Brown:

(2.) His pleadings for his apostles.

We proceed now to consider the pleadings by which the Savior enforces these petitions. These pleadings may all be arranged under the following heads :–First, The persons he prays for are a peculiar class, “not the world.” Secondly, They stand in a peculiar. relation both to the Father and to him, Thirdly, They have a peculiar history. Fourthly, They have a peculiar character. Fifthly, They are placed in peculiar circumstances. Sixthly, They are appointed to a peculiar and most important and difficult work. And finally, Their consecration for this work is one great end for which he consecrates himself to the great work assigned him by the Father. Let us turn our attention to these topics in their order, endeavoring to apprehend the meaning of our Lord’s statements with respect to each of them, and their bearing and force as pleas, on the petitions which he presents for his apostles.

1. They were a peculiar Class.

The first plea which I would bring under your consideration is, ‘that the objects of his prayer were a peculiar class–not the world.’ “I pray not for the world”¹ (ver. 9). And I call your attention to this plea first, because it lays the foundation for all the, rest. Indeed, all the rest may be considered as only the expansion or development of this.

The words, “I pray for them, I pray not for the world,” have by many able theologians been considered as an assertion that our Lord’s intercession does not in any sense extend to mankind at large, but is strictly limited to the elect. It is one of the passages which have been much used in support of the doctrine, that in no sense did Christ die for all men, and that therefore the atonement has exclusively a reference to ‘the elect;’ the two parts of our Lord’s mediatorial work being justly considered as indissoluble.

Like many other passages of Scripture, more eagerness has been discovered by polemical divines to wrest it as a weapon out of the hand of an antagonist, or to employ it as a weapon against him, than to discover what is the precise meaning of the words as used by our Lord, and how they serve the purpose for which he employed them. I think it will not be difficult to show that the assertion that our Lord prays for no blessings for any but the elect, is not warranted by Scripture; and that, even if it were, it would not be easy to show how such a statement should have’ a place in a plea for the bestowment of certain blessings on his apostles.²

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Welch:

If it should stop here, and no sinner improve the amnesty offered, or accept the grace provided, yet divine law would have been honored and divine justice vindicated and great grace and love revealed in Christ before the view of the whole universe.

But this does not exhaust the divine love and wisdom in the scheme of Redemption. If it should stop here, there would be no salvation realized. Though there had been mediatorial suffering and divine amnesty proclaimed, either all would be redeemed by the pardoning act of God still unregenerate and still unsaved, or none would be redeemed because of the sinful and rebellious choice of man. But Redemption is not thus to be actualized or completed in every case by the pardoning act of God; nor is it thus to fail in every case because of the sinful and rebellious choice of man. There shall be the actualized redemption of a great company which no man can number. The Atonement–the expiatory sacrifice even unto death–has been effected; Redemption shall be. The real history of Redemption (not yet completed), and the doctrine imbedded in it, lie before us surveyed by the inspired Word unto completeness, even unto “the day of the Lord.”

What is this larger thought, this climactic doctrine which Biblical usage with inspired precision distinguishes from that of the Atonement? For there is, as Dr. A. A. Hodge (“The Atonement,” p. 42) well says,–”There is unquestionably a distinction to be carefully observed between these words Atonement and Redemption in their Biblical usage–the latter being more comprehensive and less definite–commenced now, it will be consummated at a future day.” “Atonement signalizes only the expiation of our guilt by Christ’s vicarious sufferings” (p. 249).

The terms redeem and redemption are employed about one hundred and forty times in the Scriptures; but they appear in very different words–Hebrew and Greek-from those expressing atone and atonement, viz., gaal and padah (in varied forms) in Hebrew; and agoradzo and lutroo (in varied forms) in Greek. The larger and completed thought conveyed in Redemption is, deliverance–real, actual deliverance, from the penalty and the power of sin–from its guilt and dominion; a deliverance not fully effected in Regeneration, but approximating in the progressive work of sanctification, and culminating in complete salvation from all evil of body, soul, and spirit. The growth of this thought toward its fullness may be traced in such Scriptures as Col. i. 14; I Peter i. 18; Rom. viii. 23 i Eph. iv. 30; 1 Cor. i. 30; Titus ii. 14. The Redemption thus being wrought out for us, is-must be–in its very nature personal and particular, thus illustrating and actualizing the” election in grace.” Though often confounded for want of precision in language or in conception, these words are distinct and distinguished in Scripture, thus indicating the different and larger thought in the latter.

In the history of Redemption we find the doctrine of the Atonement, its definition and place. The Scriptural representation is that the expiatory offering–the Atonement–meets the penalty of sin and covers the guilty from the search of avenging justice, thus procuring pardon or deliverance from condemnation. It is of God’s love through Christ, and opens the way for conditional blessings immeasurable, even the fullness of Redemption. Though it secures pardon, it does not remove the pollution of sin. It is preliminary to Sanctification and indispensable, yet it does not produce sanctification. It is a preliminary requisite to Regeneration, yet it does not produce regeneration. There is a new and additional agency necessary to effect this, even the agency of the Holy Spirit. To him belongs this divine office-work….

In accordance with the immediate end thus secured, says Dr. R., “Christ’s death opened the way for God to show mercy. It removed the impediment which existed antecedent to the fact of an atonement, and which but for this fact would have forever barred the door of salvation to mankind. The death of Christ rendered the salvation of all possible, so far as the atonement was concerned. As an expiatory offering it was all-sufficient (infinite) in satisfying Divine justice; for effecting the immediate end (e. g., to declare God’s righteousness, to maintain God’s law, and to condemn sin) it was complete. In this view it was precisely the same thing, as it stood related to the elect and the non-elect. The sacrificial service was one and the same, appointed by the same authority and for the same immediate purpose, and performed by the same glorious Personage at the very same time. It wanted nothing to constitute it a true and perfect sacrifice for sin, as it stood related to the whole world. It was but this true and perfect sacrifice, as it stood related to the elect. Any other view would have overturned its sufficiency for all mankind; for it was not the sufficiency of Christ to be a sacrifice, but his sufficiency as a sacrifice for the whole world, that was maintained….

The Atonement is all-sufficient, and, in its very nature, unlimited, since the God-man, the suffering Savior, is an infinite sacrifice. Redemption implies regeneration and the other doctrines of grace, actualized in the soul’s experience through the effectual working of the Holy Ghost, and issuing in the soul’s salvation. It must, therefore, in the very nature of the case, be personal anti particular.

Ransom B. Welch, “Rev. Dr. James Richards and his Theology.–II,” The Presbyterian Review 5 (1884) : 415-417, 421-422, and 433-434.  [Some reformatting; some spelling modernized; and underlining mine.]

Smith:

I.:–Comparison of Divine Sovereignty and The Incarnation as central principles. Calvinistic theology has had-unconsciously for the most part–two germinant principles: Sovereignty and The Covenants; the former the older, the latter more narrow, but with some advantages. In the Confessions we often see an unconscious union of the two. Sovereignty tends to run into supralapsarianism and the assertion of the exclusive divine efficiency: Will is made to be all; the ethical is obscured. The objections to it are: (a.) It is too abstract; (b.) It is liable to perversion, to the construction that God is all Will ; (c.) If it is taken concretely, i. e., if the Sovereignty is understood to stand f01′ Plan, it comes to much the same with our principle: Incarnation in order to Redemption is God’s Plan.

II.–Comparison of The Incarnation and The Covenants, as the central principles.

1. The original usage of The Covenant, in theology, as setting forth an arrangement, an ordering, on the part of God, is allowable and true.

2. As applied in the Covenant of Works: “This do and thou shalt live,” we may say, It is as if there. was such a covenant.

3. As applied in the Covenant of Redemption, that between the Father and the Son, it sets forth clearly, for popular representation, that in the divine plan, Christ performs conditions and his people are given to Him in consequence. (Only in this Covenant there should be included all that Christ’s work accomplished: Propitiation for the sins of the whole world and the General Offer of Salvation as well as the Provision for the Elect.)

Henry B. Smith, System of Christian Theology, 2^nd ed., (New York: A.C. Armstrong and Son, 1884), 377-378.  [Underlining mine.]

[Notes: 1) The implication here from Smith is that within the Trinity, there is no conflict of interests or purposes. Christ’s effecting an expiation for all sinners, and the offer of the Gospel in no way entails intra-Trinitarian conflict as some often allege must exist in the classic and moderate Calvinist soteriological schema. 2) Curst Daniel sums and rebuts this objection here. 3) Interestingly, Smith’s expression also echoes that of Bunyan, Edwards and Welsh, all making the same exact point.]

 
Bellamy:

Limited Atonement and the Argument from Romans 8:32.

Romans 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

Preliminary Remarks:¹

Roughly speaking, the core argument here takes on the following lines.

1) All for whom Christ died, Salvation is effectually applied.

2) Salvation is not effectually applied to all men.

3) Therefore, Christ did not die for all men.

For the argument to be sound, the first premise must be established. However, if it cannot, then the conclusion cannot be obtained.

To that end, Romans 8:32 is the often adduced in support for the first premise.

However, the first fundamental problem with using Romans 8:32 to prove the first premise is the problem of unjustified term conversion. The subject of verse either represents the elect as a class, or believers as a class (i.e., believing elect). Thus, Paul says either,

4) All the believers, for whom Christ was given, will be given all things.

or,

5) All the elect, for whom Christ was given, will be given all things.

Either 4) or 5) are justifiable readings of the verse.

What we can know is that the text is not saying:

6) All for whom Christ is given (and that in any sense), will be given all things.

There is nothing in the text or context which entails this interpretation.

It is this term conversion which is the false and unjustified move in the mechanic of this argument for limited atonement.

Paul is speaking assurance to believers (or the elect as a class), such that, “As Christ is given to us who believe, how much more can we who believe be assured that he will  not also give us all things in him?”

Paul is not asserting the general proposition, nor do his words entail: “All for whom Christ died, Salvation is effectually applied.”

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