“Forensic Blindness” is an inner heart ailment resulting from the extension, bloating, or herniation of forensic categories into textual tissues where they do not belong. The eventual hardening of the categories results in the baneful and habitual, even reflexive obscuring of all non-forensic categories, usually by minimizing their central significance.
Thus, e.g., the Biblical teaching concerning Christ’s resurrection, the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the importance of Messiah’s directives, and the cruciality of our obedience to them despite all temptations, not to add the significance for our daily lives of the power of God’s Kingdom, especially in miraculous manifestations, are all underplayed, neglected, or minimized. [10/20/06]
All the amazing benefits of the New Covenant had to be procured and sealed by an actually sinless—thus truly human, i.e., capable of sinning, but also truly theotic, i.e., capable of resisting temptation to sin—Victim whose innocent blood was worthy of such an incomparable reward by way of God’s righteous overcompensation. [10/30/06]
The two cherubim—an integral, inseparable part of the solid gold “propitiatory” cover that fit onto the Ark of the (Old) Covenant—depicted the angelic protection that was an integral part of this indemnity concerning Israel’s sins. The requisite blood could of itself not depict this. The shadows of the Old Testament are, accordingly, compound types. Only the fulfilling antitype, Jesus, could pull them all together into a unity, integrally. [10/30/06]
Even as (the whimsical saying goes) “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” so the way of Messiah’s blood to our hearts is through taking it, in the Lord’s Supper, into our stomachs. The image is very simple and direct. Drinking of the wine while believing in his Explanation about it brings the benefits he promised in his New Covenant: release from sins, the cleansing of our hearts, the power of the Spirit of wholesomeness. [10/30/06]
The very most central essential, and active ingredient of God’s rectitude is that he MUST REWARD THE FAITHFUL. He can mercifully let sins go unpunished—that too is an intrinsic and very endearing component of His uprightness—His kindness—although this does not exclude fatherly chastisement, discipline, and scourging. And eventually, yes, even His anger, roused by the incorrigibility of the stubbornly sinful, will at length descend with destructive force upon their own heads.
BUT GOD’S HONOR IS MOST INTIMATELY BOUND UP WITH THE ABSOLUTE IRONCLAD NECESSITY OF RECOMPENSING THE RIGHTEOUS WHO ARE OPPRESSED. [10/30/06]
The Premial Atonement 