Fellowship of the Mystery

I have been thinking about something lately in this whole debate over whether Christ’s atonement was limited or unlimited. And a question keeps coming back to me: what if, instead of beginning with any theological system, we simply went back to the shadow of the Old Testament sacrificial system? Before Christ came, God had already given Israel an elaborate sacrificial system that pointed forward to Him. So perhaps one of the clearest ways to understand the scope of Christ’s atonement is to ask a very simple question about the pattern God Himself established: For whom was atonement provided under the old covenant? Was the sacrifice provided only for certain preselected individuals within Israel? Was it for “all kinds” of Israelites but not every Israelite? Or did God provide atonement for the whole covenant community, even though not everyone who lived under that provision ultimately walked with God in faith? Because if the sacrifices were the shadow and Christ is the substance, then the shadow may tell us something profoundly important about the scope of the reality to which it was pointing. So I went back to Leviticus. And what I found, especially in the Day of Atonement, deserves serious consideration before any of us confidently says that Christ could not have died for someone who ultimately perishes. God commanded Aaron to make atonement: “for himself and for his house and for all the assembly of Israel.” Leviticus 16:17 Then concerning the scapegoat: “Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins.” Leviticus 16:21 Please, pay close attention to the language. All the assembly. All their iniquities. All their transgressions. All their sins. God did not tell Aaron to discover which Israelites were secretly elect before making atonement. The provision belonged to the covenant community. And yet nobody should conclude that every Israelite was therefore eternally saved. Scripture itself destroys that idea. Many who shared Israel's covenant privileges remained unbelieving and perished. Paul later reminds us that although Israel passed through the sea and shared extraordinary covenant blessings, “with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness” (1 Cor. 10:5). So right there in the shadow we already have a category that Limited Atonement arguments sometimes struggle to allow: Atoning provision can extend more broadly than its saving enjoyment. That does not make the sacrifice a failure. And then Christ comes, and then the shadow gives way to something infinitely greater. John sees Jesus and cries: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29. That should stop us for a moment. Under the old covenant, the sacrifice was not restricted to an invisible selection of Israelites. And now that the true Lamb has come, are we really supposed to believe that the reality is narrower in personal provision than the shadow? The New Testament moves in precisely the opposite direction. Israel gives way to the world. One nation gives way to all nations. The old covenant priesthood gives way to the one Mediator between God and humanity. The blood of animals gives way to the blood of the Son of God. And suddenly the language becomes enormous: “God so loved the world...” John 3:16 “[He] gave himself as a ransom for all.” 1 Timothy 2:6 “That by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” Hebrews 2:9 And then John almost seems to anticipate our attempt to shrink it: “He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” 1 John 2:2 Think about the direction of biblical history. God promised Abraham that all families of the earth would be blessed through him. Isaiah said God's Servant would be more than Israel's Redeemer: “I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” Isaiah 49:6 Then Christ comes and sends His disciples to “all nations” (Matt. 28:19) and ultimately “all creation” (Mark 16:15). So the story of redemption isn't moving from a broad Old Testament provision toward a narrower New Testament one. It is exploding outward, from Israel to the nations, from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. From the blood of animals to the infinitely precious blood of Christ, from the shadow to the substance, from the temporary sacrifice to the Lamb of God, and from Israel's altar to “the sins of the whole world.” This is where the false dilemma needs to die. Someone will immediately ask: If Christ really died for every individual, why isn't every individual saved? Did His blood fail? But the Old Testament already teaches us not to reason that way. Having God's provision did not mean an Israelite could despise God, remain in unbelief and then boast, “A sacrifice exists, therefore I must be saved.” And the New Testament is even clearer. “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already.” (John 3:18) The dividing line isn't an insufficient sacrifice. It is Christ received or Christ rejected. And that makes the bronze serpent so beautiful. The poison was real. The dying were helpless. God designed the remedy. God provided the remedy. God attached His promise to the remedy. But He said: Look and live. Somehow nobody accuses the dying Israelite who looked of contributing to his own cure. Jesus then deliberately says: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” John 3:14–15 There is the gospel. God provided the Lamb. God provided the blood. God provided the Son. God provided the gospel. God provides the life. The sinner provides no atonement whatsoever. He simply believes. And Paul has already told us not to call that a work: “To the one who does not work but believes...” Romans 4:5 So I don't need to shrink Christ's death to preserve God's glory. Quite the opposite. Adam's ruin reached every human being. God's answer in Christ is sufficient for every human being. The invitation therefore goes honestly to every human being. And every human being who believes may come without wondering whether there was actually blood shed for him. The tragedy of hell is not people discovering that they were born into Adam's catastrophe but Christ's sacrifice was never intended for them. The tragedy, in John's words, is this: “Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light.” John 3:19 The shadow was generous. How much more the Lamb to whom the shadow pointed. And perhaps that is where the argument over Limited Atonement should have begun all along.