Unlimited Means for Everyone; Rev. 5:9
Whenever we are involved with
an unbeliever and we give them the gospel, explain to them the plan of
salvation, at the very core behind all that we are saying and communicating to
them is an understanding that this person who has never put their faith alone
in Christ alone is someone for whom Jesus Christ died. Jesus Christ paid the
penalty for their sins; He paid the penalty for the sins of the entire world.
He had an atonement that was unlimited in its scope, unlimited not only in
terms of its extent for all human beings but also in that He paid the penalty
for sin in principle and for sins specifically. So there is no sin that is
committed in human history that was left unjudged on the cross.
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} [or, redeemed us to God by your blood] from every tribe
and tongue and people and nation’.” If we do not properly understand this key
phrase “redeemed us to God by your blood” then we do not understand what
underlies what is going on here in Revelation because the starting point, what
lays the basis for the book of Revelation, for the judgments that come in the
Tribulation before Jesus Christ returns, is what happened on the cross when He
paid the sin penalty.
Reviewing from last time the
idea of substitution, was this substitution real or potential? There are three
prepositions used in the Greek in this debate. The first is huper [u(per] plus the genitive which has the idea of “in place of.” There is the
preposition anti [a)nti] meaning
in place of or substitute. Then in a couple of passage there is a third
preposition, peri [peri] which also means in place of or on behalf of. These three
prepositions reinforce the fact that Christ died as a true, genuine substitute
for us. He died in our place. The Old Testament pictures we study is that lamb that was sacrificed in the Passover. When that
lamb was sacrificed and that blood applied to the doorposts of the house at the
time of the exodus it was that substitutionary death of the lamb that covered
the house so that the angel of death passed over. That is the picture we have for
redemption.
In establishing the Lord’s table Jesus said: “This is the blood of the new
covenant which us shed for [huper,
in the place of, as a substitute] many.” Luke 22:19 NASB “And when He had taken {some} bread
{and} given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is My body which is given [huper] for you; do this in remembrance of Me’.” Romans 5:6 NASB “For while we were still helpless, at
the right time Christ died for [huper]
the ungodly. [7] For one will hardly die for [huper] a righteous man; though perhaps
for the good man someone would dare even to die. [8] But God
demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ
died for [huper] us.” 1
Corinthians 15:3, 4 NASB “For I delivered to you as of first importance
what I also received, that Christ died for [huper]
our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and
that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” 1 Peter 3:18 NASB
“For Christ also died for [peri]
sins once for all, {the} just for [huper]{the}
unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the
flesh, but made alive in the spirit.” Why these are important is because so
many people think that Christ’s death on the cross was simply a demonstration
of how much God loves us. This is the moral use of the atonement. There are
some other views of the atonement but what Scripture teaches is a
substitutionary atonement, sometimes called a vicarious atonement, i.e. that
Christ died for our sins in our place.
The atonement of Christ
was unlimited. John 1:29 NASB “The next day he
saw Jesus coming to him and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the
sin of the world!’” That word
“world” means all of the inhabited planet and all of
those who inhabit it. This is seen in John 3:16-17 NASB “For God so
loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in
Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
For God did not send the Son
into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through
Him.” It is universal in its
scope. Hebrews 2:9 NASB “But we do see Him who was made for a little
while lower than the angels, {namely,} Jesus, because of the suffering of death
crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of
God He might taste death for everyone.” 2 Corinthians 5:14, 15 NASB
“For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for
all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who
live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again
on their behalf.” 1 Timothy 2:3-6 NASB “This is good and acceptable
in the sight of God our Savior, who
desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For
there is one God, {and} one mediator also between God and men, {the} man Christ
Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for [huper]
all, the testimony {given} at the proper time.”
Four key passages on the unlimited nature of the
atonement
1 Timothy 4:10 NASB “For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the
living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially
of believers.” Whenever we read that word “hope,” the Greek word elpis [e)lpij], it has a future orientation. It is looking forward
to something that we expect, something we anticipate, and it has the idea of a
confident expectation. The “living God” here is God the Son. The Greek says
exactly what the English says here: “who is the Savior
of all men [without exception], especially of believers.” Every human being who
has drawn breath throughout the centuries has had his sins paid for. Christ is
the Savior of all men but in a unique way, a special
way, in an applied way only to believers. He has paid the sin penalty for all
but only believers reap its benefit because only believers receive the
imputation of Christ’s righteousness and only believers are regenerate. So 1 Timothy 4:10
is a key passage for demonstrating that there are two levels of orientation
through the saving work of Christ: one for all, and another for only those who
believe.
2 Peter 2:1 NASB
“But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be
false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies,
even denying the Master who bought [agorazo]
them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.” The false teachers in this
chapter are not saved. The false prophets relate to the Old Testament under Israel; the false teachers are present in the church age.
The “destructive heresies” are so because they take the believer’s attention
off the Lord Jesus Christ, they take attention from off the sufficiency of
God’s grace, of God’s Word, they put the focus on human ability and human works
and not on the sufficient and completed work of Jesus Christ on the cross. The
reason why Peter uses the word “secret” here is because there heresies are
always encased in Scripture. The words “even denying the Mater who bought them”
is the key phrase for the extent of the atonement. A
lot of people down through history have denied Jesus Christ,
they did not have a substitutionary view of the atonement.
1 John 2:2 NASB
“and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but
also for {those of} the whole world.” Propitiation refers to the fact that He
satisfied God’s righteousness and justice. In propitiation there are a couple
of key words: kapporeth
is the Old Testament word that related to the mercy seat, that area on the ark of the covenant between the two cherubs. The cherubs represented
the righteousness and justice of God, and once a year on the day
of atonement the high priest would bring the blood of the sacrifice, the
lamb that was without spot or blemish, and place it upon the mercy seat. Inside
the box were emblems of Israel’s sin. So it was a visual image of how God’s justice
and righteousness were satisfied by sin being covered
by the blood of Christ. That is the principle that is in the Greek word hilasmos [i(lasmoj] and hilasterion
[i(lasthrion] which are the words for propitiation. The idea is
that God’s righteousness and justice are satisfied, not just for our sins but
for the whole world. Christ is the one who satisfies the Father, and so the
doctrine of propitiation relates to the whole world; the doctrine of redemption
relates to the whole world.
2 Corinthians 5:18 NASB
“Now all {these} things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through
Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that
God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their
trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.”
What we see here is that it is man who is reconciled to God, not God to man. It
is man who is the sinner, it is man who violated the
standard in the garden, so man must be reconciled to God. So reconciles. God does
the work, man simply accepts it. He performed this work of reconciliation
through Jesus Christ. Not only did he perform the work of reconciliation
through Jesus Christ but then to us who are believers in the
Lord Jesus Christ He has given the ministry of reconciliation—to every
one of us. It is every believer’s job to announce and proclaim the message of
reconciliation.