My hero and teacher, Dr. John Gerstner, in dealing with one of the errors of dispensationalism, its rejection of the doctrine of limited atonement, referred to this error as, “beating the ‘L’ out of TULIP.” Though we believe the five points of Calvinism are of a piece, that to reject one is at best to confuse the others, at worst to deny the others, it is limited atonement that most people have a struggle with. And this text is a common proof-text for those wanting to affirm that it was the purpose of Christ that He should suffer the wrath of the Father due to all men for all sins.
This error, like many such errors on this issue, is at base a failure to understand the context of the New Testament Church. Two hundred years later the church struggled with the issues of the Trinity and the incarnation. Fifteen hundred years later they struggled with how to understand justification. But the first century church, by and large, had one great issue to deal with- what about the Gentiles? Huge sections of the book of Acts cover this issue. Galatians deals with this issue. I Peter deals with the issue. Even Hebrews, in a mirroring kind of way, deals with the issue.
In the time that Jesus took on flesh, we need to remember, even pious Jews looked at the world as being divided into two kinds of people- God’s people the Jews, and the rest, the dogs. God had since the time of Abraham dealt with a single people. Now everything was changing. At the beginning, the church was made up mostly of Abraham’s ethnic heirs. It was not long, however, before the Spirit was poured out amongst the Gentiles. Soon after Gentiles made up a majority of the church.
So what is John telling us? If he means what our friends who don’t believe in limited atonement think he means, just as with the rest of what they would see as “proof-texts,” then he means too much. That is, if the text means that if it was the intent of Jesus to cover all the sins of all people, then we can rest assured that all people will be in heaven. The text, if this perspective is correct, then teaches not unlimited atonement, but unlimited salvation, universalism. How could a person suffer in hell if his sins had already been covered? Instead what John is telling us here, in context, is simple enough. Jesus did not come to atone only for the sins of the Jews. God’s plan was neither to condemn all the Gentiles, nor to send a savior different from Jesus to cover the sins of the Gentiles. Instead, Jesus came and suffered for the sins of all of God’s people, the Jews and the Gentiles, who are one people.
The good news isn’t that Jesus merely made it possible for all people to be saved. The good news is that all those who are His have had their sins covered. And in Him we are all one, with neither Jew nor Greek. The gospel is about one kingdom, one king, and one people, the people of God who are all those for whom Jesus suffered. One Lord, one faith, one baptism. He is indeed the propitiation for the sins of the world, for those whom He chose before the foundation of time, whether they be in Boone, North Carolina, or Yangon, Myanmar, whether they be in Antioch or in Fort Wayne whether they be in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, or the outermost parts of the world.