Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Grace In Focus. Today, answering a question from a listener about forgiveness. If the atonement was good for the covering of all sin, are unbelievers in any sense forgiven of their sin? A great question may be a question you’ve heard before. Let’s think about it today. Grace In Focus is the radio and podcast ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website, faithalone.org. And we want you to be informed about our national conference. We have this every year in May. This year, the dates are May 18th through the 21st. We’ll be celebrating our 40th year of Free Grace ministry. And our theme is “Believe in Him For Life”. Get all the details, get registered. Come maybe with us May 18th through the 21st. Find it all at faithalone.org. 

And now, for today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Sam Marr. 

SAM: All right, Bob. We’ve got a question today from Joseph. This is actually a phone call that I took. So I wrote down some of what he asked. His first question is, can we say that Christ has forgiven nonbelievers? And this is in reference to His death on the cross, that His death on the cross forgive nonbelievers. 

BOB: Okay, and I know he’s got some follow-ups on that. But let’s start there. In Acts chapter 10, Peter said, “All the prophets testify that whoever believes in Him,” and he was talking about the Lord Jesus Christ who died and rose again, “receives the forgiveness of sins.” So in order to receive the forgiveness of sins, you must believe in Jesus. So the answer to his question is no. 

Now, I have an article called “The Extent of the Atonement”, varying degrees of the extents of the atonement. And I point out, there is one aspect of the atonement that’s for the unbeliever. There are some other aspects that are for all believers. And then there are some aspects that are only for believers who are in fellowship with Christ. But I think his follow-up questions relate to the extent of the atonement. 

SAM: Yeah, that’s the exact question. Is how far does the atonement go? And we had a little bit of discussion on the phone and where we talked about it. But that was the general question. And then there’s another follow-up to that one. But maybe generally, how far does the atonement go? 

BOB: Okay, so the L in tulip, which is the acronym for Calvinism, stands for limited atonement, although Calvinists prefer the expression “particular redemption”—that Christ only redeemed the elect, the select few. But it’s called limited atonement by non-Calvinists. And non-Calvinists believe in what’s called unlimited atonement. 

So in answer to Joseph’s question, unlimited atonement, means Christ’s shed blood on the cross removes the sin barrier for every single person. John 1:29, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” And we could almost translate that, “who will take it away”, because John the Baptist is using a present tense because Jesus has come to die. This is where He’s pointing in His ministry, and He’s about to take away the sin of the world. What this means—sin, not sins plural, means that He’s taking away that barrier between us and God. 

Now, not everybody in evangelicalism agrees with that. Even people who say they believe in unlimited atonement, many of them say He potentially died for the sins of the world. And when you believe that He died for you and rose again, then it actually counts. But that’s not what John 1:29 says. That’s also not what 1 John 2:2 says: He’s the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the whole world. And propitiation basically means satisfaction of God’s justice. So he has satisfied God’s justice for everyone. 

But that’s not the same as saying that the blood of Christ has the same benefit for the unbeliever as for the believer. Until we believe, we don’t get the other benefits from the atonement. We just get that one benefit that we’ve been made savable. 

SAM: Right. So would it be correct to say, back to the first question, He potentially forgives the whole world or potentially forgives everybody? 

BOB: Every other benefit is potential. In other words, one of those benefits is the forgiveness of sins. At the moment a person believes, they receive the forgiveness of sin. Another benefit, of course, is they’re born of God. Another benefit is they’re declared righteous by God. Another benefit is they’re permanently indwelled by the Holy Spirit. None of those things are true of the unbeliever. The unbeliever is just savable. He potentially could be indwelled permanently by the Spirit. He potentially could be eternally secure, you know, he potentially has all these benefits, the forgiveness of sins, etc. 

But then there are other benefits that are only for believers walking in fellowship with God. For example, 1 John 1:7 says, “If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, then the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.” And 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” So the believer needs ongoing forgiveness and the believer needs ongoing cleansing, and they only get it if they’re doing two things, walking in the light and acknowledging their sins. 

SAM: So then where the conversation led, when he was talking about the atonement and how far it goes, part of the question was, if the sins of the world have been atoned for, Christ was an atonement for the whole world, believer and unbeliever, is that related to why God’s behavior in the Old Testament appears different from His behavior in the New Testament. 

For example, nations and people groups or individual people that God judged for their sin in the Old Testament, through physical destruction or judgment, but it appears that He doesn’t do that since the death of Christ. This was Joseph’s point of view. 

The question then that I asked him was the destruction of the temple in 72 AD [sic], and then the scattering of the Jewish people, which was prophesied that that was going to happen. Jesus forewarned them. Did they receive God’s judgment on the nation of Israel or was what happened to them just the natural consequence of their actions

BOB: Yeah, that’s a good point. So that’s after the shed blood of Christ, after the atonement, the atonement was in 33 AD, the destruction of the temple, and the diaspora with all of the Jews being sent out, that occurred in 70 AD, 37 years later. Jesus said in Matthew 23:37-39, “Oh Jerusalem Jerusalem, how I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks, but you were not willing.” 

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BOB: “How I would have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks, but you were not willing.” And so because Israel was not willing, He scattered them rather than gathered them. Now the Old Testament prophets tell us there’s going to be a final end-gathering of Israel, and that will occur during the end of the church age at the beginning of the Tribulation. He will bring the Jews from around the world to Israel. Some people argue the final end-gathering happened in 1948, maybe. I think probably that was the beginning of the final end-gathering, but it’s not done. There’s going to be millions more that come from around the world at the end of the church age, sometime between the Rapture and the beginning of the Tribulation, or the very first few months, let’s say, of the Tribulation. I expect Israel’s population to swell. But in any case, that was judgment by God. 

And I think it’s quite wrong to say that God hasn’t been judging nations. For example, God in Genesis 12 said, “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.” That’s not been removed. Those who are anti-semitic, those who are persecuting Israel and persecuting Jews are reaping what they sow. I think we can certainly see what happened to Germany after Hitler tried to exterminate the Jews. Germany was almost destroyed. When East Germany united with West Germany, it was great for them because their standard of living shot up, but it was horrible for the West Germans, because they had this bankrupt economy that was thrown upon them. Germany has come back, but people like Hitler, people like Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, all of their people groups have experienced God’s judgment. 

What’s going on now in Nigeria, for example, with tens of thousands of Christians have been killed, maybe even hundreds of thousands. The President is saying he’s considering sending in troops to annihilate the people who are killing all of the Christians. I don’t know if he’s going to do that. If he did, I would see that as an aspect of God’s judgment because He uses nations to judge other nations. 

SAM: So then where do we draw the distinction between natural consequence for sin and God’s judgment? Let’s say, for example, for an individual, if someone commits murder, there are natural consequences like someone might try and avenge their family member or something, or maybe you’re killed by the police or injured by the police in the pursuit of doing it, is that a natural consequence for sin and God’s judgment, or is—where do we draw the line? 

BOB: I like your both-and statement because the Old Testament allowed for the family members of someone who was killed to kill the murderer unless they escaped to one of the various cities of refuge. And if they escaped to the cities of refuge, then the elders had to determine if the person was guilty or they were innocent. But in any case, they allowed for people to avenge the death, and of course there was the death penalty for murder under the law of Moses. But it was also a natural consequence, like if you’re robbing a bank and you get shot and killed trying to flee, though that’s both a natural consequence and something God has built in because God says He’s given us our government authorities as His representatives, as His avengers. 

So I don’t agree with the fact, you know, some people say the God of the Old Testament’s different from the God of the New Testament, that’s comical. Wait to see what happens at the end of the Tribulation. Billions are going to die. Billions. So if the atonement is not going to result in calamity for people, why billions are going to die? Probably over half of the world’s population dies during the Tribulation. Some people say as much as two-thirds or three-quarters, which on our current world population would be five, six billion people dying. And we don’t know what the world’s population is going to be at the time of the Rapture, during the Tribulation. So no, the atonement doesn’t eliminate God’s judgment on individuals or nations. 

SAM: All right. Well, I think those were helpful questions for clarifying. And we ended up a little bit of a downer, but I hope this helps everyone keep grace in focus. Amen. 

BOB: All right, everybody. So you heard him keep grace in focus. Amen. 

ANNOUNCER: Be sure to check out our daily blogs at faithalone.org. They are short and full of great teaching, just like what you’ve heard today. Find them at faithalone.org/resources/blog. We would like to thank all of our financial partners who help us keep this show going. All gifts are tax deductible and very much appreciated. If you’d like to find out how you can be a financial partner, visit us at faithalone.org.

On our next episode: in 1 John 4:8, are all the beloved born again? Please join us for that. And until then, let’s keep grace in focus.