NICHOLS: If you go back to the TULIP, which is we use the word TULIP because
it's the flower of The Netherlands and Dort is a town in The Netherlands,
Dordrecht shortened to Dort. In the 1610s, the Synod of Dort met. This is the Dutch Reformed
church met there at Dort and they produced the canons with one "n," not the boom,
the kind you fire with two "n's", but the one "n," the canons of the Synod of Dort.
They were structured around five articles, five heads of doctrine. And they were a response to
a document called The Remonstrants, which was written in 1610. Primary architect of
it was Jacobus, or Jacob, or James, Arminius. He died. His followers finished The Remonstrants and
published it. And The Remonstrants was by and large a counter to the doctrines of grace, the
doctrines of salvation that were taught by Calvin and sort of codified by Calvin in that generation,
second, third generation of Reformers, right? So, Calvin, Reformers' teaching, Arminius', sort of,
movement away from it with The Remonstrants, and then the Canons of Dort. Dort gets summarized as
five points around the beloved Dutch flower of Tulip; total depravity,
that's us, unconditional election, that's doctrine of election, then limited atonement,
then irresistible grace, and then perseverance of the saints. The actual order is ULTIP.
BINGHAM: That doesn't sound as good.
NICHOLS: This is not a word. And so, if you don't speak English,
now you're really confused. It's not Latin either. It's nothing. The first head is "Election." So,
now, we understand what's going on here. It's the doctrine of election,
and that's what's primary. So, if the doctrine of election is what's primary, then Jesus did not
die to make you savable. He died to accomplish the Father's mission, and the Father's mission
was to have a people for Himself, not some blob, indiscriminate group. I'm talking about a group
made up of individuals that God knew, right? The Son's job, Jesus' mission was to accomplish that.
So, it's limited. It's limited in that it is going to accomplish salvation for the elect.
Now, here is how we understand this. If Jesus died on the cross,
but it still takes me to do something, then His work is not finished and His work is not complete.
If I have to somehow believe or somehow accept. And so, Jesus' death has to be
universal in its application because it has to be up to me to accept it. Then what Jesus did,
He didn't complete the mission. He left it undone. And now it's on my shoulders to finish.
I don't see that in Scripture. I see Jesus saying, "My sheep know My voice," John chapter 10,
"and they are My sheep and I am theirs." Right? Jesus came for His sheep, and He came to fulfill
the mission of the Father. So, I think we cannot sever—again, always start with God—we cannot sever
the atonement from the doctrine of election. And that's what Dort's helping us to see there,
but it's not just Dort. The Bible is helping us to see that Jesus came to accomplish the
mission that the heavenly Father sent Him to do, and that is not to make you and me savable,
but to save us. And so, He says on the cross, "It is finished."