Christ Died for All; Rev. 5:9
Revelation 5:9 NASB
“And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are You to
take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God
with Your blood {men} from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.”
The blood of Christ (cont.)
5)
The substitutionary
death if Christ was to pay the penalty for sin. The penalty was not physical
death, it was spiritual death. The was the penalty that was enacted in the garden of Eden. Adam was separated from God; Adam and Eve
could not have a relationship with God, they ran and hid and that indicated
that something had happened in their relationship; they were spiritually dead. Physical
death was not the penalty for sin for they did not die for another 900 years. Physical
death was the consequence of spiritual death, not the penalty.
6)
Since it was not
His physical death or physical bleeding that was efficacious for salvation, but
His spiritual death, then the physical blood does not save.
7)
We have to
remember that the imagery here derives from the Old Testament sacrifices. In
the Old Testament sacrifices the animal’s throat was cut on the altar and there
was a literal bleeding, but as we are told in Hebrews
8)
The physical
death of the Messiah signified the completion of His spiritual, substitutionary
work, and it was necessary for His resurrection and to indicate the Father’s acceptance
of His sacrifice, that He had conquered sin and death. For Jesus Christ to be
resurrected demonstrated that His spiritual substitutionary death on the cross
gave us victory over physical death, and His resurrection was the first or the
down payment, called the firstfruits in Scripture of
all other resurrections. So on the basis of His physical, bodily resurrection
we have confidence that we, too, will have a future physical, bodily
resurrection when the Lord comes at the Rapture.
Another point is the extent
of that death. The solution for the sin problem is known as unlimited
atonement.
The doctrine of unlimited atonement
1)
Did Jesus die for
all? Did He only die for the elect?
2)
A high Calvinist
will hold to a five-point Calvinism but he will believe that you should make an
offer of the gospel and evangelise those who are lost; a hyper-Calvinist is
someone who doesn’t believe you should ever give the gospel to anybody, that if
God wants them to be saved He will do it without any help from you or me.
3)
The problem that
really under girds this whole subject is the question: In what sense did Christ
die for you? Was it a substitution? The problem that high Calvinists come
across is that if Christ really died for you then why aren’t you saved? He paid
the penalty so you ought to be going to heaven. But it isn’t enough to have the
sin penalty paid, there has to be an imputation of righteousness and a regeneration. The limited atonement people would say that that
it is a real substitution but they can’t get past the fact that it would
indicate in their minds that everybody would be saved, so their solution is
that was only a real substitute for those who are saved. Then there is the
classic flour-point position unlimited position which holds that the payment for
sin is unlimited but it was conditional or hypothetical. In other words, he
paid for the sins of everybody but it is only theirs actually if they trust in
Christ. That is how most people express unlimited atonement. But then there is
a problem which the high Calvinists have pointed out which is that that renders
the language of the Scripture a little bit nebulous because the language of
Scripture has a real substitution—Christ paid for our sins; truly, not
hypothetically. Our position is that it is an unlimited atonement but with a
real substitution, that Christ paid for the sins of all so that sin is no
longer the issue. John
4)
Scripture clearly
teaches that the atonement of Christ was unlimited; it was for all. Isaiah 53:6
NASB “All [every human being] of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all [everyone] To fall on Him.” John Calvin, who did not believe in
limited atonement, wrote: “I approve of the ordinary reading that he alone bore
the punishment on many, because on Him was laid the guilt of the whole world.
It is evident from other passages, and especially from the fifth chapter of the
epistle to the Romans that many sometimes denotes all.”
He died for all, for everyone without exception. In Isaiah 53: 6 the same group
of people must be included in the all
that begins the verse as the all the all
ends the verse. This is the same meaning as we have when we come to the New
Testament in 1 Timothy 2:4 NASB “who [God] desires all men to be
saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Jesus says the same kind of
thing when He is weeping for