Before I start – I’ll say right off that the two goat thing will likely get a bit old before I’m done.
But I’m going to stay with it to the end because, after all, it is a Biblical concept.
Again, no matter how you slice it, no matter how much you disagree with me, the debt has been paid, but only a few will accept.
We all agree about that. That includes 5-point Calvinist, 4-point Calvinists, and also Arminians.
Unless one is a universalist and believes that everyone will ultimately be saved, a Christian must hold to some form of a limited atonement.
I totally agree about this. The thorny question is exactly what “form” it takes.
"How came the two contending parties of religionists not to see both goats? The Word of God reveals both. Plainly there are two goats.
I agree. Plainly there are two goats. These goats represent two aspects of the atonement.
The first represents the satisfactory shedding of Christ’s blood which was presented to God on behalf of the sins of the entire world. The second represents the personal identification of the elect with the Lamb who removes their sins as far as the East is from the West from the presence of God.
Universalists and non-evangelicals see no need for personal identification of this kind and thereby ignore the second goat.
Calvinists/Reformed thinkers maintain that God limits the atonement by choosing those whom He will save, and thus God only placed on Christ the sins of those He had chosen for salvation.
Aahh – there’s the critical Calvinist poor logic which requires limited atonement to be taught by 5-pointers.
The first half of the sentence is correct of course. Everything after the highlighted part (and thus) is not required by logic. In fact to say that the second must necessarily follow the first is not good logic at all.
God’s choosing who will be saved is one leg of T.U.L.I.P. It stands alone. The doctrine of election and even predestination are often conflated with limited atonement when in fact they are separate.
Because we already subscribe to and teach the doctrine of election – limited atonement (even properly understood) is at best redundant in T.U.L.I.P. and at worst (when improperly understood) propped up by bad logic.
It is obviously also highly offensive to the vast majority of evangelical Christians and non-evangelicals alike – as It should be IMO.
I won’t give a bunch of examples of the kind of poor logic that is presented in the quote above. You can come up with many if you try. A “straw man” is a false premise which is purposefully set up knowing it is false and then kicked around as it it were a real man.
In that respect I don’t believe that the quote I am here referring to is said by anyone to be purposefully deceptive. Nevertheless – when an argument is made which begins with a statement which is not fact – the entire argument no matter how many it convinces along the way becomes moot.
On the Day of Atonement, the high priest would lay the sin of all the people on the two goats that would effectuate the atonement, but in the case of an individual sinner, the person who sinned had to put his hands on the head of the sacrificial animal that took his place and confess his sins, laying them upon the victim. We read in Leviticus: “He is to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him.”
Exactly so. We believe that each man must apprehend the benefits of the sacrifice in a personal manner. Even the elect are “children of wrath” up until the time they demonstrate saving faith and are justified before God.
God can be and is reconciled to the entire world through blood of the first goat as it were. What is necessary now is that each man be reconciled to God. The gospel we preach is that gospel of a call to reconciliation through personal apprehension of the sacrifice.
But it is true that a certain respectable class around us do see nothing but the elect as the object of God. Their doctrine supposes only the second goat, or the people's lot. They see the all-importance of substitution, but Jehovah's lot has no place as distinct.
I agree. Christ must not only have died for a person’s sins. That person must have personal faith in that death or Christ will not carry their sins away.
One does not have his sins forgiven simply because Christ shed His blood for them. We must not (as Reformed theologians) teach that salvation is automatic simply because one is in a special group. It has to become personal.
Election is a separate doctrine from the atonement. Even you and I were lost long after Christ atoned for our sins. We believe, quite rightly, that election is the factor which makes saving faith possible. But neither election nor the atonement brings salvation in and of themselves.
It is notorious that most of these deny God's special favor to the elect. They overlook or pare down any positive difference on God's part toward His own children. They hold that a man throughout his course may be a child of God today and not tomorrow. This destroys substitution [seen in the live goat led away].
Exactly so. One will never be able to take advantage of the blood of the first goat by laying hands on the second goat unless he is given to the Son and drawn to the Son.
Besides opening the sluices that divine love might flow out freely everywhere, we also find another line of truth altogether: the fullest and nicest care that those who are His children should be kept in peace and blessing. God took care, not only to vindicate His own glory and nature, but to give them knowledge of salvation by the remission of their sins. The sins are all out to be borne away.
It is quite true that in the first goat God has secured His majesty, and His righteous title to send forth His message of love to every creature. Again, in the second goat He has equally cared for the assurance of His people, that all their sins, transgressions, and iniquities, are completely borne away. How could the truth of atonement be more admirably shown by types beforehand?
I absolutely agree. All those who have laid hands on the second goat will have their sins carried away never to be seen again. Then and only then will the blood of the first goat placate the wrath of God.
Until that time – even the elect are under the wrath of God.
"Christ is both high priest and victim, has confessed all the sins of His people as His own, and borne our sins in His own body on the tree. The two goats are but one Christ; but there is the double aspect of His sacrifice--Godward, and bearing our sins. The blood is the witness of the accomplishing of all, and He is entered in not without blood. He is the propitiation for our sins."
I fully agree.
Christ is also the Lion and the Lamb. The question is which one will you be identified with for eternity.
Will you reign with Him, having taken advantage of both lambs? Or will you suffer with having failed to do so?
I understand that the various aspects of the atonement are difficult and that there are many “theories” as to exactly how it works.
I understand and agree that there was a one-time physical time when the lamb was sacrificed for us. But I also realize that whatever went on in the Godhead from eternity past dealt with the sin issue is a “cosmic” way.
It goes IMO much farther than just the X number of sins of the elect only being born by the Son when He “became sin” for us.
It seems to me that the limited atonement is a rather shallow view of a much deeper subject.
Not to mention again that it is based on faulty logic. Well I mentioned it again didn’t I?