Why I Have Never Believed in Limited Atonement, and Neither Should You.

"Limited" atonement is the Reformed/Calvinist doctrine that Christ died for the elect only, and no one else. In spite of the mountains of (in my opinion) meretricious arguments raised up in its favor, I have never believed it to be Scriptural, and here's a brief sum-up as to why:

Isaiah explicitly says that the extent of those who have gone astray is identical to the extent of those whose iniquities were laid upon Christ. Isaiah 53:6. Baptist theologian Walter Elwell cites this verse as an important one, and I agree. The extent of sin is equal to the extent of those whose iniquities were laid upon Christ. Isaiah wasn't talking about the elect only. Even if we was talking about the flock of Israel, he includes all Israelites.

John says that God loves the kosmos, so He gave (not just sent) his uniquely-begotten Son. John 3:16. Who is the world? This is the same world that loves darkness rather than light because their deeds are sinful (3:19), and that is everyone. God loved the world without exception by giving His Son on the cross. John Gill,  A.W. Pink, and other hyper-Calvinists make torturous claims that kosmos means "world of the elect", but the immediate context refutes that. That reasoning is an example of twisting Scripture to fit a predetermined system. 

John also says, in his first letter, that Christ's death expiates the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2). The "whole world" is that group of people who are not God's children, and who still lie under the power of Satan (1 Jn. 5:19). The Greek phrase "the whole world" is identical in both passages. We know from the rest of Scripture that people are in hell, and go to hell, so 1 John 2:2 wasn't teaching universalism. John meant that Christ provided expiation for all, which is why it can be offered to everyone without exception.

The fact that God offers expiation and justification of sin to everyone without exception means that He has the moral freedom to justify anyone. God can't offer what He doesn't have. God can't forgive unless the person is forgivable. Christ's death on the cross gave God the freedom to forgive. Christ's death is why God can be both just and the justifier of those who call on His name (Romans 3:26).

Since God can potentially justify anyone, that means Christ's death made everyone without exception justifiable. Limited atonement, on the other hand, makes God's offer a fraud. If Christ didn't die for everyone, then God can't offer to forgive everyone.
 
Christ's death did not purchase or redeem unilaterally. I believe that is the bedrock error of the limited-atonement doctrine -- the notion that the cross saves unilaterally. But this contradicts everything we know about redemption.

For example, the shedding of the lambs' blood on the night of Pass-over did not unilaterally protect the Jews. Each Jew still needed to individually paint the blood onto the doorposts and lintels of their houses, otherwise the angel of death would have killed their first-born too. The Passover lambs died, but if none of the Jews had applied the blood, the firstborn of the Jewish nation would have died anyway.

Moses' serpent on the cross was an emblem of Christ's death. God attached to it the promise and power of healing for everyone who looked at it; not just the elect. The bronze serpent did not work unilaterally, and neither does the cross.

Christ's death provides purchase from bondage to the Law, with consequent freedom from moral debt and eternal damnation, but on condition of their faith. There is also zero biblical evidence that the cross purchased faith for the elect.  That is a rationalistic claim driven only by the demands of a theological system, but it has no Biblical support.

The idea that preaching Jesus' death for all amounts to, in some way, a salvation by works, or that it frustrates God and exalts man, is hyper-Calvinistic, and, frankly, absurd. A "work", in the salvation sense, doesn't mean, "Something I do."

Even Calvinist writers insist strongly that God doesn't make us sock-puppets. Then that means I exercise faith. God did not force me to believe, or believe through me. Jesus credited the woman's believing as that which saved her. He said, in effect, she had saved herself (Luke 7:50). Jesus was not a neo-Puritan.

Prominent Presbyterian theologian J. Gresham Machen once wrote about the cross and evangelism, "But if anything has been done to save me, will you not tell me the facts?"  If limited atonement is true, Dr. Machen, then we have no good news to tell you.

We don't know who the elect are. If Christ only died for the elect, and since we don't know who the elect are, then we don't know if you, Dr. Machen, are among the elect. That means we don't know if Christ did anything to save you. So the answer to your question is no, we have no good news to tell you.

That is where limited atonement leaves you.