Cheryl Schatz

Mark you said:

Our atonement doesn’t just dangle in mid air and God is just hoping someone in their autonomous faith takes it. God completes his purpose of what Christ achieved on the cross by bringing in His flock.

So are you saying that our atonement dangles in mid air for as long as God wants and practically it has no value to us regarding faith or our salvation until a specified point in time? Are you saying that the atonement dangles in the mid air for the elect who are still subject to God’s wrath while the atonement dangles in the air not being useful to them? Why does the atonement seem to have no value at all and no power, according to the Calvinist system, until the elect are given faith?

“Yes the atonement achieved something for God’s people but it also achieved something for all sinners.”

I agree with this actually. But I do not believe it achieved the same purpose for everyone. Christ only atoned for his sheep, but non believers receive many blessings and grace because of the cross- they just don’t have their sins atoned for because they don’t actually go to heaven.

But Mark, the atonement is about the atonement. If the atonement was only about non-atonement issues, how could the atonement have achieved something for all sinners? For example would it not rather be God’s love that achieved the rain and the sun rather than the cross that achieved this? And how did the atonement bring rain and the sun to an unborn baby who dies as a reprobate and who never saw the rain or the sun?

“Eternal life is justification and yes this is given for all men.”

Cheryl, this is completely false and worries me. Being ‘justified’ is being ‘declared righteous’. Now if all men were declared righteous then none would go to hell.

But Mark what you fail to see is that Christ is the one who is the representative of all and His purchase of us back on the cross must represent us all or else He is not the last Adam. If Christ only represented a few men then He failed to be a full Adam and He is not the equivalent of the first Adam. All justification is in Christ and He purchased this for all of us.

Now as far as all men declared righteous, no this is not true. But what is true is that Christ bought the full justification and paid the full price for all men. There is no question that it has been bought. But has it been applied?

This is why I ask questions of you regarding your view of what the atonement did at the cross. Is it possible that the atonement can be fully paid and justification fully accomplished yet the one that it has been paid for for a time after the cross is still lost, still in their sin, still alienated from God, still in satan’s kingdom and still subject to God’s wrath? Is this true or is it not true?

More to come…