Rethinking Limited Atonement and Recovering the Gospel for Everyone

Several months ago, I stumbled across a podcast clip of two “Reformed” radio hosts that stopped me in my tracks. One of them leaned into his microphone to make this confession: “I’m not really comfortable letting my kids sing Jesus Loves Me, because it’s too early for me to tell if they’re elect. For all I know, they might be God’s enemies. So, letting them sing that song would be lying to them.” I hit the pause button. Stared at my ceiling. And said out loud, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

If your theology keeps you from telling your kids that Jesus loves them and died for their sins, something is deeply wrong.

After picking my jaw up off the floor, I knew I had to start writing about this subject—not just to take aim at ridiculous soundbites like the one I just mentioned, but to pull back the curtain on an entire doctrine that’s done more harm than good: Limited Atonement—the idea that Jesus didn’t die for the world, but only for a small, predetermined group.

These days, if you so much as whisper that you’re interested in theology, someone’s going to ask: “So…what are your views on Calvinism? What do you think about predestination?” as if these are the only ways to measure if you're serious about the Bible.

I get it. These are big questions. At some point in your Christian life, you're going to have to wrestle with them. I did. I’ve spent years undoing assumptions, re-reading the verses everyone loves to quote, and doing my best to focus on Jesus as I make sense of both sides of the argument. But if I’m being honest, the conclusion seems pretty clear to me now. Yet, here I am writing to you about Limited Atonement, on facet of Calvinist doctrine.

What keeps dragging me back into this conversation—again and again—are these two things:

❶ the ignorance on one side, and

❷ the arrogance on the other.

In one corner, you’ve got folks rejecting Calvinism, but with all the wrong arguments, sloppy citations of Scripture, and tired Christian clichés. It’s a lot of “That just doesn’t seem fair!” or “My pastor said God loves everyone!”

But, on the other side, you’ve got Calvinists standing on their predestination pedestal, puffed up with confidence, acting like they discovered the true gospel and everyone else has been blind all along. They have such certainty over the finer details of their statements of faith, that sometimes I can’t help but laugh. They’ve got their 5 points down pat, and they superimpose their system over Scripture, but perhaps the biggest problem with their perspective is the ego that comes along with it. If you haven’t memorized TULIP, read Calvin’s Institutes, or studied the 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith, you'll be written off by Calvinists who'll say: “you’re not enlightened enough. If you just read a little more, you’d be on our side.”

And that’s why I have a special interest in this topic. At one point, I thought maybe I was the problem. Maybe I wasn’t old enough or wise enough. “Maybe I just haven’t read enough!” I thought. So I tried. I soaked in the sermons, I devoured the books. Calvin, Edwards, Spurgeon, Piper, Sproul, MacArthur. You name it. I even tried to force my theology through the Calvinist lens to see if it would make everything click. But spoiler alert: it didn’t...

What it did do was make a whole bunch of Bible verses harder to explain. I found myself constantly needing to skim over Scriptures so I didn’t have to come to terms with what they obviously meant. When the Calvinistic theology has a hold on you, you’ll start to read clear texts about Jesus dying for the world and feel that nudge to add fine print. And you’ll never reference any Bible verse that speaks of God’s desire to save all without including an asterisk.

That, once, was me. As much as I hate to admit it, the Calvinistic coloring of the Bible had infected my studies. But before long, I realized that these influences weren’t clearing up the gospel, they were fogging up the faith.

Eventually, every person who’s ever felt the effects of 5-point Calvinism—including me—must ask themselves: “Why would I try to defend a theology that’s not taught in Scripture and didn’t show up in Church history until 400 years ago?”

So I started purging. Books. Podcasts. Even the internal script that made me hesitate to tell someone “Jesus died for you” because, well, "what if He didn’t?" Yeah. That’s where this stuff leads if you're not careful—a gospel that starts sounding more like a secret handshake for the chosen few than Good News for everyone.

And let me be clear: I haven’t rejected Calvinism out of ignorance. I know it. I wrestled with it. I tried it on. And then I threw it out—because it didn’t fit what is found in Scripture.

It’s been interesting to walk back into the Christian culture as a hard non-Calvinist. I’ve had people roll their eyes at me and dismiss centuries of Christian doctrine with a condescending, “You’re just making assumptions.” I’ve seen scholars play Olympic-level word games with texts that are plain as day. And I’ve noticed that one of the world’s most popular Calvinists uses a hymn by Martin Luther (who taught over and over again that Jesus died for all people) as the intro music for his radio show in which he defends Limited Atonement—talk about irony!

But I’ve also realized that this recent rise in so-called “Reformed” theology is partially our fault. Those of us who were not Calvinists stopped preaching the gospel the way we should have been all along...

Somewhere in recent history, we got so scared of dwindling numbers and so interested in competing for attention or entertaining first-time visitors, that we forgot to be solidly evangelical! We quit preaching “Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2), so Calvinism came in through the open door. Whenever churches seem silly, irresponsible, and shallow, the airtight system of TULIP starts to look awfully attractive. And because we’ve been negligent to preach the gospel, many Christian people have come under the influence of this particular philosophy.

So, it’s time to get down to business and actually talk about the biblical reasons why so many of us—yes, many of us—can’t get on board with that 5-point system. My new series of articles won't just poke holes in Limited Atonement. It’s going to flood the field with gospel. Because here’s the thing: the New Testament isn’t subtle about how far Christ’s blood flows. The verses that imply or flat-out declare a universal atonement? They’re everywhere. I won’t even get to them all…

Now, I’m not trying to come across as the master of this subject…and I'm not exactly a rockstar evangelist who has perfectly proclaimed the Christian message at every opportunity.

I must confess: I have failed to failed to share the gospel over and over again. I have neglected teaching about the fullness of God's grace over and over again. I’ve said things like: “Jesus died for sinners,” because that makes Calvinists happy, and “if you repent and believe, then you can rest assured that Jesus died for your sins” because I was confused about this whole thing.

Some of those hesitations came from Calvinistic influences that still stuck around after I tried spitting them out. But maybe we’d all be more fired up to preach the Good News if we truly believed the message was for everyone we meet.

And that brings me to you...

If you are a Calvinist reading through these articles, brace yourself. I’m not here to play nice with a doctrine that makes a mess of the cross, rewrites the Bible, distorts the heart of God, and pretends Church history started in Geneva, Switzerland with John Calvin. Don’t expect professional courtesy. Expect biblical pushback.

If you’re not a Calvinist, prepare to hear some new language. (I'll try to comply a glossary of key words and phrases related to this subject on my website for your convenience). Don’t expect me to exalt you or your free will as the be-all-end-all reason why you’re saved today. Instead, be prepared to run into verses that you haven’t read a ton. It’ll be good for you, I promise. Let them stretch you. Let them stir up your love for the gospel all over again.

No matter who you are, or where you’re coming from, the message I hope comes across through all this work is:

You are a sinner.


Christ died for your sins.


You’re not outside the invitation.


And that changes everything.