Sermon for October 15th, 2017

Romans 11:1-10

11 I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. 2 God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? 3 “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars; I alone am left, and they are seeking my life.” 4 But what is the divine reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” 5 So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. 6 But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

7 What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, 8 as it is written, “God gave them a sluggish spirit, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.”

9 And David says, “Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them; 10 let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and keep their backs forever bent.”

The Doctrine of Limited Atonement

Pastor Henry was a young, brand new pastor. He was scheduled to hold his first ever graveside burial service at a the local cemetery for a destitute man, who left behind no family or friends. Not knowing quite where the cemetery was, Pastor Henry made several wrong turns and got lost. He eventually arrived an hour late; the hearse was nowhere in sight, but the shovel was lying next to the open hole, and the workmen were sitting under a tree eating lunch.

Pastor Henry walked up to the open grave and found the concrete vault lid already in place. Feeling guilty because of his lateness, he preached an impassioned and lengthy sermon, sending the deceased to the great beyond in considerable style. Afterward, as this young minister walked back to his car feeling quite proud of himself, he overheard one of the workmen say to the other, "Wow! You know, I've been putting in septic tanks for twenty-five years, and I ain't never seen nothing like that before."

Sometimes the work we do in this world is well-executed, powerful, and right on point...but for one reason or another does not reach its intended recipient. That, in a nutshell, is today's message about the doctrine of Limited Atonement.

This doctrine, the third in the five points of Calvinism, is perhaps the most controversial. If you ever hear someone refer to him or herself as a "four point Calvinist," usually it means that person accepts all of the other doctrines except this one. This one doctrine is what separates Reformed Presbyterians from Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, and Roman Catholics, among others--and I even know quite a few Presbyterian pastors who struggle to embrace Calvin's views here.

Considering the misguided way in which the doctrine of Limited Atonement is most often explained, I'm not surprised it's so unpopular. But in our culture today, we have an unfortunate tendency toward 15-second sound-byte explanations and knee-jerk reactions, so I'm going to ask you to suspend judgment for just a moment while I try to paint a fuller picture, and then you can make your own decision as to what you believe.

I'm going to start with what I think is the incorrect, misguided, but commonly accepted version of this doctrine. Then I'm going to move more in the direction of what Calvin and his followers actually intended, for better or worse, in the 16th and 17th centuries. Finally, I'm going to propose a way of understanding Limited Atonement today--one that breaks somewhat with traditional Calvinism, but honors its methodology and logic, and brings it into a 21st century, scientific view of the world.

So. Limited Atonement. I think we all understand what "limited" means, but what about atonement? The Oxford English Dictionary defines atonement as "The action of making amends for a wrong or injury." That is an absolutely horrible distortion of the word's original meaning...but fair enough when it comes to the way it is commonly used today.

Now the central premise in most Christian theology (Calvinist or otherwise) is that the sacrifice and death of Jesus on the cross somehow fundamentally changed the relationship between God and humankind, atoning for all of our wrongs and making us right with God. So limited atonement, the way it is commonly misunderstood, is the idea that this sacrifice, this atonement is, well...limited. Jesus only died for "some" people, those whom God predestined or chose before the foundation of the world, and no others.

There's even a song that's sometimes used to poke fun at Presbyterians because of this: "Jesus loves predestined children, only predestined children of the world; No, not you, or you, or you, Jesus only loves a few, Jesus loves predestined children of the world!"

You can see, I'm sure, why this view of limited atonement (and hence, predestination) is unpopular. But it's also pretty misguided, and not at all what Calvin and early Calvinists advocated.

They firmly believed that Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross was more than sufficient to cover the sins of all humanity. But they also looked at the world around themselves, and realized that not everyone embraced or accepted this sacrifice.

Some later theologians (and many Christians today) argued that that was the result of individual freedom of choice--God wants everyone to be saved, but like a cosmic gentleman does not force himself upon us; he respects our choice one way or another.

Calvin and the early Calvinists rejected that view specifically because of countless verses in the Bible where they read that God himself "hardened the hearts" of individuals. Verse 8 of today's passage: "GOD gave them a sluggish spirit, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day."

They believed that if you, as an individual, had to do something, if you had to "choose" God, then God's salvation was no longer truly unconditional, there were strings attached (remember last week's doctrine of unconditional election).

There's a story that I think illustrates this beautifully. Some of you may be old enough to remember folk singer Arlo Guthrie, and his famous 1967 song, Alice's Restaurant, which was later turned into a film by the same name.

The song tells the story of how Guthrie and some friends were taken to court for littering in the small town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. The arresting officer, Officer Obie, was enthusiastic about the case since it was, in the words of the song, "the biggest crime of the last 50 years" in such a small town. To prosecute the case, Officer Obie assembled a massive body of evidence, including plaster tire tracks, footprints, "twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one . . . pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner, the southwest corner . . . not to mention the aerial photography!"

On the day of the court case, the judge walked in...accompanied by a seeing eye dog. Guthrie says that Officer Obie "looked at the seein' eye dog . . . and then at the twenty-seven 8 x 10 colored glossy pictures . . . and then at the seeing eye dog . . . and Officer Obie began to cry." Guthries goes on to say that this was truly a case of American Blind Justice.

In the end, it did not matter how accurate, comprehensive, and thorough Officer Obie's preparation was...it was simply not effective for its intended recipient. The judge did not "choose" to disregard the evidence. Through forces beyond his ability to control, he was simply unable to see it, and therefore, for him, it was ineffective.

Jesus' sacrifice on the cross (according to classic Calvinism) is not limited in its scope or power. But it is limited in its effectiveness. Not because of individual choice, but rather for reasons beyond our ability to fully understand or control. Hence limited atonement.

My friend and mentor, Rev. Bill Schlesinger, explains limited atonement this way: "Not everyone gets it." Not because they're stupid. Not because they're stubborn. Not because they're bad. Everyone comes from a different context, is formed by a different set of experiences and circumstances, has different perspectives...and different blind spots. Not everyone gets it.

Incidentally, lest we set ourselves up in judgment--when it doubt it's probably safer to assume that YOU are the one who doesn't get it. I'm reminded of the story about the man driving home from work one day, when his wife calls him on his cell phone and says,  "Honey, please be careful. There was a story on the news just now--some lunatic is driving the wrong way down the highway."  "Oh it's worse than that," he replies, "there are hundreds of them!"