Silly Claims Made Against General Atonement

Just got done reading Jay Adams blog post from September 24, 2009, about limited atonement. He repeats the same silly canards about general atonement that have turned me off in the past. My reaction is...

General atonement is not impersonal! This is a totally silly claim, as if Reformed theologians are groping for a pitch that will sell well to individualistic Americans. Once you say that God is all-knowing and personal, then He had each and every individual person in mind just as if no one existed but that one person.

Christ's death doesn't unilaterally save. The Reformed view on limited atonement is as if it would have been enough for the Passover lamb to be slain, to protect the Jews from the death angel (in the Exodus story). But it wasn't enough. They had to paint their doorposts and lintels with the blood. The sick Israelites needed to look at the bronze serpent, to be healed. The worshiper at the tabernacle had to lay his hand on the lamb's head, to signify the personal (ceremonial) imputation of his guilt for sin. None of the types and shadows of atonement ever depicted the cross as working in a unilateral way. If it does, then we would need to say that the sins of the unsaved elect are already propitiated, which, historically speaking, is a documented Reformed heresy. But Romans 3:25 says our sins are propitiated through faith. Until you haver trusted in Christ, your sins are not propitiated. This is a problem with limited atonement -- it's hyper-objectivity.

Christ's death does make salvation "possible" for all, unless God is a liar. Why is God, being righteous, able to remain "just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Christ"? Because Christ died for all. God cannot morally or ethically promise everyone the gift of forgiveness, without first establishing the basis of the offer, which is Christ's death. If Christ did not die for so-and-so, then God cannot offer that person forgiveness without lying in the process. The bronze serpent on the pole was available to all the sick Israelites, including any who, in bitter unbelief, wouldn't and didn't look at it. God made salvation from the snake venom possible for all.

It's ridiculous to say that God "failed" if everyone for whom Christ died doesn't come to Christ. Since God never said that Christ's death would save everyone, then God can't be accused of "failure". God said that Christ's death saves everyone who trusts in it, and in Him.

I believe in general atonement because the Bible clearly teaches it, and the arguments made in favor of limited atonement are all based on logic fallacies. Jay Adams needs to eschew these foolish, canned, preaching-to-the-choir arguments. If limited atonement is true, then he doesn't know if Christ died for him, since (if limited atonement is true) then no one knows for whom Christ died. I choose the certainty that comes from faith in an objectively-knowable atonement, over the doubt, fear, and neurotic self-examing that limited atonement doctrine creates.