I see averagefellar and you understood my meaning despite the typo. I agree the atonement is a full atonement because it completely satifies God's perfect justice which an eternity in hell by the unregenerate could never do (Try the math).
The work of atonement is finished but it does the elect no good until it is personally imputed to them. As Luther writes in the Large Catechism,
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For neither you nor I could ever know anything of Christ, or believe on Him, and obtain Him for our Lord, unless it were offered to us and granted to our hearts by the Holy Ghost through the preaching of the Gospel. The work is done and accomplished; for Christ has acquired and gained the treasure for us by His suffering, death, resurrection, etc. But if the work remained concealed so that no one knew of it, then it would be in vain and lost. That this treasure, therefore, might not lie buried, but be appropriated and enjoyed, God has caused the Word to go forth and be proclaimed, in which He gives the Holy Ghost to bring this treasure home and appropriate it to us. Therefore sanctifying is nothing else than bringing us to Christ to receive this good, to which we could not attain of ourselves.
