An Unexpected Journey - Part 4

Some weeks ago, I began a series on my unexpected journey to the understanding of the doctrines of grace.  I'm not able to identify a particular "light bulb" experience when I first understood that Christ died for the sins of the elect; rather, along the way in my understanding, I had to gradually work through the following questions:

1.Is Christ a real Savior, or is he a "potential" Savior?
2.Did Christ die to to atone for the sins of every human being?
3.What part did my faith play in my salvation?  Did my faith make Christ's death effective for me?
4.What was God's original purpose in sending Christ into the world?  

Several years ago we were involved in a Bible study on the doctrines of grace.  During that study, the teacher presented the following three possible options for Christ's atonement...


Either...
1.Christ died for all the sins of all people;
or
2.Christ died for some of the sins of all people;
or
3.Christ died for all of the sins of some people.


The first option represents the view of universal salvation, which is not taught in the scriptures.  Many who deny universalism would argue, though, that Christ's death created a possibility of salvation for everyone if they believe in Christ.  If this were true, then individual faith is not only a condition for redemption, but is the very grounds for redemption.  R. C. Sproul explains, "If the atonement is not efficacious apart from faith, the faith must be necessary for the satisfaction of divine justice.  Here faith becomes a work with a vengeance because its presence or absence in a sinner determines the efficacy of Christ's work of satisfaction for this person." The Bible clearly teaches that we do not earn God's grace by any good works that we do (Ephesian 2:8-9, Titus 3:5), and even our faith is a gift from God.


Obviously, the second option is faulty.  Complete atonement is not achieved for anyone.  So, that leaves the third option that Christ died for all the sins of some of the people, God's elect.  Quoting R. C. Sproul again:  "If God sent Christ to save everyone, then he must be eternally dissatisfied with the results.  Though the Son may receive satisfaction from knowing that some have availed themselves of his atonement, his satisfaction must be partial because so many have not.  This raises the cardinal point in the doctrine of limited atonement.  The ultimate question has to do not so much with the sufficiency or efficiency of the atonement, but with its design.  What was God's original purpose or intent in sending his Son into the world?  Was his divine plan to make redemption possible or to make it certain?  If God planned to redeem all men, did his plan fail?"  God's sovereignty necessitates that his plans and purposes never fail.

The next and final stop on my journey will be humanity's radical corruption.  

The Sproul quotes I used in this post came from his book entitled Grace Unknown:  The Heart of Reformed Theology.