It is often reported that the Five Points of Calvinism are the conceptual hard-core of Reformed thought. That is very misleading. The Five Points supposedly originate with the Synod of Dort in the early seventeenth century. Yet we find important Reformed leaders who were signatories to that documentation who don't think that limited atonement is the right way to think about the scope of Christ's saving work. How can this be? The answer that recent historical theology has thrown up is that the canons of the Synod don't require adherence to the doctrine of limited atonement.

[Jonathan Edwards] he has to be engaged with on this issue if you're writing about Calvinism as I am in this book.

Jonathan Edwards developed a Calvinistic strand of the doctrine.

God shows us in Christ what he would have to do if he were to punish us for our sins.

We are still living with the consequences of that today in popular Reformed thinking from the likes of John Piper, R. C. Sproul, and Tim Keller.

Christ's work is a kind of deterrent to us, and a way of upholding the justice of God's divine government of the world.

Here is the interesting twist:[McLeod] Campbell came to his views through reading Jonathan Edwards who suggested at one point in his ruminations on the atonement that Christ could have offered up a perfect act of penitence instead of punishment, and that this would have been an acceptable offering suitable to remit our sinfulness.