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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.

Limited Atonement.

• Alice's Restaurant