(upbeat music) - Pastor John, I am anticipating your chapter that will be published in the forthcoming book titled From Heaven He Came and Sought Her, Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological and Pastoral Perspective, edited by David Gibson and Jonathan Gibson. It should be out from Crossway in November. Your chapter is, I think, the most persuasive thing I've read on the definite atonement of Christ, and I was wondering if you would just, in three or four minutes, introduce definite atonement to us, explain why it's so important to you, and what's at stake for the church.

- It is important. Sometimes it's called limited atonement, which is an unfortunate designation because it seems to minimize or diminish the work of the atonement, when in fact, what we're arguing is not for something less than others believe, but for something more. And what I mean by that is this.

The Bible speaks about God loving the world, and he speaks about Christ being the savior of all, especially those who believe. And I think in that little phrase, what I wanna say is, Christ dies, in a sense, for all, but not in the same sense, for all. In the sense that he dies for all, we mean that he dies in such a way that you can offer his death to all, without exception, and say to them, with no qualm, here is Christ.

I offer Christ to you. If you will believe Christ, it is yours. Everything he bought from the Father for eternal life, he bought for you, if you will have it. So that big, if you will have it, enables us to preach the gospel indiscriminately to every single person on the planet and say, this death will cover your sins, if you will believe it.

What the people believe, like me, who believe that there's more, not less, more to it, is that he also, God had a definite intention or design in the atonement. Christ loved the church and gave himself for her, meaning he has a special love for the church, a special design in the giving of his Son for the church.

God has in view the church in a special way when he dies. And here's what's special, here's what persuades me about the definite atonement. In the new covenant, in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36 and Ezekiel 11, it says that God will take out the heart of stone, he will put in the heart of flesh, he will give us a new spirit, he will write the law on our hearts.

And then Jesus lifts up the cup at the last supper in Luke 22, 20, and he says this cup, meaning this blood, this death, is the new covenant in my blood. So what Christ's blood does is purchase for us the benefits of the new covenant. And the new covenant benefits are not simply the offer of salvation, the new covenant is precisely the effecting of salvation and the preserving of those who are saved.

Taking out the heart of stone and putting in the heart of flesh and writing on our hearts the law. So when we talk about the new birth or when we talk about Ephesians 2, 5, that he made us alive together with Christ, that act of mercy, I argue, was purchased for me by the blood of Christ.

Well, if my new birth and if my receiving a heart of flesh and my heart of stone being taken out was purchased for me in the new covenant transaction by the blood of Jesus, then that atoning work is what saved me. Didn't just offer me salvation, didn't just make me favorable, it actually rescued me, it changed me, it gave me the gift of faith.

When it says in 2 Timothy 2, 25, that God may perhaps give them repentance, well, if I have repentance, God did give me repentance and that giving of repentance to me and the giving of faith to me, according to Ephesians 2, 8, is a purchase of the blood of Christ for me.

I didn't deserve that gift, he bought it for me, which means he does that uniquely for the elect, for the bride of Christ. And here's one of the practical implications of that, a couple of practical implications. One is, I want the church to feel loved by Christ in the covenant way that he really loves his bride.

He loved his bride and went after her and he purchased her and he brought her home to himself so that we don't just feel ourselves loved generically, like we're loved the same way people are loved who are in hell or going to hell. We are loved in a covenant way in which God is gonna pursue us, he's gonna overcome all our rebellion, he's gonna make us his own, he's gonna beautify us for his son and he has fixed his heart on us and we know that because he has put faith in our hearts to embrace him.

And second implication is, if he has done that, if he has brought me out of darkness into light, out of death into life by virtue of his atoning work, then he's gonna keep me. I think Romans 8, 32 functions exactly that way. It says that he who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, and that all there is the elect in Romans 8, he's followed that through, gave him up for us all, will he not with him freely give us all things?

In other words, if God has died for us, will he not keep us forever? The only way to make that argument work is that the dying for us is the securing for a people an everlasting life that includes all the blessings of the new covenant. So it is really practically precious for people to work their way through to an understanding of the love of God in Christ for his own.

- Amen, thank you, Pastor John. Be watching for Pastor John's chapter to be published in the book, "From Heaven He Came and Sought Her Definite Atonement "in Historical, Biblical, Theological, "and Pastoral Perspective," edited by David Gibson and Jonathan Gibson, and due out from Crossway in the fall of 2013.

You can find thousands of other free resources from John Piper online at desiringgod.org. I'm your host, Tony Reinke, thanks for listening. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)