For Those Whom the Father Has Given

Christ not only atones for the sin of His people, He not only lays down His life for His sheep, but then He prays daily as our high priest and as our intercessor for our preservation, that not one of His people for whom He has died will ever, ever be lost. The words of Jesus in John 17 bring the believer such comfort to know in this prayer of Jesus that He prays for His sheep. He prays for us. Yet these words of comfort are also hard because they reveal to us that there are some people that Jesus doesn't pray for.

There are some for whom Jesus did not lay down His life. Welcome to the Tuesday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm your host, Nathan W. Bingham.

All week, R.C. Sproul is tackling some of the hard sayings of the Bible, and today he examines a hard saying of Jesus. When Christians discuss the doctrines of grace, Reformed theology, if there's disagreement, it often happens when the subject of the atonement comes up. For whom did Christ die? And whom does He pray for and intercede as their high priest? Although the answers to these questions can seem hard at first, we mustn't ignore the plain teaching of Scripture, and they are in fact sweet gospel truths.

Here's R.C. Sproul in John 17. When it comes to the hard sayings of Jesus, it would seem that the last place we would expect to find a hard saying is in the prayers of Jesus. And most particularly, when we read the magnificent account of the so-called high priestly prayer of Jesus that is recorded for us in the Gospel according to St. John in the 17th chapter of that book. Here we have an intimate opportunity to eavesdrop on Jesus as He is performing His work of intercession, not only for the disciples that were His at that time, but for all of His people who ever believe in Him. I say to people, this is the only place in all of Scripture where you are mentioned specifically, not by name, but when Jesus prays, He prays not only for His disciples, but for all of those who will believe in Him through their testimony, so that in that sense, Jesus is praying for us if it be so that we have embraced the testimony of the apostles. So, what's the problem that we would encounter in such a wonderful setting as this high priestly prayer?

Well, we'll look at that problem in just a second, but let me say another word of preface before we dig into the text itself. The setting for this prayer, if you recall, is on the night before Jesus was crucified. It takes place in the upper room on the occasion where Jesus celebrated the Passover for the last time with His disciples and where He instituted the Lord's Supper.

And so, it is a particularly important occasion. It's also the occasion where we have the most extensive discussion ever from the lips of Jesus on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. John 14, 15, 16, a very important segment of our Lord's teaching for us.

But where is the hard saying? Well, let's take a look at the text now in John chapter 17, and I'm going to begin at verse 6. This is not the entire intercessory prayer or high priestly prayer as it is most often called, but it's the segment that contains the difficulty. In verse 6 we read this, I have manifested your name to the men whom you have given me out of the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they have known that all things which you have given me are from you, for I have given to them the words which you have given me, and they have received them, and have known surely that I came forth from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. And all mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them, and now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to you. Holy Father, keep through your name those whom you have given me, that they may be one as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. And those whom you gave me I have kept, and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the scripture may be fulfilled. But now I come to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth.

Well, what's the problem with this? It's a wonderful prayer of intercession. It's very comforting and heartening to us to hear our Lord plead so passionately for the preservation of those the Father has given to Him. Well, the problem comes in with this one little qualifying statement that is made in verse 9. I pray for them, that is, for those whom the Father had given Him. I do not pray for the world. Jesus here makes a clear and sharp distinction between those for whom He is praying and those for whom He is not praying.

He is not interceding for everyone, but He's only interceding for the believers, for those whom the Father has given to Him. And where this text becomes so controversial in church history is over the doctrine that is one of the most hotly disputed doctrines in Protestant theology and in the tradition of Reformation theology, and that is the doctrine called limited atonement. I don't particularly like that term, limited atonement, because I think it's misleading. But the reason why limited atonement is called limited atonement is because the phrase starts with an L, and it fits so neatly into the famous acrostic that is used to summarize the five points of Calvinism, which acrostic is known as tulip.

If we had tiny Tim here, he could tiptoe through this tulip with us and try to give us some explanation. But that little acrostic tulip has its roots back in the controversy that emerged in Holland among Dutch Reformed people, a group who had been influenced significantly by the theology called Arminianism who were called remonstrants, remonstrated or protest against certain teachings of the Reformation, focusing on the doctrine of election that was so problematical for these remonstrants. And they isolated five points that they disagreed with, and those five points were the total depravity of man, the unconditional election of the redeemed, the limited atonement, the irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the sick. And so that's where we get this idea of five, not that Calvin or the Reformed theologians said, okay, our theology is based on five points and spelled them out. No, these were the five points of disputation that came about at the Synod of Dordrecht earlier on.

But of all of these five, all five points are controversial and have been controversial for centuries, but we have a whole generation of people today who identify themselves as the so-called four-point Calvinists. This is particularly true in the dispensational community where historic dispensationalism in America has grown out of a Reformed tradition, and many dispensational theologians and believers would readily affirm total depravity, unconditional election, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints, but the one they choke on is this owl, this so-called limited atonement. And the problem here is that limited atonement seems to suggest that Jesus did not die for everybody, that He did not die on the cross for the sins of the whole world, but that He only died on the cross for the elect, for a particular specified group of people whom God had chosen from the foundation of the world, and that the sacrifice that Christ offered on the cross was intended and designed simply to redeem them, not just anybody indiscriminately. Now, those who object to limited atonement want to insist that the purpose of the cross was to make salvation possible for every person in the world, and that Jesus really did die on the cross for all the sins of all the people of all time in the world.

Now, before I respond to that, let me say that I mentioned in passing that I wasn't all of that enamored by the term limited atonement because it's somewhat misleading, I'd rather use the phrase particular redemption. Now, to understand this controversy, let me mention another one that is closely related to it, but it is not the same controversy, and that is the debate over universalism and what is called particularism. Universalism and particularism. Universalism, as the word suggests, teaches that all human beings ultimately are saved, and the basis of their salvation is the person and work of Christ. The atonement that Christ made on the cross guarantees the salvation of every human person. Particularism is that view that teaches that not everybody is saved, but only those who have faith in Christ, only believers are saved. Now, in the historic debate between Arminianism and Calvinism or between dispensationalism and Reformed theology and so on, Arminianism, dispensationalism strongly and consistently affirm particularism and deny universalism.

Reformed theology, dispensational theology, Arminian theology all agree that not everybody is saved because it seems abundantly clear in Scripture that there will be people who will be in hell and who will be lost in the final analysis. Now, again, this is not the debate over limited atonement, but all sides agree that in some sense there is a limit to the atonement of Jesus Christ, that they all agree that the atonement of Jesus Christ does not secure the salvation of all people. Now, recently I gave an examination to my seminary students, and one of the questions on the test had to do with the doctrine of the atonement and the meaning of the atonement of Christ on the cross. And I noticed that several of the students, in answering the question in general about the atonement, raised in their essay answers, they raised the matter of limited atonement, and the vast majority of them defined limited atonement in this popular way. They said limited atonement means that the atonement of Jesus Christ is sufficient for all but efficient only for some.

Now what does that mean? Well, that means that the value of the sacrifice that Christ made was certainly valuable enough to atone for all of the sins of all of the people who have ever lived, so that there is no dispute about the sufficiency of His merit or of His value of His death. But then the atonement only brings about the effect of salvation for those who embrace it in faith, and so it's only efficient or effective for the believer.

Now, please don't misunderstand me. I don't disagree with my students. I agree with them completely that the atonement of Jesus is sufficient for all and efficient for some, but that's not what limited atonement is all about. That's not what the controversy is all about because Arminianism, dispensationalism, and Reformed theology all agree that the atonement is sufficient for all but efficient only for those who believe.

The deeper question that is behind this controversy is simply the question of the design of the atonement, namely, what was God's purpose in sending Christ into the world to die on the cross? Did God from all eternity intend to save everybody? Well, if He from all eternity intended to save everybody, what do you suppose that would mean? Everybody would be saved or else God's intents are completely frustrated by the affairs of men. Or, if it was God's purpose to save the whole world, then that purpose was frustrated and God's plan of redemption would be a failure. The assumption that the person in the Reformed tradition makes here, which I don't think is a gratuitous assumption, is that when God has a plan and a design and a purpose, it doesn't fail. He brings to pass what He intends to bring to pass. And this is nowhere more true than with His plan of salvation. If it ends up in the final analysis that somebody goes to hell and that not everybody is saved, that can only mean that it was never God's intention to save everybody. But it was His intention to save some people in this world. And we talk about ends and means, and a means is something that is used in order to accomplish the end, to get to the goal, to get to the purpose. Now, the question is this. Is the cross of Christ the end of redemption or a means to the end?

That's the issue. If it's an end, then that means all God ever intended to do was to make salvation possible by providing a Savior and then leaving the consequences and the results of all of that up to us. Or is the cross the means that God employed to accomplish His eternal purpose of saving His people? Reform theology says the latter, says that the whole purpose of Christ coming into the world was to save the elect. The whole purpose for Christ going to the cross according to God's eternal plan was to save the elect, and that when Christ died, He laid down His life for His sheep. He did not lay down His life for everybody. That the atonement that He made, He made for His sheep, and that those who are not His sheep do not participate in that atonement, and He never intended for them to participate in that atonement because He wasn't dying for them, with them in view.

Now that sounds harsh. That's a hard saying. And that's what brings us back to the seventeenth chapter, where here in John's gospel, we see Jesus speaking repeatedly of those who have come to Him in faith who were given to Him by the Father. It was the Father who gave Christ a body of children, if you will, a body of believers, so that the Son of God would see the travail of His soul and be satisfied. Can you imagine Jesus going to the cross, offering an atonement to the Father, and then hoping that somebody will make use of it, but yet theoretically realizing that He could have died completely in vain, that He could have offered Himself on the cross, and it's theoretically possible, if you deny this concept of a particular redemption, that nobody would ever come to Christ, and that He could have suffered all of this for nothing. But that was not the purpose of God.

God wouldn't hear of such a thing. God sent His Son to the cross to make an atonement that would work and that would do the job. And Christ offered Himself as an oblation to satisfy the demands of God for those that the Father had given Him. And Jesus also mentions here in John 17 that all that the Father had given Him came to Him. And He goes on to say what, that not one of them was lost, except whom? Judas, who was the son of perdition. And elsewhere in the Scriptures, Jesus makes it clear who was never, ever a believer. He was the son of perdition from the beginning. So in reality, how many of those whom the Father has given to Christ are lost?

None. And the reason why we take such comfort in the intercessory work of Christ is that Christ not only atones for the sin of His people, He not only lays down His life for His sheep, but then He prays daily as our High Priest and as our Intercessor for our preservation that not one of His people for whom He has died will ever, ever be lost. And I take comfort in that knowing that if I have faith, and the only reason I have faith is because of the gift of God and because God, for reasons unknown to me, has given me to the Son, and that God will not allow anything to snatch me out of His hands, that I have a priest who has entered into the Holy of Holies, who has made an atonement, who has sprinkled His own blood on the mercy seat of the covenant throne of God, and who presents that oblation to the Father in my behalf and in your behalf that I may never, ever be lost. And so the point is, what was the ultimate purpose of Christ's death? God's purposes do not fail.

His plan is effective. What Jesus set out to do was to save His people, and He accomplished His mission. And He did it perfectly and effectively for all who are given to Him by the Father. Perhaps you're troubled by the idea of some kind of limit to the atoning work of Christ. There is no limit to the atoning work of Christ and its benefits for you if you are a believer. And there is a serious limit of the benefits of the atonement to anyone who is not a believer. And so, again, I remind you that the difficulty here is not whether everybody is saved or not everybody is saved, and I think we would all agree that if God purposed from all eternity that all mankind would be saved, then all mankind would be saved. He certainly has the power and the authority to save the whole world if He is pleased to do that. For reasons we don't know, that was not His plan.

That was not His desire. His desire was to save some and thereby show His mercy and His grace and to pass over others and thereby to show His justice and His holiness. And in both cases, those who are saved and those who are lost, the glory of God is made manifest and His holiness and greatness is vindicated so that God displays in the cross both His justice and His mercy. But it was His plan from the beginning to save some, and the point is that those whom He intended to save, He saves. And that is the occasion of our rejoicing.

How comforting that truth is. You're listening to Renewing Your Mind, and that was R.C. Sproul from his The Hard Sayings of Jesus series. This week only, you can request lifetime digital access to The Hard Sayings of Jesus, along with The Hard Sayings of the Apostles, The Hard Sayings of the Prophets, and The Hard Sayings of the Bible, when you give a gift of any amount at renewingyourmind.org.

To thank you for your donation in support of Renewing Your Mind, in addition to access to those four series, we'll send you R.C. Sproul's new hardcover book, Hard Sayings, Understanding Difficult Passages of Scripture. So call us today at 800 435 4343, or visit renewingyourmind.org to add these resources to your library and grow in your knowledge of God's Word. As you continue to study the Bible, don't forget to make use of the free Ligonier app. Renewing Your Mind and other podcasts from Ligonier are in there, along with hundreds of sermons from R.C. Sproul. We encourage you to download the Ligonier app from your preferred app store. Tomorrow Dr. Sproul will consider a hard saying that came to Ezekiel the prophet. Be sure to join us then, here on Renewing Your Mind.