We continue to look at the doctrine of the Atonement as it is situated in our larger series on the Biblical Doctrines of grace known as TULIP. This morning we are going to emphasize what I have called the Worldview implications. We want to see here, as we have when we looked at Total Depravity and Unconditional Election that there are implications when we believe these doctrines that extend beyond soteriological considerations. These worldview implications are significant and should not be dismissed from our thinking.
As it pertains to Atonement we have established the necessity of the atonement if you will recall. The necessity of the atonement is simply put as
1.) God promised that sin would be punished … “In the day you eat of it you shall surely die” (G. 2:17)
Elsewhere God said about sin and guilt in general, “God will not leave the guilty unpunished.” (Ex. 34:7)
2.) Man sinned and sins and so unless God is to be found to be a liar sin must be punished
God will repay each one according to his deeds (Romans 2:6)
3.) God did not visit man with the just penalty of sin for thousands of years and so that penalty hung over man’s head.
God presented Him as an atoning sacrifice through faith in His blood, in order to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance He had passed over the sins committed beforehand. (Romans 3:25)
Passed over … which is to say God had not visited sin with the penalty it deserved.
4.) Finally in the atonement of Jesus Christ, on the Cross God finally visits the full penalty of sin upon God in the 2nd person of the Trinity… the incarnate Jesus Christ and the just penalty of sin is paid for those who shelter under the safety of Christ’s death.
5.) In the atonement God’s name is cleared of possible charges of injustice. God had promised that sin would cost man’s blood and with the death of Christ the penalty required of blood spilled is paid by man.
The promise was,
“Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.”
The fulfillment is
you were redeemed from the empty way of life you inherited from your forefathers.. with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. (I Peter 1:19)
Here again, we note the judicial / legal cast of God’s Atonement. God has a law. God’s law is broken. The law must be honored before forgiveness can be extended. God fulfills the legal penalty of the broken law in the God-Man Jesus Christ. Man can have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the second week we considered the extent of the atonement and saw that Scriptures clearly teach that the atoning death of Jesus Christ is particular for only the Elect marked out for the benefits of atonement from eternity past. We labored to demonstrated that the Scriptures teach that the atonement was completed at the Cross and as such if Christ died for everybody therefore a completed atonement means that everyone is atoned for and is saved. We again emphasized the vastness of the meaning of the word atonement considering all those conceptual streams that empty into the river of the Atonement. Finally, last week we took time considering some of the difficult passages in Scripture that are less clear that seem to overturn the more clear Scriptures that pointedly teach that the extent of the Atonement was and is only for the Elect.
And if there is any confusion on these matters these sermons are uploaded on Ironink.org for your consideration plus, I am more than happy to try and answer any questions.
Now this week we turn to some of the implications of thinking about the Atonement in this matter. Another word for implications might be the effects of thinking in such a manner and on this score, we have a warning from one of our theologians,
“Failure to distinguish between the gospel and all the effects of the gospel tends, on the long haul, to replace the good news as to what God has done with a moralism that is finally without the power and the glory of Christ crucified, resurrected, ascended, and reigning.” D. A. Carson
Thelimos
I couldn’t agree with this quote more. However, as D. Marty Lloyd Jones used to teach one can fall off the razor’s edge of truth on both the left side and the right side. Dr. Carson has given us a proper warning regarding falling off one particular side of the razor’s edge of truth. The reality that Dr. Carson would have us to be aware of is, is the danger of failing to distinguish between the gospel and all the effects of the Gospel, or in our considerations, the atonement and the effects or implications of the atonement. However, there is another warning that needs to be raised against another danger and that is the danger in failing to articulate the reality that the Gospel does have effects, consequences and implications.
If we were to frame it in similar ways to Dr. Carson we might say something like this,
“Failure to articulate to the Church that the Gospel has effects tends, on the long haul, to replace the truth that because we have been raised with Christ and so are to walk in newness of life, with an anti-nomianism that is finally without the power and the glory of Christ crucified, resurrected, ascended, and reigning.”
I am more than willing to admit the danger of which Dr. Carson speaks. There is a great danger in the Church today to exchange the Gospel for moralism. However, I wonder if those who are so excited to raise their voices in warning against moralism will also raise their voices in warning against anti-nomianism?
So, in the weeks previous we have set out the doctrine of the Atonement and now we seek to set out the effects, corollaries, implications, and consequences of thinking in Atonement type categories.
I.) Because of Scripture’s Doctrine of the Atonement Biblical Christians Have Never Been Able to be Manipulated by False Guilt
The need for atonement as identified by the sense of a need to be morally cleansed from guilt is inseparable from fallen man. Indeed the case can be made that fallen man spends his life trying to get rid of his true moral guilt. The man who does not know atonement lives his life seeking to escape his guilt and so is open to manipulation by those who seek to manipulate fallen man’s guilt by first identifying false guilt and then promising a way to rid man of that false guilt.
Rushdoony notes in his “Politics of Guilt and Pity,”
“The clean look, the new product, the spotless modern home,new clothing, these and other forms of ritual purification are sold by advertisers to a guilt-ridden populace in search of packaged atonement. In 1959, a new soap became a best seller with a very direct television appeal to this hunger for cleansing: “For the first time in your life, feel really clean —use Zest.” Thus, purification was sold as a bar of soap.”
The most recent large scale example of this was election 2008. Over and over again Americans were reminded of “America’s original sin of slavery,” thus creating false guilt. Then it was intimated over and over again that the way Americans could rid themselves of this guilt was to vote for a black man for President. In such a way American’s could use the vote as a means of self atonement to rid themselves of their sin and guilt.
Seeking to be done with their guilt Americans were manipulated into voting a Marxist into office.
But because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ the Biblical Christian cannot be laden with guilt and so cannot be manipulated because we understand that those who promise to take our guilt away are offering a false atonement and so are liars. Only Jesus Christ can provide atonement and our release from true moral guilt.
That fact drives people nuts because guilt manipulation is a means of control and those who cannot be manipulated by this false guilt are a danger to social orders based on the politics of guilt.
This drive for self atonement of fallen men to rid themselves of guilt is everywhere to be found in fallen man. Freud got rich and became famous telling fallen man in psychotherapy how to be done with his guilt. Of course he failed.
Man apart from Christ and His atonement knows his guilt and is forever trying to rid himself of it either by masochistic means by which he punishes himself to gain atonement or by sadistic means whereby he punishes others with the hopes of laying their guilt on others thus gaining atonement. This sin and guilt are fallen man’s chains and the desire to be free of them enslaves fallen man and so governs all his doing. Man apart from Christ so desperately seeks to rid himself of his guilt that all his institutions he builds become Institutions that are seeking to relieve from guilt. The state itself (as man collectively considered) becomes the Institution that is tasked with providing atonement and relief from guilt. The state becomes a savior state… a redeeming state.
But we are Christians with a Biblical understanding of the Atonement and so our guilt has been taken away and we do not look for human Institutions to provide relief from false guilt and so we are a threat. People who do not carry guilt are always a threat. And we do not carry guilt because of the atonement of Jesus Christ.
II.) Because of our Doctrine of Limited Atonement Biblical Christians Are in Adamant Opposition to Egalitarianism
Egalitarianism in its current incarnation teaches that not only are all men equal but more than that, that all men are or at least should be equal in privilege, talent, ability, and skill. Theologically speaking we find it expressed in any doctrine of Atonement which teaches that Christ died for all men equally. Theologically we call that Arminianism.
The equality it expresses extends not only to the fact that Jesus died equally for all men but also teaches that each individual has a equal claim and equal libertarian free-will ability to come to Christ.
This is theological Egalitarianism. God is an egalitarian and to think that God isn’t egalitarian, as Biblical Christians do, would make God discriminatory which ranks right up there with racist, anti-semite, and homophobe. In theological egalitarianism it is egalitarian man who decided to worship or not worship an egalitarian God. All this egalitarianism has the effect of making the Creator and creature equal.
The Biblical doctrine of the Atonement where God discriminates according to His own reasons and for His own glory is a dagger aimed at the heart of egalitarianism. The Biblical doctrine of the atonement teaches that God hates egalitarianism. Just as all men are not equal as seen in not all men are chosen to be atoned for so all men are not equal as seen in the fact that God predestined some to less talents and some to more talents.
To be sure we Calvinists do agree at some points of egalitarianism. All men are the same in being ontologically constituted sinners. All men are under God’s law. All men everywhere are commanded to repent. This is as far as our egalitarianism goes.
In Reformed theology, as based on Scripture, there is in the heart of God’s character the reality that God is a God who discriminates. This is seen in the atonement where Christ is assigned to die only for those marked out as Elect. This character of God marked as it is by discrimination is to egalitarian systems what the cross is to the vampire.
To be clear here Limited Atonement teaches us that God hates egalitarianism. The Calvinist more than any other Christian is at war with egalitarianism and desires to see it extinguished.
Rev. Larry Ball reminds us,
“Arminianism has no defense against Egalitarianism because it comes out of the same muddy pond. The Reformed Church has much to contribute to the modern political and philosophical conversation that results from identity politics and social justice, both which deny that God has the right to discriminate between right and wrong. God is sovereign (and not equal with man), and this leaves us in a state of wonder and worship. It also gives us a tool to deal with political issues of the day. The church has failed to teach men to stand in silence and awe before a Holy God who works all things after the counsel of his own will. Teaching the doctrine of predestination is the only way to nullify the blight of modern Egalitarianism.”
I would only add that the doctrine of the atonement teaches the same thing as God discriminates as to who is to be purchased and who is not to be purchased by the blood of Christ.
III.) Because of our Doctrine of Limited Atonement Christians Divide Mankind & Support Christians
Atonement introduces the idea of the antithesis in our thinking.
The idea of the Christian antithesis is the idea that there is a grand chasm which separates those who belong to their father the Devil and those whom Christ atoned for. Christ’s atoning death marks out an antithesis in the society of men. In every social order one finds a community of the atoned for and the community who remain dead in their sins and trespasses.
As Christian who believe this we believe that in any social order we belong to we believe that it is those who are atoned for who should be those who are what is commonly called the “cultural gatekeepers.”
Here is this social order that we who are atoned for live in. We desire to God to be glorified in that social order and for God’s Law Word to be esteemed in our Educational centers, Our Law centers, and Financial centers. We understand that God has made a distinction between men by His atoning for some and not all and we embrace that distinction by supporting those and only those who have been atoned for.
The reality of the atonement creates a brotherhood of the atoned for and as belonging to the brotherhood of the atoned for we are the people who want to see our social orders led by those who belong to that brotherhood of the atoned for.
As Christians we are interested in men coming to Christ but its also true that we are interested in our whole social order being transformed.
J. Gresham Machen points the way here when he writes,
“It is upon … this brotherhood of the Redeemed, (the atoned for) that the Christian founds the hope of society… A blessed society cannot be formed out of men who are still under the curse of sin. Human institutions are really to be molded, not by Christian principles accepted by the unsaved (the non-atoned for), but by Christian men; the true transformation of society will come by the influence of those themselves who have been redeemed (atoned for). Thus Christianity differs from Liberalism in the way in which the transformation of society is conceived. According to Christian belief, as well as according to Liberalism, there is really to be a transformation of society.”
So… because of this doctrine of Atonement we see that the hope of any social order for transformation is based on the brotherhood of the atoned for being those who are the cultural gatekeepers. As those who know atonement we do not want men in leadership positions who are not members of the Brotherhood of the Redeemed. Mankind is divided between the atoned for and those not atoned for and God intends for those who are atoned for to support His atoned for men as being those who are sitting in the seats of cultural influence and dominion.
By the atonement we belong to Christ and so it is only natural that we would desire to be led by men who belong to Christ.
If we believe in Atonement the way Scripture presents it then one of the implications of the atonement in terms of worldview thinking is that we desire a social order transformation as led by those who belong to the society of those who know the atonement. As Machen noted we do not want merely Christian principles accepted by the unsaved (not atoned for) to mold our Institutions but we desire our social order Institutions to be molded by those who have been atoned for.
Conclusion
So there you have it. This doctrine of atonement teaches us how it is that we are purchased by Christ. It teaches that God does all the saving. It reminds us that there is harmony of purpose among the members of the trinity as the Father elects, the Son atones, and the Spirit applies atonement.
But not only that we have learned that the atonement has worldview ripple implications. Christians having been delivered from their guilt by the atonement of Jesus Christ cannot be manipulated by false guilt. Christians understanding that in the atonement there is a declaration of God’s discriminatory character hate the attempt to create egalitarian orders which reflect the desire to make man and God equal. Christians, because of the atonement support in their social orders others who have been atoned for by Christ.
