Pete's Blog

In an interview Mark Dever did with John Piper, Dr. Dever suggested two books to defend the doctrine of Limited Atonement, Redemption Accomplished and Applied by John Murray and The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God by D. A. Carson. So when I saw that it was free online I downloaded it right away.

It's not heavy on the argument for the scope of the atonement (which I was fine with). It was a great little read (at only 95 pages from cover to cover). Dr. Carson is a very gifted writer.

One of the benefits of reading a PDF was that it's very easy to quote. Surprisingly, I didn't find it anymore difficult to read than a paperback, and much easier to hold. So, here are some excerpts:

To begin with, I chose the title for this blog entry based on this excerpt: "[I]s the biblical teaching on the love of God maintaining its shape when the meaning of 'God' dissolves in mist?" (p. 12). Saying that "God is love" (1J. 4:8, 16) is meaningless if you don't have the One, True, Living God in mind. It would be like saying, "My breakfast cereal is love."

I've heard many people talk about John 3:16 and the implications it has on God's election. Read how Dr. Carson deals with the verse: "[W]orld in John does not so much refer to bigness as to badness. In John's vocabulary, world is primarily the moral order in willful and culpable rebellion against God. In John 3:16 God's love in sending the Lord Jesus is to be admired not because it is extended to so big a thing as the world, but to so bad a thing; not to so many people, as to such wicked people" (p. 17).

When I read the following quote, I finally realized why so many Arminians have difficulty accepting Limited Atonement. "We have already reflected a little on attempts to strip God's love of affective content and make it no more than willed commitment to the other's good" (p. 46). No Christian can deny that God loves everyone (Mt. 5:45). So if you think that the definition of love is working exclusively for the receiver's good, and since God loves everyone, in the atonement, He must have been working for everyone's good in an equal way.

But God's love varies person to person. Carson argues that God's love manifests in at least five ways (pp. 16-19). (This list is probably the most profitable portion of the book.) I'm not saying that all Arminians make this mistake, but I think that if you're arguing for a universal atonement theologically (as opposed to biblically), you either need to believe one size of love fits all, or you need to believe in an atonement with a limited scope of intended effectiveness.

One of the texts those defending a universal atonement would refer to is 1 John 2:2. Dr. Carson has done much scholarship on the Johannine corpus, so he has some helpful thoughts to bear on this verse:

As far as I can see, a text such as 1 John 2:2 states something about the potential breadth of the Atonement. As I understand the historical context, the proto-gnostic opponents John was facing thought of themselves as an ontological elite who enjoyed the inside track with God because of the special insight they had received.2 But when Jesus Christ died, John rejoins, it was not for the sake of, say, the Jews only or, now, of some group, gnostic or otherwise, that sets itself up as intrinsically superior. Far from it. It was not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world. The context, then, understands this to mean something like "potentially for all without distinction" rather than "effectively for all without exception"—for in the latter case all without exception must surely be saved, and John does not suppose that that will take place. (pp. 76-77)

For the last quote dealing with the extent of the atonement, Dr. Carson cautions that belief in a universal atonement may lead to boasting: "[T]o preserve the notion of particular redemption proves pastorally important for many reasons. If Christ died for all people with exactly the same intent, as measured on any axis, then it is surely impossible to avoid the conclusion that the ultimate distinguishing mark between those who are saved and those who are not is their own decision, their own will. That is surely ground for boasting" (pp. 78-79).

Anyway, going back to the discussion of what love means, where some people think that loving someone involves working only for their good, Carson gives a practical example where loving someone doesn't necessarily end with the expected results:

If for no good reason my teenagers do not get home by the time I have prescribed, the least they will experience is a bawling out, and they may come under some restrictive sanctions. There is no use reminding them that I am doing this because I love them. That is true, but the manifestation of my love for them when I ground them and when I take them out for a meal or attend one of their concerts or take my son fishing or my daughter on an excursion of some sort is rather different in the two cases. Only the latter will feel much more like remaining in my love than falling under my wrath. (p. 20)

I've recorded two quotes demonstrating Dr. Carson's humour. Here's the first one, and I save the second one for last:

Jesus says, "You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you" (15:14-15).

Observe that Jesus makes a distinction between slaves (douvloi; not "servants") and friends. But the distinction initially surprises us. We are Jesus' friends if we do what he commands. This sounds rather like a definition of a slave. (p. 41)

Often times when I think about the nature of God I over anthropomorphize Him (I make Him out to be too much like a human). For example, I try to understand how it's possible that I have my own decision making mind, that is completely responsible for its action, while at the same time, God ordains all things. It's possible with God because He's not man. Another apparent contradiction I get confused about sometimes is wondering how it's possible for God to be unchanging, yet create something, interact with those creatures, and even have one person of His essence take on a temporal body (i.e., the Incarnation, Jesus). If God sometimes talks, and sometimes doesn't talk, it sounds like He's changing. Somehow it's possible with God.

Anyway, reading Carson, it was helpful to be remind that, "[I]n certain respects God's love does not function exactly like ours. How could it? God's love emanates from an infinite Being whose perfections are immutable [unchanging]. But this way of wording things guards the most important values in impassibility [in humans, dispassionate, in God, more like not driven by unbalanced emotions] and still insists that God's love is real love, of the same genus as the best of love displayed by God's image-bearers" (p. 61). It's refreshing to be reminded not to think narrowly in the categories assigned to God.

This is great for showing how God is different from us: "God does not 'fall in love' with the elect; he does not 'fall in love' with us; he sets his affection on us. He does not predestine us out of some stern whimsy; rather, in love he predestines us to be adopted as his sons (Eph. 1:4-5). The texts themselves tie the love of God to other perfections in God" (emphasis Carson's, p. 61).

This time, how we are supposed to love like God:

John's point in 1 John 4, "God is love," is that those who really do know God come to love that way too. Doubtless we do not do it very well, but aren't Christians supposed to love the unlovable—even our enemies? Because we have been transformed by the Gospel, our love is to be self-originating, not elicited by the loveliness of the loved. For that is the way it is with God. He loves because love is one of his perfections, in perfect harmony with all his other perfections. (pp. 63-64)

Second last. Here, Dr. Carson talks about the unpopular notion of God hating people: "A difference must be maintained between God's view of sin and his view of the sinner. Nevertheless the cliché (God hates the sin but loves the sinner) is false on the face of it and should be abandoned. Fourteen times in the first fifty psalms alone, we are told that God hates the sinner, his wrath is on the liar, and so forth. In the Bible, the wrath of God rests both on the sin (Rom. 1:18ff.) and on the sinner (John 3:36)" (p. 69).

Lastly, a blunt funny one:

Picture Charles and Susan walking down a beach hand in hand at the end of the academic year. The pressure of the semester has dissipated in the warm evening breeze. They have kicked off their sandals, and the wet sand squishes between their toes. Charles turns to Susan, gazes deeply into her large, hazel eyes, and says, "Susan, I love you. I really do."

What does he mean?

Well, in this day and age he may mean nothing more than that he feels like testosterone on legs and wants to go to bed with her forthwith. . . .

What he most certainly does not mean is something like this: "Susan, quite frankly you have such a bad case of halitosis it would embarrass a herd of unwashed, garlic-eating elephants. Your nose is so bulbous you belong in the cartoons. Your hair is so greasy it could lubricate an eighteen-wheeler. Your knees are so disjointed you make a camel look elegant. Your personality makes Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan look like wimps. But I love you!" (pp. 61-62)

It was a really good book and I recommend it for all, even if my review was poorly written.