intrinsic sufficiency for all; (c) its* honest and authoritative offer to all; (d) its actual application; (e) its intended application. We defy our opponents to show that this statement does not exhaust the case. The first three, all agree, are without any limit, thank God; the fourth, all agree, is limited to believers; the fifth all Calvinists must believe to be limited to the elect. Now the advocates of universal and indefinite redemption hold that Christ died with the design and effect of making the salvation of all men possible, and nothing more. The Reformed Churches hold that he died with the design of actually and certainly saving his elect people; that is, for the purpose of actually saving those whom he does actually save.
Amyraldus make a distinction between objective and subjective grace. The former, rendering salvation objec tively available to all men, he held was universal. The latter, which gives the gracious ability to accept the gospel, he admitted was designed for the elect alone. We believe that as far as the heathen are concerned, to whom Christ is never offered, salvation is no more objec tively available than subjectively possible. It is true that Christ did make salvation, as an objective fact, possible to all men to whom it is offered, if they will believe. But the Reformed Churches maintain that a purpose to make salvation objectively available to those who were never intended to enjoy it must, in the very nature of things, not be an independent purpose in itself, but one purely subsidiary to the main design of actually and entirely effecting the salvation of all whose salvation
intended to be in fact realized.
ha Schoolmen were accustomed to affirm that Christ (lwlsufficienterpro omnibus, effioienter pro electis, and this for i, t of expression was adopted by Calvin* and by the early Reformed theologians previous to the thorough sifting of this subject occasioned by the speculations of the French theologians Cameron, Amyraldus, Testardus, &c. This Scholastic expression is inaccurate and inadequate rather than false. Christ did die sufficienter pro omnibus, but as an element of his design this otherwise inoperative and futile purpose must have been in thought, precisely as it is in execution, altogether subsidiary as a means to an end to his real — because actually accomplished — purpose of effecting the salvation of his elect. In other words, the actual ends effected are the exact measure of the real ends designed.
This question is capable of being stated in several different forms, while the identity of the essential principle involved is preserved and placed more distinctly in view.
Thus, (1) was it the design of the redemptive work of Christ that it carry into effect the purpose of election, or was it the design of God’s sovereign election that it should carry into effect, in part, the general purpose of redemption? The theology of the Reformed Churches was broadly characterized by its subordination of redemption to election. Their habitual mode of representation is that God, having of his mere good pleasure elected some men to everlasting life and to all the means thereof, sent his Son to effect that purpose by his obedience unto death. All the advocates of indefinite redemption, on the other hand, must agree in maintaining that God provided the Atonement for the good of all
* Commentaries 1 J?hn ii. 2.
men indiscriminately, and that election comes in subordinately to redemption, either conditioned on foreseen faith (so the Arminians), or as a sovereign purpose, upon the part of God, to make certain the success of the general purpose of redemption at least in the case of the persons elected (so the Calvinistic Universalists).
Jenkyn* represents the dispensation of sovereign electing grace as supervening to prevent the failure of redemption, so far at least as the elect are concerned. “The entire failure of the Eden dispensation would have clouded the divine character if it had not been rescued by the introduction of a compensative Atonement;... the entire failure of the Sinai experiment would have reflected dishonour upon the divine glory, but it was
redeemed by the establishment of a better hope
The whole mediatorial work of Jesus Christ is so worthy and so meritorious that it deserves that measures should be taken to ensure it from entire failure.’7 The italics are his. On this theory, since so many of God’s “experiments” “entirely fail” and since even the awful sacrifice of his own Son is barely prevented from entire failure by special intervention, and after all is an utter failure as to the larger part of all it was set to do, who shall ensure us that heaven shall not fail, or that the salvation of the saints may not be at last confounded? Behold also what this redemption, which these men so glory in, is worth. It saves no single soul. It is prevented from being an absolute failure by a divine intervention. This view gives all the glory of salvation to election. The measure of the virtue of redemption may be seen in the fate of the non-elect.
* Jenkyn on the Ex ten of the Atonement, pp. 324, 325.
(2.) Was the motive which prompted God to give hip Son to die for men, and which prompted Christ to die, the highest conceivable love which God can have for a creature, making it certain that he will also with him freely give the objects of that love all things, arid was it a personal love of certain definite individuals foreknown from eternity, or, on the other hand, was it a general and impersonal philanthropy, or love of mankind in general, coexisting with a good pleasure to allow the majority of those so loved to perish, some without even the knowledge of the redemption provided at such cost, and others without any saving interest in it? All the Reformed Churches believe that the former of these alternatives is the true statement of the motive prompt ing the Father and the Son in ‘the work of redemption; while all the advocates of a general and indefinite Atonement necessarily maintain that the latter is the true statement.
(3.) Did Christ die with the design and effect of making the salvation of all men indifferently possible, and the salvation of none certain, or did he die in pursuance of an eternal covenant between the Father and himself for the purpose as well as with the result of effecting the salvation of his own people?
(4.) Is the impetration (sacrificial purchase — meritorious procurement) of salvation so connected in the plan of salvation with its gracious application that they respect specifically the same persons, and the latter follows certainly upon the first, or is the impetration general and indefinite, while the application is personal and limited? This is the precise form in which the question was debated by Testardus, Amyraldus, Daille*, Spanheim,
Rivetus, De Moulin, Richard Baxter and John Own. Hence this is the precise issue met by the deliverance of the Westminster Assembly in the very midst of these controversies: “To ALL, those for whom Chiist hath purchased redemption, he doth certainly and effectually apply and communicate the same, &c.”*
(5.) And finally, did the Lord Jesus Christ impetrate or purchase the gracious influences of the Holy Ghost and all the fruits of the Spirit for those for whom he died? Or did he effect, by his sacrifice, nothing more than the removal of legal impediments out of the way of their salvation, either leaving them to provide their own faith and repentance, or sovereignly providing for an exceptional few, selected out of the mass of those for whom he died, out of a benevolent principle altogether different from that exercised in the gift of redemption? The Reformed Churches uniformly hold the former, while the advocates of universal redemption necessarily hold th” latter of these alternatives.
* Westminster Confession, chapter viii., I 8.