DHK, the problem as I see it with the view of many is that they hold to a literal payment of all sin and then make it less than effective to do what they say it accomplished. I see no way to escape the necessitated illogical ends of the literal payment theory, If one accepts the idea that all sins have been atoned for in a literal sense, you cannot esacpe universalism. On the other hand, if you say God atoned for all sin literally, but it is only made effective in the lives of the elect, you find yourself entertaining a stark contradiction, God’s atonement less than effective to accomplish that which it is said to have accomplished as well as representing God as a respecter of persons. If one holds to a literal payment, and only some have it applied to their lives via the election of God, you have the necessitated damnation of the wicked, never even having the possibility of forgiveness of sins due to the fact of limited atonement.
I personally see no other logical answer to this dilemma other than the acceptance of the idea that there was no literal payment at all. The atonement was a governmental proceeding that allowed Christ to suffer sufficiently that God accepted that suffering as a satisfaction of the penalty of the laws demands. It allows God to treat man governmentally ‘as if though’ he has not sinned when we satisfy the conditions He has set forth to make the atonement effective in our lives, i.e., repent, exercise faith, and then continue in obedience to the end.