Christ
Died for All; Rev. 5:9
Revelation 5:9 NASB “And they sang a new song, saying,
“Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain,
and purchased for God with Your blood {men} from every tribe and tongue and
people and nation.”
The
blood of Christ (cont.)
5) The substitutionary
death if Christ was to pay the penalty for sin. The penalty was not physical
death, it was spiritual death. The was the penalty that was enacted in the
garden of Eden. Adam was separated from God; Adam and Eve could not have a
relationship with God, they ran and hid and that indicated that something had
happened in their relationship; they were spiritually dead. Physical death was
not the penalty for sin for they did not die for another 900 years. Physical
death was the consequence of spiritual death, not the penalty.
6) Since it was not
His physical death or physical bleeding that was efficacious for salvation, but
His spiritual death, then the physical blood does not save.
7) We have to remember
that the imagery here derives from the Old Testament sacrifices. In the Old
Testament sacrifices the animal’s throat was cut on the altar and there was a
literal bleeding, but as we are told in Hebrews
8) The physical death
of the Messiah signified the completion of His spiritual, substitutionary work,
and it was necessary for His resurrection and to indicate the Father’s
acceptance of His sacrifice, that He had conquered sin and death. For Jesus
Christ to be resurrected demonstrated that His spiritual substitutionary death
on the cross gave us victory over physical death, and His resurrection was the
first or the down payment, called the firstfruits in Scripture of all other
resurrections. So on the basis of His physical, bodily resurrection we have
confidence that we, too, will have a future physical, bodily resurrection when
the Lord comes at the Rapture.
Another point is the extent of that death. The solution for the sin
problem is known as unlimited atonement.
The
doctrine of unlimited atonement
1) Did Jesus die for
all? Did He only die for the elect?
2) A high Calvinist
will hold to a five-point Calvinism but he will believe that you should make an
offer of the gospel and evangelise those who are lost; a hyper-Calvinist is
someone who doesn’t believe you should ever give the gospel to anybody, that if
God wants them to be saved He will do it without any help from you or me.
3) The problem that
really under girds this whole subject is the question: In what sense did Christ
die for you? Was it a substitution? The problem that high Calvinists come
across is that if Christ really died for you then why aren’t you saved? He paid
the penalty so you ought to be going to heaven. But it isn’t enough to have the
sin penalty paid, there has to be an imputation of righteousness and a
regeneration. The limited atonement people would say that that it is a real
substitution but they can’t get past the fact that it would indicate in their
minds that everybody would be saved, so their solution is that was only a real
substitute for those who are saved. Then there is the classic flour-point
position unlimited position which holds that the payment for sin is unlimited
but it was conditional or hypothetical. In other words, he paid for the sins of
everybody but it is only theirs actually if they trust in Christ. That is how
most people express unlimited atonement. But then there is a problem which the
high Calvinists have pointed out which is that that renders the language of the
Scripture a little bit nebulous because the language of Scripture has a real
substitution—Christ paid for our sins; truly, not hypothetically. Our position
is that it is an unlimited atonement but with a real substitution, that Christ
paid for the sins of all so that sin is no longer the issue. John
4) Scripture clearly
teaches that the atonement of Christ was unlimited; it was for all. Isaiah 53:6
NASB “All [every human being] of us like sheep have gone astray,
Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the
iniquity of us all [everyone] To fall
on Him.” John Calvin, who did not believe in limited atonement, wrote: “I
approve of the ordinary reading that he alone bore the punishment on many,
because on Him was laid the guilt of the whole world. It is evident from other
passages, and especially from the fifth chapter of the epistle to the Romans
that many sometimes denotes all.” He died for all, for everyone without
exception. In Isaiah 53: 6 the same group of people must be included in the all that begins the verse as the all the
all ends the verse. This is the same
meaning as we have when we come to the New Testament in 1 Timothy 2:4 NASB
“who [God] desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the
truth.” Jesus says the same kind of thing when He is weeping for