Edward D. Griffin, “An Humble Attempt to Reconcile the Differences of Christians Respecting the Extent of the Atonement,” in The Atonement: Discourses and Treatises (Boston: Congregational Board of Publication, 1859), 310–315.CHAPTER XI
BELIEVER AND UNBELIEVER CONFOUNDED WITH ELECT AND NON-ELECT, AND WITH MAN AS A CAPABLE AGENT
WHEN we say that the atonement was for Simon Magus, we mean that it was a provision for him as a capable agent. But when our brethren deny that it was for him, they constantly allude to the secret purpose of God about its application. And from fastening their eye thus on the secret purpose, which respected passive receivers of regenerating influence, they have in a great measure lost sight of man as a capable agent, and reasoned about him as though he had nothing to do with exercising faith, but only with receiving it. Hence they tell us, if the atonement was made to benefit believers, and not unbelievers, it was not made for Simon Magus, for he was never to believe. Here again comes out the fault of the whole system. It was not a provision for him as a capable agent, because it was not to benefit one of his character; entirely burying his agency, and making the character as passively received and as essential to the man as complexion and sex. Had it been for white men and not for black men, or for men and not for women, you might have said of that Ethiopian that it was not for him, or of this female that it was not for her. Or if it had been publicly and avowedly offered for the receivers of faith, and not for the benefit of believers, then you might have said that it was not for Simon Magus, for he was never to receive faith. But, if it was publicly offered for the use of all indiscriminately who as agents would believe, and Simon was not a dead mass of matter, but endowed with natural ability to believe, then it was a complete provision for him as a capable agent. And then unbelief was not essential to him, like mind itself, but was a character which he had assumed on his own responsibility. The man will be charged with an atonement which was never made to benefit the unbeliever. But our brethren first sink the man in the unbeliever, and then make the unbeliever the mere non-recipient of faith.
And when they have thus annihilated human agency, and set men before them as mere passive receivers or non-receivers of faith, then they proceed with perfect consistency and say: if the atonement was made to benefit believers and not unbelievers, it was not made for the non-elect, for they will never believe. Here they get unbelievers and non-elect confounded. Now believer and unbeliever denote agents of certain characters, but elect and non-elect are terms of passive import, like chosen and rejected, and denote men passively appointed to receive, or not to receive, regenerating influence. But in arriving at this point they make no new mistake. When they have set men before them, not as those who are to exercise faith, but as those who are to receive it, and make them entirely passive in their faith and unbelief, it is no matter whether they exclude them as unbelievers, or as men passively appointed to be non-recipients of faith. Had the atonement not been for black men or for women, you might have said that it was not for those who were foreordained to that complexion or sex; that is, you might have affirmed the same thing of them as appointed to such a distinction, that you would assert of them as actually possessing it, because in the appointment and the possession they are equally passive. So if men were as passive in their unbelief as they are in their non-election, you might affirm the same thing of them as non-elect that you do of them as unbelievers. But now to confound these terms, is to bury up their agency in rejecting the gospel, and utterly to change the principles of the divine administration. Because men are denied the benefits of the atonement as unbelievers, you exclude them as non-elect. But to debar them as non-elect is to cut them off without their own fault; to shut them out as unbelievers is to make their own sinful rejection of the gospel the ground of their exclusion. In short, this confounding of unbelievers and non-elect completely overlooks the agency of men, and brings into use such a language as would befit them if they were mere machines.
And yet this very practice gives to our brethren almost all the texts which even have the semblance of supporting their cause, and it appears also in a number of their terms and popular arguments. Thus because Christ laid “down his life for his friends,” they infer that he died only for the elect. “If a man pay a ransom price to redeem his own friends from captivity, however great the price, or however many others may be in captivity, yet when it is inquired, for whom was the price paid? the answer is, for his friends whom he designed to redeem.” But if the atonement of Christ was to benefit all who would be his friends, it was a provision for all as capable agents, for no natural inability, and nothing but a blamable temper, prevents any from being his friends. In the same manner whatever is said of the church (“the general assembly” of heirs, the people who “in the dispensation of the fulness of times” are gathered “together in one—in Christ,” the body with its living members compacted together and drawing present life from the Head, the bride already married to Christ by a voluntary covenant), they apply unqualifiedly to the elect. Eph. 1:10, 22, 23; 4:16; Heb. 12:23; Rev. 21:9. But though in one or two places the body of believers, under the name of the church, are spoken of with special reference to their antecedent election, and to their redemption from sin by the larger ransom, yet the unregenerate elect are never comprehended under the name of church. Thus, too, whatever is said of the sheep (the flock, by whose footsteps believers are exhorted to go forth, who are under the sensible care of the good Shepherd, and are led by him into “green pastures” and “beside the still waters,” who know him, and hear his voice, and follow him, and will stand on his right hand to receive a gracious reward), they apply to the elect as such, merely because once, by way of anticipation, Christ calls the unregenerate elect his sheep. Ps. 22; Cant. 1:7, 8. Matt. 25:33; John 10:14, 16, 27.* And they reason about the sheep and goats as though these terms denoted the elect and non-elect, when in fact, with the single exception already noticed, they uniformly stand for the good and bad.* In the same way they make the seed of the serpent to mean the non-elect, and argue that the seed of the woman would not die for the seed of the serpent; as though the elect themselves were not the seed of the serpent while continuing to possess the spirit of the serpent. In the same way they make the people of God to be synonymous with elect. “For whom Christ offered himself as a sacrifice, for the same does he intercede (for his priestly office is not performed for any by halves): but he intercedes, it is agreed, for none but his own people: therefore he died for none but his own people.” “He intercedes, it is agreed, for none but his own people!” But who are his own people? Not the elect as such, not the unconverted elect, but believers. “In the place where it was said unto them, ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, ye are the sons of the living God.” “I will call them my people which were not my people, and her beloved which was not beloved.” Hos. 1:10; Rom. 9:25, 26. If by this exclusive intercession you mean that Christ pleads for the pardon and acceptance of none but believers, we agree; but what is this to the purpose? We never thought that he died to procure the pardon and acceptance of any but believers. I suppose that the intercession of Christ is the silent plea or influence of his expiation and merit (for it is not limited to pardon), John 17; and that of course it is just so far offered for all as his expiation and merit affect all. He intercedes, then, that millions who are never saved may have a day of probation, and the offer of life, and the common and convicting influences of the Spirit. He intercedes that all indiscriminately may be saved who will believe, offering thus his effectual intercession to all, and making it to all a complete provision for moral agents. “He is able—to save them to the uttermost who come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.” Heb. 7:25. He intercedes that the elect may have the gift of faith: and when as agents they believe, he employs for them that full intercession which he offers to others. After the same manner, when the sacred writers say that Christ atoned for them, our brethren will always have it that they speak of themselves as elect, and not as moral agents and believers. But this is assumed without a particle of proof. In this way it is that they find an atonement which accomplishes reconciliation. They hear the apostles say that they and other believers had been saved from wrath by the blood of Christ, meaning that as believers they had been pardoned on the ground of the atonement; and they at once conclude that all this is said of them as elect, and that of course the atonement reconciles all for whom it was offered.
In this way it is that they discover in the Scriptures so many appearances of a limited atonement. Take away those texts which speak of believers, and they will be surprised to find how few remain which glance at any special reference to the elect. The whole of this number which I have been able to discover, after examining the collection made by the Synod of Dort, were presented in a former chapter; and they express either the power of the larger ransom, or the reference of Christ to the elect as his reward. Not one of them touches the question now in debate. I have been struck with the fact that in an ingenious treatise lately written to prove a limited atonement, when the author came to produce his direct texts, in the form of a distinct argument, he quoted but these two: “I lay down my life for the sheep,” and, “The church—which he hath purchased with his own blood;” two texts, of which (if they are not limited to believers) the former expresses the special reference of Christ to the elect as his reward, and the latter the power of the larger ransom. For the rest the author chiefly relies on election, foreknowledge, the secret purpose of God, and the limitation of the larger ransom; neither of which is denied, or has any thing to do with the present question.
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* In this chapter [John 10] Christ sets before him the sheep as a flock already gathered and under his care; and in what he says about laying down his life for them, he alludes to the fidelity of a shepherd in exposing his life to defend his flock, actually assembled around him, from beasts of prey. “The good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is a hireling and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming and leaveth the sheep and fleeth, and the wolf catcheth them and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth because he is a hireling and careth not for the sheep. I am the good Shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.—My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” He had begun the discourse by saying, “He [that pastor in the church] that entereth in by the door [Christ is the door, ver. 7, 9], is the shepherd of the sheep [of the church, or body of believers]. To him the porter openeth, and the sheep [believers] hear his voice; and he calleth his own sheep by name and leadeth them out [from other sheep who are false professors]. And when he putteth forth his own sheep he goeth before them [in a way of holy example and instruction], and the sheep follow him [in a life of holiness]; for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him; for they know not the voice of strangers.—All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers; but the sheep did not hear them.” In all this he meant nothing by sheep but members of the visible church, and except one allusion to false professors, true believers. He then changes the figure, and from the door through which the under shepherds enter, he becomes the Shepherd himself: but still the primary meaning of sheep is believers. When he calls the elect Gentiles his sheep, it is plainly by anticipation [i.e., proleptically]; but when he speaks of laying down his life for his sheep, he means for the gathered and existing flock, such a flock as a hireling Jewish pastor would abandon to the wolves. This was accomplished when it was said, “Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd.” But who at that time were the flock? the unregenerate elect, or believers? It is added, “Smite the Shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered.” This, we are expressly told, was fulfilled when the twelve disciples forsook him and fled. Zech. 13:7; Matt. 26:31. In another place, by the sheep which he came to save he plainly means believers, viewed with reference to their lost condition as sinners [i.e., believers as sinners]. “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones.—For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost. How think ye? if a man have a hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.” Matt. 18:10–14. On another occasion he gave a similar representation to justify himself in associating with publicans and sinners, who, with Matthew at their head, flocked to catch the word of life from his lips. Luke 15. with ch. 5:27–32. But notwithstanding all this evidence that by the sheep for which he laid down his life he meant believers, I have admitted that in the assertion he glanced at the previous election of those believers, and at the special reference which he had to them as his reward.
* Unless John 10:26 is an exception
For more in response to those using John 10 as proof for limited atonement, see here (click).
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