Scope of the atonement

Jonathan Moore’s book focuses on John Preston, but he also deals with other English theologians who taught some form of universal atonement theology, including Ussher and John Davenant, the latter one of the English delegates to Dort.

Preston combined particularist and universalist by distinguishing sharply between the scope of Christ’s death and the scope of His intercession. According to Moore, “Preston . . . drives a significant wedge between the twofold high-priestly work of Christ as atonement-maker and intercessor. The effectual source of the ‘golden chain’ is not Christ’s satisfaction itself, but an almost separate work of Christ, namely his intercession. The extent of the former can be totally different from that of the latter. Christ as High Priest makes satisfaction for all without exception, but Christ as High Priest makes intercession only for the elect. It would appear that the decree of election can be removed almost altogether from propitiation and lodged solely in the limited and discriminating intercession of Christ.”

Thus, Moore concludes, “when Preston speaks of the death of Christ not failing in its purpose, he does not mean that the death of Christ in itself is effectual, but that together with the intercession of Christ it becomes effectual for those to whom it is destined to be applied.”

This is unsatisfactory for many reasons, among them the fact that it contradicts the character of atoning sacrifice in Scripture. Sacrificial action is not, after all, confined to substitutionary death, though it includes a moment of substitutionary death; it includes ascent into the presence of God. Jesus fulfills the Day of Atonement, and the day of atonement rites include not only the slaughter and sending-out of two rams but the priest’s entry into the Most Holy Place. How can the animal be killed for one group of people, but the High Priest enter and sprinkle the blood of the very same animal for another group? The blood is evidence that a death has taken place for someone or some collection of someones; how can that blood represent different someones than those for whom the animal died? (Convoluted, that, but perhaps clear enough for blogging.)

On Moore’s account, John Davenant’s position has more to recommend it. Davenant claims that the incarnation and work of Christ have multiple intentions for different people. As Moore says, quoting from Davenant, “The salvation of the elect is not the ‘only or sole end’ of Christ’s death. Davenant insisted that ‘[w]e ought not . . . so to urge the special good pleasure of God towards the elect, that we should deny that the ransom of Christ was ordained by God to reconcile and deliver all mankind individually.’ Rather we should be content to affirm that ‘Christ himself merited, and offered his merits, in a different way for different persons.’” Sending the Son in flesh expressed both God’s general love for humanity, His “common love of the human race, which we call philanthropy” as well as His special love for the elect, His “good pleasure.”

Predestination and “effectual vocation” apply only to the elect, Davenant said, but “the oblation of Christ on the cross, is of wider extent.” It’s necessary then to recognize a “double will” in Christ: “there was in Christ himself a will according to which he willed that his death should regard all men individually; and there was also a will according to which he willed that it should pertain to the elect alone. He willed that it should regard all the posterity of Adam who should be saved, and that it should actually save them all, provided they should embrace it with a true faith. He willed that it should so pertain to the elect alone, that by the merit of it all things which relate to the obtaining of salvation, should be infallibly given to them.”

On this basis, Davenant claims that Christ’s atonement secured certain gifts for the non-elect: “Davenant was not content merely to assert that Christ’s satisfaction was applicable to the non-elect. To a certain extent, and to at least some of the non-elect, Christ’s death was actually applied .” In Davenant’s own words, “the meritorious efficacy of the death of Christ is not to be restricted to the elect alone, but is applicable to others from the ordination of God, and is actually applied as to certain effects.” He is not merely asserting that the non-elect enjoy certain outward, cultural effects because of the effect of Christ’s death. He is talking about “sundry initial preparations tending to Conversion, merited by Christ . . . and wrought by the Holy Ghost in the hearts of man.” These graces “include illumination, a sense of sin, and a fear of punishment.” Moore claims that this was “what the British delegation to Dort as a whole were happy to confession,” namely that “some fruits of Christ’s death, not comprised in the Decree of Election, but afforded more generally, yet confined to the Visible Church,” which are “true and spiritual Graces, accompanying the Gospel, and conferred upon some non-electi ” (Moore is quoting from John Hales, Golden Remains ).He refused to follow Preston’s distinction between Christ’s death and intercession: “for Davenant, both the death and intercession of Christ are applicable to all. Christ died for all on condition that they believe, and he will intercede for all if only they believe.” Through Christ’s death, God is made willing-to-reconcile, but that actual reconciliation occurs only when one believes. Instead of distinguishing Christ’s death and His intercession as Preston did, for Davenant it is “the predestinating and most free will of God that takes a general atonement and applies it how he wills.”

Without endorsing his entire argument, Davenant offered a useful path with his notion that the atonement had multiple purposes in view. It not only helps reconcile the particular and the universal statements of Scripture, but expresses the character of atonement in the Levitical system. On the Day of Atonement, the High Priest confessed “all the iniquities of the sons of Israel, and all their transgressions in regard to all their sins” over the scapegoat (Leviticus 16:21). This is a particular atonement, in that the High Priest is Israel’s priest. If we say that only the elect within Israel actually had their sins forgiven and removed, still the non-elect enjoyed certain benefits of the atonement: Because of the atonement, the sins and iniquities of Israel were removed from the camp, the high priest was renewed/recovered in his office, the tabernacle was purged so that Yahweh remained among Israel. All Israel enjoyed benefits of the atonement, though they enjoyed different benefits.

Which brings up a couple of final comments: First, I suspect that this whole debate, and other debates about the atonement, would be greatly clarified by rooting the whole discussion in Leviticus and its categories and terminology. If we don’t understand the Bible’s fundamental theology of sacrifice very well – and we don’t – then we’re going to have a hard time figuring out what Jesus’ atonement means. Historically, atonement theology has focused almost exclusively on the death of Jesus; and sacrifice has been equated with substitutionary death, which is far narrower than the biblical meaning of the term.

Second, I suspect that the whole debate could be clarified by setting in a more sociological context. As Moore points out, even the strictest of the particularists recognized that certain cultural benefits came to the non-elect through Jesus’ work. In biblical-theological terms, though, these cultural effects should not be pushed to the background. God called Abram after the collapse of the Babel project, which means that God called Abram in order to form a new city, a civic-order and civilization. God’s whole project is to renew humanity as humanity actually exists, which means as communal/social beings. This goal must be more central to Jesus’ death and resurrection than it has been in the history of Christian theology.

We need a study ( many studies, really), rooted in Leviticus, that explores in a quasi-Anselmian way the social and cultural necessity of the atonement.