September 26, 2024
This coming Sunday evening is our annual Fall Concert, and I hope you'll make plans to be there. Our goal is to alternate year by year between an outside musician and our own musicians, and this year we have the delight of hearing our own choir. They'll be directing our hearts to some of the great hymns of the faith. We will also be hearing the testimonies of God's grace from two of our members, Dr. Rob Waltzer and Mr. Howard Graylin. Both of these men were converted to Christ from a Jewish heritage, so it will be a rich privilege to hear how God continues to graft back into the vine of the church branches from Jew as well as Gentile (Romans 11:23)!
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Though this isn't the way they're often viewed or experienced, there are few truths more practical than the Five Points of Calvinism - especially the L of TULIP, Limited Atonement. This truth teaches that Jesus died on the cross for all of the sins of all of the elect. He died to save His sheep, those His Father gave Him before the foundation of the world, from the wrath of God - the punishment their sins deserved (see Matthew 1:21; John 10:14-15). If He had died in order to save every person who has ever lived without exception, then the cross would be a miserable failure, since not everyone is saved - and Jesus would have died for people who were already in hell, which makes a mockery of His sacrifice. The question of the extent of the atonement (i.e., for whom did Jesus die?) is ultimately related to question of the nature of the atonement. Did Jesus die to make salvation possible, or to accomplish salvation? Did He pay 99%, or did He pay it all? If He merely died to make salvation possible, then ultimately the glory for salvation belongs to man, since the determining factor in salvation would then not be the cross of Jesus, but the faith of the believer. But the Bible in fact teaches that Jesus died on the cross to accomplish our salvation, and to purchase the gifts of faith and repentance for His sheep.
While this truth is often the focus of much debate, it should actually be a source of great comfort to the people of God. We see this most clearly in an old hymn about the cross of Jesus by Augustus Toplady (who also wrote "Rock of Ages"). The hymn was originally titled "Faith Reviving," but if we call it by its first line, its title is "From Whence This Fear and Unbelief". Both titles show how practical an efficacious cross is (that is, a cross that accomplishes all the purposes that Jesus intended by it) - our faith is revived, and our fear and unbelief are silenced. Here are the lyrics:
From whence this fear and unbelief,
Hath not the Father put to grief
His spotless Son for me?
And will the righteous judge of men
Condemn me for that load of sin
Which Lord, was charged to Thee?
Complete atonement Thou hast made,
And to the utmost farthing paid,
Whate’er Thy people owed.
Nor can God’s wrath on me take place
When sheltered by Thy righteousness
And covered by Thy blood.
If Thou my pardon hast secured,
And freely in my room endured
The whole of wrath divine,
Payment God cannot twice demand,
First from my bleeding surety’s hand
And then again from mine.
Return my soul unto thy rest;
The sorrows of thy Great High Priest
Have bought thy liberty.
Trust in His efficacious blood
Nor fear thy banishment from God
Since Jesus died for thee.
May the Lord encourage our hearts and grant us the rest and peace that comes from knowing that there is no double jeopardy - if Jesus has drunk the full cup of God's wrath to the dregs in our place, then we need not fear that we will taste even a drop of it!