Archive for February 23rd, 2010
1) But it is objected that the report suggests error concerning the application and extent of the atonement. On this subject there are two aspects which Calvinists have always distinguished. One regards the nature of the atonement; the other its design; and we all hold that, in its intrinsic nature, the atonement is infinite. This is the consequence of the infinite dignity of the Mediatorial Person. Its value is, intrinsically, as sufficient for the sins of all men as of one. Its limitation to the elect is not to be sought, then, in it nature, but in its design; and this design, as to its actual application to them, is nothing else than the decree. It is not something else, different and separate, but the decree itself. Now the section of our report under remark, in its first sentences, speaks of the nature of the atonement, and in its last of its application. In its first sentences it uses general terms, “man’s guilt,” “our sins,” etc., for it is speaking only of the nature of Christ’s atoning work, which has no limits.’ And in speaking thus, I claim that the report does but imitate the Scriptures–”God so loved the world,” etc.; “Behold the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world,” etc.–and the Confession itself. Why, then, should it be charged with error for using the same sort of language which the Bible itself does in this connection? But when the report proceeds to speak of the application of redemption, it declares, as I assert, in exact accordance with the spirit of our standards, that God applies it to all the elect, and to no others; and that this application is itself through the purchase of Jesus Christ. We do not invent a statement to establish a supralapsarian order of sequence between the purpose to save the elect and to send Christ to die; but neither does the Confession. It merely declares that redemption is applied through this work of Christ precisely to those to whom it was God’s eternal purpose to apply it; and that is, his elect. The report speaks the same thing.
Moreover, the committee used the word redemption, as they believe, in strict accordance with Calvinistic usage, in a sense distinct from the word atonement. Redemption means, not only a provision of a vicarious penalty to satisfy for guilt, but in addition all the gracious gifts, of active obedience to be imputed, of effectual calling, of sanctification, and of glorification, which make up a completed salvation. All this is designed, purchased, and bestowed for the elect in and through Christ. And in this view they may quote, among many Calvinistic authorities, this of old Willison, Catechism, Ques.: “How doth Christ redeem his people from their bondage?” Ans. “Partly by price, or purchase; partly by power, or conquest.”
In a word, the committee intended to express summarily that sound, but not ultra, view of the atonement held by Calvinists, and expressed in the ancient formula, “Christ died sufficiently for the race, efficaciously for the elect.” R.L. Dabney, ‘Speech on the Fusion of the United Synod,” in Discussions: Evangelical and Theological, 2:307-308. [Some reformatting; some spelling modernized; and underlining mine.]