Dr. John MacArthur:
Transcript:
We come tonight to a wonderful theme in the Scripture, again the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. And for those of you, most of you, who are with us in our study of the gospel of Luke, we have been looking closely at the record of Luke, the historical record, as well as comparing the account of Matthew and Mark and John on the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have looked at the details of His dying.
Tonight we want to talk a little about the theology of His death and ask the question and answer it from Scripture, “For whom did Christ die?” This is a very, very important question.
Now I know you people very well and you are noble Bereans. You search the Scriptures to see if these things that I say are so. And I also know that if I don’t cover every verse that weighs on this subject, you will line up afterwards to ask me about that verse. So in dealing with a subject like this, if I can borrow a French phrase, this needs to be somewhat of a tour de force(?), I need to cover the ground extensively so I can put your mind at rest because you are so incurably biblical. That, in case you didn’t know, is a great commendation. I expect that, I rejoice in that.
To begin with, what I want to say is what I am going to teach you tonight about this application of the atonement, answering the question, “For whom did Christ die?” is the view that has reigned supreme in the true church since the New Testament. It, along with the other essential doctrines of Reformed Theology, or Augustinian, or Lutheran or Calvinistic theology, has been affirmed by the church since its inception. What I am going to show you tonight is essentially what the early church believed, of course, because you’ll see it coming out of the New Testament. It is what was affirmed in the fifth century as being a true representation of New Testament teaching under Augustine against Palagius. It was again affirmed during the time of the Reformation by Luther in his conflict with Erasmus and further affirmed by Calvin in his conflict with Arminius. It has come down to us in our heritage which is Baptistic through the London Confession of 1689 and the Philadelphia Confession of 1743, being the substantial foundations for Baptists in America. And that is our tradition, our ecclesiology is baptistic rather than sacramental and Reformed. That’s why we baptize adults who believe and not infants.
And so, what I’m going to say to you is not anything new, it is something that the church has affirmed. In fact, the view that opposes what I will show you tonight has been labeled as heresy. It was so labeled at three councils early on in history, it was reiterated again during the time of the Reformation that the view contrary to this view is in fact unbiblical.
Now the question might at first seem an easy one, For whom did Christ die? Most people, I’m confident, in churches would quickly answer, “Well He died for everyone.” Most people in the church believed that on the cross Jesus paid the debt for the sins of everyone because He loves everyone unconditionally and wants everyone to be saved. That is not what the church has historically believed, but that is what the present version of the superficial church believes. Sinners, all of them, have had all their sins atoned for potentially. And that’s the key word. If they will acknowledge Christ and accept the gift. So we have then only to convince sinners to receive the salvation which has already been fully purchased for them at the cross. Since Christ died for everyone, everyone can believe and should believe and must believe if they’ll only will to believe. And in a contemporary concept, we work on the sinner’s will believing that the sinner has both the responsibility and the ability to activate a saving faith on his own and believe. If nowhere else, this is certainly indicated in the most popular of Christian books, The Purpose-Driven Life and The Purpose-Driven Church where Rick Warren says I can lead anyone to Christ if I can find the key to that person’s heart. It’s just a matter of moving their will.
That is the popular idea and that means that hell is full of people whose salvation was purchased by the death and resurrection of Christ. It means then that everybody in hell and everybody in heaven had the same thing done for them on the cross. The Lake of Fire will be filled with eternally damned people whose sins were actually atoned for on the cross, so the people in hell had the same atonement as the people in heaven. The difference was the people in heaven activated their will to accept that atonement. The people in hell did not.
Now if that sounds strange to you, it is…it is, that Jesus died for, paid for in full the sins of the damned, paid the penalty of divine justice for them just as He did for the redeemed is a very strange notion. And the sinner then determines whether that universally potential death is applied to him or not. This view would say Christ died to make salvation possible, not actual. He died to make it possible, the sinner then makes the choice. He didn’t really purchase salvation for anyone, He actually died on the cross and in some way removed a barrier to make salvation a potential. You will not find such language anywhere in the New Testament or the Old. The message that this would send to sinners goes like this…God loves you so much that Christ died for you, won’t you let Him save you? The final decision is up to you. In fact, God loves you so much that He gave His Son and hopefully when you see the sacrifice that Christ made, you will be moved emotionally to love Him back by accepting Him.
Now the problem with this is glaring. Here’s the problem. According to Scripture, sinners are dead…dead in trespasses and sin, separated from the life of God. They are blind. They are perishing. They’re in a state of perishing eternally. They are double blind because the god of this world has blinded their minds. In their natural state, they cannot understand the things of God, they are foolishness to them. Or to borrow the language of Romans 3, there is none who seeks after God, there is no fear of God before their eyes. This then affirms another doctrine that the church has always established as true and that is the sinner’s total inability. Luther’s great classic, The Bondage of the Will is still preeminent reading for anyone who wants to understand how bound the fallen human will is and how impossible it is for the dead double-blind sinner cut off from the life of God with no desire for God and no ability to seek after God and no fear of God before his eyes to all of a sudden pull himself up by his own bootstraps and take hold of a potential salvation that is hanging out there for him. Continue reading
