Welcome back to life and books and everything.

Today I am reading an article I wrote for By Faith.

By Faith is the PCA denominational magazine. It comes

out in print and also online. And at least for this year, for the last several months, I've been

writing a short theological article for each new issue. I've been doing that for two or three or

four issues. So this last one is called the Good News of Limited Atonement, which just came out

online by faith online a couple of days ago. The doctrine of limited atonement, the L in Tulip,

teaches that Christ effectively redeems from every people only those who were chosen from

eternity to salvation, quoting there from the canons of Dort. As Ersinus explains in his

commentary on the Huddlebyr Catechism, Christ's death was for everyone, quote, as it respects the sufficiency of satisfaction which he made, but not as it respects the application thereof, end quote.

In other words, the death of Christ was sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world, but it was God's will that it should effectively

redeem those and only those who were chosen from eternity and given to Christ by the Father.

Particular redemption is often considered a more favorable term because the point of the doctrine

is not to limit the mercy of God, but to make clear that Jesus did not die in the place of every sinner on the earth but for his particular people.

This is why John 6 says Jesus came to save those the Father had given to him.

And why Matthew 121 says he died for his people.

And John 1513 says for his friends.

In Acts 2028 says for the church. And Ephesians 525 says for his

bride. And Ephesians 1-4 says for those chosen in Christ. Doctrine of particular redemption is worth

defining and defending because it gets to the heart of the gospel. Should we say, Christ died so that sinners might come to him,

or Christ died for sinners? Did Christ work on the cross make it possible for sinners to come to God,

or did Christ work on the cross actually reconcile sinners to God? In other words, does the death of Jesus Christ make us

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