Murray writes,
If some for whom atonement was made and redemption wrought perish eternally, then the atonement is not itself efficacious. It is this alternative that the proponents of universal atonement must face. They have a “limited” atonement and limited in respect of that which impinges upon its essential character. We shall have none of it. The doctrine of “limited atonement” which we maintain is the doctrine which limits the atonement to those who are heirs of eternal life, to the elect. That limitation insures its efficacy and conserves its essential character as efficient and effective redemption [Redemption: Accomplished & Applied, p. 64].
Again, this critique should give Arminians pause, but it does not seem all that persuasive to predestinarians. After all, many elect persons are dead in their sins for years, and by nature object of God’s wrath. If the atonement is so efficacious, why aren’t these people all justified from the moment they are conceived? Why does not the Holy Spirit come upon them in the womb?
The fact is that different people appropriate the atonement at various stages in life. It is hard to understand why the unsaved status of one “for whom the atonement was made” does not raise any questions about the efficacy of the atonement, given the logic of Murray’s. If it is possible for a person to remain under the wrath of God for a period of time, though Christ died for that person, then why couldn’t there be a sense in which Christ died for the non-elect? Murray himself believes that Christ died to give the non-elect gifts, albeit non-saving ones. Then by his own definition, the atonement is indeed, in some sense, “for” the non-elect.
Finally, what about the Holy Spirit? I think the Westminster Confession makes a good deal of Biblical sense when it states that,
God did, from all eternity, decree to justify all the elect, and Christ did, in the fullness of time, die for their sins, and rise again for their justification: nevertheless, they are not justified, until the Holy Spirit doth, in due time, actually apply Christ unto them.
So why are we talking about the efficacy of the atonement apart from application. It frames the entire issue in a different way than the Westminster Confession and, in my opinion, a much more confusing way. The question of “Limited Atonement” ought to be about God’s intention, not about the Atonement’s “efficacy.” At the Synod of Dordt, the Remonstrants claim that there was nothing further to say about God’s intention in sending his Son to die other than his general attempt to save all people. The orthodox pointed out from Scripture that the Bible says more than that. But the whole debate was over God’s intention and whether or not he had a specific plan that he would definitely bring about.
Somehow it has become acceptable to make the entire question hinge, not on the decrees, but on the nature of the substitutionary exchange.
But this has massive consequences. To begin with, we will have to dump justification by faith. If all that matters is the price paid, then the elect are conceived and born justified prior to regeneration.
A second problem is that it makes the work of a person of the Trinity a consequence rather than a true author and means of our salvation. Is the Holy Spirit’s work merely a result of the cross of Christ, or is His Work truly the means by which the cross of Christ becomes effective for us in justification and all other benefits? I think the latter is obviously both Biblical and Reformed (at least, it is the straightforward teaching of the Westminster Confession and Catechisms).
Murray, in my opinion, should have defended the limit according to the limitations–the specificity–of God’s infallible decree regarding who would be saved through the atonement and who would not benefit from it savingly. Bringing up an “efficacy” of the atonement distracts us from the true Calvinist heritage of the efficacy of God’s Spirit in efficaciously calling the elect into saving union with Christ.