Limited Atonement and 2 Peter 2

Hello,

2 Peter 2 is a description of false and dangerous teachers, and there are some passages in it where I would be interested to know, how the Calvinists put them in harmony with their Limited Atonement doctrine.

V.22 seems to imply that these false teachers were never born again, but kept their old impure nature. So far it is a good beginning. However, in verse 1 we learnt that these false teachers where “bought” by the Lord and in verse 20 that “they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ”. I think that we could make these 2 verses relate to another as follow: The Lord bought them from the slavery of sin, and the effect of that, is that they have escaped the pollutions of the world. But they were afterward “again entangled therein”.

The fact that they were bought by the Lord didn't necessarily mean that they were born again, as we could understand from v.22. However, I don't see how it could happen that the Lord bought them, except by virtue of His sacrifice on the Cross. Moreover, I don't see how someone could escape “the pollutions of the world”, except it also be by virtue of the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross, because his own endeavors could never have achieved that: “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:3-4).

According to the Limited Atonement doctrine, Jesus only died for the elects, then I understand, that there would be no virtue left in the atonement of Jesus for the non-elects. But that would contradict the development I made above. So how does Calvinism resolve such a question?

BBAS 64 said:

Good day, Jonnas

You may find this helpful: “Problematic Texts” for Definite Atonement in the Pastoral and General Epistles by Thomas R. Schreiner

Or 2 Peter 2:1 and Universal Redemption - Alpha and Omega Ministries

I know that DA Carson has addressed this text as well, just having a hard time putting my finger on it at this time.

In Him

Bill

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Good day, Bill

I almost read half of 2 Peter 2:1 and Universal Redemption - Alpha and Omega Ministries, until I came to these words:

…a word study of agorazo in both the Greek Old and New Testaments, reveal that the word itself does not include a payment price. When it is translated with a meaning “to buy,” whether in a salvation or non-salvation context, a payment price is always stated or made explicit by the context. …in contexts where no payment price is stated or implied, agorazo may often be better translated as ‘acquire’ or ‘obtain.’

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Then if the Calvinist argument is based on some finenesses about the meaning of a Greek word, then I am not able to make any judgement. I am not qualified for such questions, as it is for people with a good knowledge of the Greek. So I understand that I am left with an assertion (in bold in the quote) that I cannot prove whether it is true or false.

I can however make some comment about how this argument was made by the author:

…of its thirty occurrences in the New Testament, agorazo is never used in a salvation context (unless II Peter 2:1 is the exception) without the technical term “price” (times– a technical term for the blood of Christ) or its equivalent being stated or made explicit in the context (cf. I Cor. 6:20; 7:23; Rev. 5:9; 14:3,435).36

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Counting occurrences doesn't prove anything: I could also find 30 occurrences of orange carrots, but it wouldn't prove that all carrots are orange! What would be needed is at least one verse where agorazo is used without the information about the price and where it is clear from context that agorazo cannot mean purchasing (implying that a price wasn't paid). To my knowledge, there isn't such a verse in the Bible. “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established” (2 Cor. 13:1b), so it is not the absence but the presence of witnesses that can prove anything, then I conclude that the author of the article has found no witness in the Bible to establish the word agorazo such as he claims.

Literally, the text reads: “denying the One who bought them Master.” The insertion of implicit meanings like “to purchase,” (...) is textually untenable.

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I believe it to be a very strange assertion that buying and purchasing could be two different things! In my view, this assertion represents the most “textually untenable” of all options. The author often complains about non-Reformers making unproved assertions, but in this case the author has to assume the burden of the proof and prove his assertion!

Now I would like to make some more general comments about the first part of the article, although this isn't directly about the question asked here:

There is no question that the Bible is clear in its message. God’s Word was not written to the “spiritual elite” or restricted to the intellectual theologian. It was written for all the people of God. It was written to the housewife, the parts department salesman, and to the child. This is not to say that all of the Bible is equally understandable as Peter himself states (2 Peter 3:16). Some passages take a little more work and hence God has blessed his Church with learned and stable men who are able to distill from God’s truth elements that are more difficult than others.

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I agree with that, as long as it concerns some advanced doctrinal points. But as far as the basics are involved, the common people should have no issue to find it in the Bible, provided that they are born again. We don't want to do the same as the Catholic church did, don't we? Then if the limited atonement should belong to the basics, then there should be at least 3 or 4 verses that makes it plain for the common people. That said, it doesn't mean that there couldn't be in the Bible other verses (such as here: 2 Pet. 2:1) where only the intellectual theologian could harmonize with the basic doctrines, but the common people can live without such explanations as they have other much clearer verses that shine strongly enough for them!

Where do we find in 2 Peter 2:1 the implied concepts, “they will not be redeemed after all,” “Jesus died to purchase (bought) them,” “that, although Jesus died for their salvation (implied potentiality), they will not be saved after all?” Is it not actually the Reformed believer who in this case is reading the text simply as it is? Do we need to add the words “potential,” “died,” “to purchase” to the text?

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First, to know whether the Reformed believer is reading the text simply as it is, we need to know how the Reformed believer reads the text. This was however not yet explained in the article; then although the obvious answer should be yes according to the author, it wasn't obvious for the reader (at least at this point of reading).

Second, it wonders me, why the author is arguing against a particular view of a non-Reformer, taking much pains to defend that agorazo could be used in a non-redemptive context, while in my eyes the most obvious non-Reformer explanation is left silent, which seems to me to accord well with just reading the text simply as it is and which doesn't require a redemptive-only meaning of agorazo. Here it is:

By bearing the sins of all men at the cross, Jesus bought all men. This means, He owns them all, He has an unlimited freedom to do to them as He wishes: He will save the elects, because they are bought “for God” (Rev. 5:9), for Him to enjoy them; He will condemn to Hell the unbelievers, because they were bought to be the object of God's wrath (comp. Rev. 6:19-20 + 16:19). In both cases God is glorified. Therefore Jesus bought all men in order to glorify God. This view seems in my eyes to accord well with Rom 14:9: “For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living”, although I couldn't find a verse that very clearly supports this view.