The Narrow Path Ministries

I'm having trouble understanding how the Calvinist can believe that Christ's passive obedience in His death undid the effects of Adam's sin for less than all people -- if Adam's disobedience was enough to impute original sin on "ALL" mankind, how do they explain how Christ's atonement was less effective in its remediation?

Seriously, does anyone know how they explain this?

Afaik, all Calvinists believe God's (own) righteousness is imputed to believers at (initial) justification.

Calvinists say that, since God decides who will be saved and who will be damned (Unconditional Election); and since Christ's sacrifice is effectual; the effectiveness of Christ's atonement is, by nature, limited to only the saved-elect (Limited Atonement).

But doesn't that still result in a less complete redemption from the completeness of the effect of original sin?

darin-houston wrote:I'm having trouble understanding how the Calvinist can believe that Christ's passive obedience in His death undid the effects of Adam's sin for less than all people -- if Adam's disobedience was enough to impute original sin on "ALL" mankind, how do they explain how Christ's atonement was less effective in its remediation?

Seriously, does anyone know how they explain this?

Hi all, this is my first post, but I suppose I have to jump in somewhere!

As I understand it, Calvinists (and most evangelical Protestants) believe that the righteousness of Christ (by which they mean his active and passive obedience - his keeping of the law of Moses and his dying on the cross) are imputed to the account of the believer. They would probably answer this above objection by appealing to federal headship - that all those who have Adam as their head (all humans) have his sin imputed, and all those in the new Adam have his righteousness imputed.

Greeting Dean, and welcome to the forum!

Paidion wrote:Greeting Dean, and welcome to the forum!

Thank you.