Quest for Godliness # 6

Saved by His Precious Blood

Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ is a polemical work which seeks to attack the weak and false views of the gospel while lifting up the true and biblical nature of God’s saving work in Christ. Today, as in Owen’s day, the biblical gospel has been replaced with a watered down substitute which in reality is no gospel at all. It is man centered and being such fails to exalt Christ and is in essence a different gospel than the God-centered gospel as presented in the Bible.

At the heart of debate over limited versus unlimited atonement is the fact that universal atonement removes the substitutionary nature of the cross and weakens the sovereignty of God by making salvation only a mere possibility actuated only by the free choice of man. However, within the Calvinistic worldview Christ’s redemption actually saves. Redemption is defined as “Christ’s actual substitutionary endurance of the penalty of sin in the place of certain specified sinners, through which God was reconciled to them, their liability to punishment was for ever destroyed, and a title to eternal life was secured for them” (131). It is grace, the work of the Spirit, which destroys the disposition to resist and the sinner is freed to run to Christ.

Owen's thesis asserts that in the death of Christ salvation of sinners was actually accomplished. Christ came to the earth to seek and to save those who were lost. Through his oblation, being the entire humiliation of his life and death, he has secured perfectly the redemption of those for whom he died. Therefore the salvation of sinners was completely secured through the death of Christ. This stands in direct contrast to the Arminian and Amyraldian understanding of a universal redemption, which makes salvation only possible or hypothetical. Such views actual limit the atonement more than Calvinism does. As Packer writes, “We have limited the atonement far more drastically than Calvinism does, for whereas Calvinism asserts that Christ’s death, as such, saves all whom it was meant to save, we have denied that Christ’s death, as such, is sufficient to save any of them” (138). Therefore, instead of Christ rightfully being called Savior we are left to save ourselves through our own belief and faith. The Cross work of Christ doesn’t save, but we are saved through our belief and faith in him. Nothing stands in more contrast with the biblical view of the gospel.

Owen correctly sees that the issue is not over the extent of the atonement but the very nature of the atonement. A universal atonement is therefore a depreciated atonement not able to fully save. We are left to save ourselves. However, an atonement that actually saves individuals is based on the free grace and mercy of God working through the Spirit in the hearts of sinners to secure their actual redemption. In Arminianism, the gospel call is Christ pleading hopefully that sinners may come if they are only willing. Yet, with the biblical gospel it is recognition that men and women cannot come to Christ apart from the Spirit and that Christ himself draws them to himself. God’s Son is not passive in our salvation but actively calls us to himself for salvation and healing – he actually saves.