75. How are the Atonement and ethics connected?
The inner logic of the Proclamation of God’s Kingdom, strikingly visible in the divinely engineered events of Cross-Resurrection-Pentecost, concerns the sequential roles of the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, respectively, in that unfolding Story. The Lord Jesus’ resplendent exaltation from a humiliating, excruciating death on a Roman cross reveals as transparently as historically conceivable the ethics of that Divine Team. In this celestial conception, the mutual setup and magnificent interplay for the sake of human salvation almost defies description. Yet this divine exhibit is the taproot of redeemed human behavior in every sphere of life. A fresh impulse for human action on the largest scale will flow from rehabilitating the true significance of saving righteousness, that is, “premial” (the reverse of penal) justice—the bright side of God’s juridical behavior. For lack of honoring this rescuing or rectifying facet, oriented to restoring victims of injustice, we’re building with only half a toolbox—the penal half, oriented to the perpetrators of wrongdoing. This is a grim and hapless limitation because penal justice is only harmfully retributive and can save us only if it happens to fall on our assailants! By contrast, rewarding, restorative, or premial justice exclusively can drop-ship positive salvation direct to us! A second prominent factor in the atonement is the principle of super-compensation, and it is indispensable. This simply means that God’s saving justice repays loss by rightful overcompensation, not by mere equivalent restitution. The upshot of the foregoing for human interaction on a panoramic scale lies in recognition of the absolutely identical impulse unifying the behavior of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as unveiled at the Cross, the Resurrection and Pentecost. The atonement and its resultant salvation throb at the heart of all these revealing events aggregately and define their unity of purpose. The whole marvelous spectacle is one of mutual divine gift-exchange in a kind of amplifying circuit. Not simply a new ethic, but a new jurisprudence, a new politics, a new economics, a new industry, a new science, a new education/schooling, a new counseling, a new child-rearing and much more are implied, as well. Yet most primally, a new devotion, a refreshed worship, and a revitalized mission surely must spring forth as joyous firstfruits of seeing all this with new eyes. That exemplary Relationship has style, visible from every angle! Its universal proliferation is the harbinger of the Kingdom of God. This is the ultimate model of authentic behavior for Christian emulation to ramify throughout global civilization. It has redemptive potential for transforming every enterprise and is truly sustainable (although from generation to generation it must bravely sustain repeated and savage assaults and multiple setbacks in the bargain!), in sync with the deep structure of our created environment: the exalted Master and Messiah, Jesus, who intimately, structurally, eternally mediates between the Creator and the entire creation.
The Premial Atonement 