Having set forth the orthodox teaching, the Synod rejects the errors of those:
III Who teach that Christ, by the satisfaction which he gave, did not certainly merit for anyone salvation itself and the faith by which this satisfaction of Christ is effectively applied to salvation, but only acquired for the Father the authority or plenary will to relate in a new way with men and to impose such new conditions as he chose, and that the satisfying of these conditions depends on the free choice of man; consequently, that it was possible that either all or none would fulfill them.
For they have too low an opinion of the death of Christ, do not at all acknowledge the foremost fruit or benefit which it brings forth, and summon back from hell the Pelagian error.
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The third error promulgated by the Dutch Arminians and dealt with by the authors of the Canons is an error which is also tied to the modified governmental theory of the atonement. As devotees of the governmental theory see it, the death of Christ does not merit or accomplish anything in particular. Rather, through the death of Christ, God’s love and moral governorship of the universe is displayed, since the death of Christ supposedly shows us how seriously God regards human sinfulness.
As the Arminian theologian Limborch states, “the death of Christ is called a satisfaction for sin; but sacrifices are not payments of debts, nor are they full satisfactions for sins; but a gratuitous remission is granted when they are offered.” Notice the slippery language used by Limborch, since he speaks of the death of Christ as a "satisfaction," yet when doing so, means something far different than do the biblical writers (and the Reformed confessions) when they use the same term. For Limborch and the Arminians, “the atonement is a satisfaction.” But it is a "satisfaction" only because it demonstrates how seriously God takes sin, since God has arbitrarily determined to accept it as such.
Notice in the Arminian scheme what the atonement is not. The death of Christ is not the payment in full of the debt we owe to satisfy God's holy justice because of our sins. Nor is the atonement a payment for sin which is in any sense directly connected to the retributive justice of God, in which sin must be punished to the exact degree that it is an offense to God's holiness.
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