What Is Definite Atonement, and Why Does It Matter?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Pastor John, I am anticipating your chapter
00:00:06.640 | that will be published in the forthcoming book
00:00:08.880 | titled From Heaven He Came and Sought Her,
00:00:11.920 | Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological
00:00:14.900 | and Pastoral Perspective,
00:00:16.740 | edited by David Gibson and Jonathan Gibson.
00:00:19.160 | It should be out from Crossway in November.
00:00:21.240 | Your chapter is, I think, the most persuasive thing
00:00:23.520 | I've read on the definite atonement of Christ,
00:00:25.840 | and I was wondering if you would just,
00:00:27.400 | in three or four minutes,
00:00:28.240 | introduce definite atonement to us,
00:00:30.440 | explain why it's so important to you,
00:00:32.040 | and what's at stake for the church.
00:00:34.140 | - It is important.
00:00:36.400 | Sometimes it's called limited atonement,
00:00:39.240 | which is an unfortunate designation
00:00:42.800 | because it seems to minimize or diminish
00:00:47.760 | the work of the atonement,
00:00:49.080 | when in fact, what we're arguing is not for something less
00:00:53.960 | than others believe, but for something more.
00:00:57.340 | And what I mean by that is this.
00:00:59.820 | The Bible speaks about God loving the world,
00:01:04.440 | and he speaks about Christ being the savior of all,
00:01:09.440 | especially those who believe.
00:01:14.160 | And I think in that little phrase,
00:01:17.480 | what I wanna say is,
00:01:20.160 | Christ dies, in a sense, for all,
00:01:27.080 | but not in the same sense, for all.
00:01:31.160 | In the sense that he dies for all,
00:01:34.720 | we mean that he dies in such a way
00:01:38.320 | that you can offer his death to all, without exception,
00:01:43.280 | and say to them, with no qualm, here is Christ.
00:01:47.680 | I offer Christ to you.
00:01:49.400 | If you will believe Christ, it is yours.
00:01:53.040 | Everything he bought from the Father for eternal life,
00:01:57.680 | he bought for you, if you will have it.
00:02:00.880 | So that big, if you will have it,
00:02:02.760 | enables us to preach the gospel indiscriminately
00:02:05.400 | to every single person on the planet and say,
00:02:08.640 | this death will cover your sins, if you will believe it.
00:02:13.640 | What the people believe, like me,
00:02:15.760 | who believe that there's more, not less, more to it,
00:02:20.720 | is that he also, God had a definite intention
00:02:25.720 | or design in the atonement.
00:02:29.240 | Christ loved the church and gave himself for her,
00:02:33.120 | meaning he has a special love for the church,
00:02:38.160 | a special design in the giving of his Son for the church.
00:02:43.160 | God has in view the church in a special way when he dies.
00:02:49.600 | And here's what's special,
00:02:50.960 | here's what persuades me about the definite atonement.
00:02:54.400 | In the new covenant, in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36
00:02:59.400 | and Ezekiel 11, it says that God will take out
00:03:05.720 | the heart of stone, he will put in the heart of flesh,
00:03:10.160 | he will give us a new spirit,
00:03:12.760 | he will write the law on our hearts.
00:03:15.520 | And then Jesus lifts up the cup
00:03:17.600 | at the last supper in Luke 22, 20,
00:03:20.520 | and he says this cup, meaning this blood, this death,
00:03:24.960 | is the new covenant in my blood.
00:03:27.280 | So what Christ's blood does is purchase for us
00:03:31.440 | the benefits of the new covenant.
00:03:34.480 | And the new covenant benefits are not simply
00:03:38.200 | the offer of salvation, the new covenant
00:03:42.040 | is precisely the effecting of salvation
00:03:46.240 | and the preserving of those who are saved.
00:03:50.080 | Taking out the heart of stone
00:03:52.400 | and putting in the heart of flesh
00:03:53.600 | and writing on our hearts the law.
00:03:55.960 | So when we talk about the new birth
00:03:58.880 | or when we talk about Ephesians 2, 5,
00:04:01.720 | that he made us alive together with Christ,
00:04:05.160 | that act of mercy, I argue,
00:04:09.080 | was purchased for me by the blood of Christ.
00:04:14.360 | Well, if my new birth and if my receiving
00:04:18.800 | a heart of flesh and my heart of stone being taken out
00:04:22.240 | was purchased for me in the new covenant transaction
00:04:25.600 | by the blood of Jesus, then that atoning work
00:04:29.180 | is what saved me.
00:04:30.880 | Didn't just offer me salvation,
00:04:33.000 | didn't just make me favorable,
00:04:34.880 | it actually rescued me, it changed me,
00:04:38.080 | it gave me the gift of faith.
00:04:40.200 | When it says in 2 Timothy 2, 25,
00:04:44.440 | that God may perhaps give them repentance,
00:04:48.920 | well, if I have repentance, God did give me repentance
00:04:53.680 | and that giving of repentance to me
00:04:56.240 | and the giving of faith to me, according to Ephesians 2, 8,
00:04:59.280 | is a purchase of the blood of Christ for me.
00:05:03.240 | I didn't deserve that gift, he bought it for me,
00:05:06.180 | which means he does that uniquely for the elect,
00:05:09.840 | for the bride of Christ.
00:05:12.520 | And here's one of the practical implications of that,
00:05:17.040 | a couple of practical implications.
00:05:18.600 | One is, I want the church to feel loved by Christ
00:05:23.600 | in the covenant way that he really loves his bride.
00:05:28.560 | He loved his bride and went after her
00:05:31.160 | and he purchased her and he brought her home to himself
00:05:34.240 | so that we don't just feel ourselves loved generically,
00:05:37.880 | like we're loved the same way people are loved
00:05:40.520 | who are in hell or going to hell.
00:05:42.880 | We are loved in a covenant way
00:05:45.040 | in which God is gonna pursue us,
00:05:47.200 | he's gonna overcome all our rebellion,
00:05:49.220 | he's gonna make us his own,
00:05:50.440 | he's gonna beautify us for his son
00:05:53.240 | and he has fixed his heart on us
00:05:55.800 | and we know that because he has put faith in our hearts
00:05:58.920 | to embrace him.
00:06:00.680 | And second implication is, if he has done that,
00:06:03.120 | if he has brought me out of darkness into light,
00:06:05.640 | out of death into life by virtue of his atoning work,
00:06:10.400 | then he's gonna keep me.
00:06:12.320 | I think Romans 8, 32 functions exactly that way.
00:06:16.880 | It says that he who did not spare his own son,
00:06:19.680 | but gave him up for us all,
00:06:21.880 | and that all there is the elect in Romans 8,
00:06:25.080 | he's followed that through,
00:06:26.440 | gave him up for us all,
00:06:27.680 | will he not with him freely give us all things?
00:06:31.640 | In other words, if God has died for us,
00:06:36.000 | will he not keep us forever?
00:06:38.520 | The only way to make that argument work
00:06:40.560 | is that the dying for us is the securing for a people
00:06:44.840 | an everlasting life that includes all the blessings
00:06:48.080 | of the new covenant.
00:06:50.240 | So it is really practically precious
00:06:53.840 | for people to work their way through
00:06:57.400 | to an understanding of the love of God in Christ
00:07:00.260 | for his own.
00:07:01.600 | - Amen, thank you, Pastor John.
00:07:04.480 | Be watching for Pastor John's chapter
00:07:06.000 | to be published in the book,
00:07:06.920 | "From Heaven He Came and Sought Her Definite Atonement
00:07:09.920 | "in Historical, Biblical, Theological,
00:07:11.680 | "and Pastoral Perspective,"
00:07:12.920 | edited by David Gibson and Jonathan Gibson,
00:07:15.800 | and due out from Crossway in the fall of 2013.
00:07:19.360 | You can find thousands of other free resources
00:07:21.560 | from John Piper online at desiringgod.org.
00:07:24.120 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke, thanks for listening.
00:07:26.560 | (upbeat music)
00:07:29.140 | (upbeat music)
00:07:31.720 | [BLANK_AUDIO]