Christ atonement is complete in that “…from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. (2 Cor 5:16-19)
Atonement makes forgiveness possible, it does not make forgiveness finished! Atonement releases God from the necessity of wrath against us. That was the specific purpose and goal of the atonement: to reconcile the world to God!
Doug
Your exclamatory "Atonement makes forgiveness possible, it does not make forgiveness finished" nullifies the forgiveness of sin in Christ's Blood, and your exclamatory is driven by your Free-willian Philosophy, not the Word of God (see the prior post #57 to you in addition to this post). Free-will is a misnomer and non existent, and this fact is shown in the following.
Car and Truck Analogy
"Not forced" and "detached" are referring to the the same concept with respect to free-will. Perhaps an analogy will help.
Imagine a shiny red sports car free and zipping through mountain roads. The car's engine roaring through the straight aways, and the car coasting into the curves with the racer's foot anticipatorially over the accelerator pedal, ready for the scream of the tires as the car leaves the curve entering the next straightaway.
When the car is detached from a tow truck, then the self-propelled car is not forced by the tow truck; moreover, the car moves because of the car's engine, so the car is forced by the car's own engine itself.
On the other hand...
When the car is attached to a tow truck, then the car is forced by the tow truck; moreover, the car moves because of the tow truck's engine, so the car is not forced by the car's own engine.
We do not say "the engine is free to drive the roads", but we do say "the car is free to drive the roads". After all, the engine by itself goes nowhere because it requires the drivetrain, the wheels, the chassis, and so on; therefore, we refer to the whole system as a car, and "car" is the proper level of abstraction (or classification) to indicate as "free to drive the roads". A tow truck is also "free to drive the roads", so "car" and "tow truck" are at the same abstraction level in reference to "free to drive the roads".
On the other hand, "engine" is at the wrong abstraction level in reference to "free to drive the roads" when "car" and "tow truck" are being compared and contrasted with respect to "free to drive the roads". The "car" and the "tow truck" are vehicles, and each vehicle has it's own "engine".
There is no such thing as a free-engine driving around the roads because a free-engine lacks wheels, a passenger compartment, chassis, etc. A free engine does not have a car, so a free-engine is an absurd and nonsense concept.
We must compare like-for-like to arrive at accurate conclusions, so the "car" and the "tow truck" are similarly classed as vehicles for truthful comparison purposes, yet the "tow truck" is dissimilar to the "car engine" which means these fail like-for-like comparison purposes; in other words, the tow truck being compared to the car's engine is a comparison at two different levels of abstraction which renders an illogical comparison resulting in a false conclusion.
For purposes of this car and tow truck analogy, the engine is analogous to "will", and the car is analogous to a person, and the tow truck is analogous to God. As can be endemic to analogies, this analogy employs shadow that is overwhelmingly inferior to the substance, yet it accurately and sufficiently conveys the concept.
Essentially, the word "free" is the wrong terminology in the phrase "free-will" because a "will" is attached to a particular person; therefore, the appropriate terminology for a person's self-controlled "will" is "self-will" for humans (2 Peter 2:9-10).
Truly, Free-willian Philosophers are talking about "detached will" in reference to free-will, so freewill is a nonsense word.
Since the word free-will is a senseless, self-contradictory word, then the word freewill is also an unbiblical word.
In Biblical terminology, a person is "driven" by self-will (2 Peter 2:9-10), or a person is "driven" by the Will of God (Philippians 2:13).
As I wrote previously, largely, I use free will to mean man choosing toward God, emphatically Lord Jesus Christ. This narrows the focus, so the distinction between salvation (Philippians 2:13) and damnation (2 Peter 2:9-10) is highly relevant.
Atonement always includes forgiveness because atonement makes one to be "at one" with the Lord God Almighty!