In view of the Biblical facts about premial justice (under whatever name), we should start to talk about “PREMIAL SATISFACTION,” i.e., that God’s justice “DEMANDED” that He repay Jesus for the INJUSTICE he suffered at the cross. Now wouldn’t that be a refreshingly cheerful “innovation” in atonement theory! [5/04/10] This astounding realization compels me to want to burst out laughing from sheer existential relief at the ineffably sweet triumph of REAL JUSTICE, AT LONG LAST! [6/16/21]
The Son of God HAD TO possess human flesh so that he was capable of being wrongly deprived of it so that God could be justified in giving it back to him with vast, just compensation via resurrection power so that we could be included (via baptism) in that salvation too! [5/04/10]
To define “grace” as “unmerited favor” sadly lacks the real leverage that propels grace. JESUS MERITED or DESERVED or WAS WORTHY OF GOD’S MOST EXTRAVAGANT GRACIOUSNESS or FAVOR! Because of his perfect, sinless, flawless, blameless, faultless obedience, he won it! [5/04/10] So although he thereupon generously gives it away to unworthy, undeserving, unmeriting sinners who merely believe, yet strictly speaking Christ did merit God’s favor by his personal, durable obedience through it all, being made perfect to become our High Priest before God. Simultaneously, he became our Example to emulate, because his conduct blazed the trail for us who follow. [5/05/21]
“I concur with Leon Morris who said that imputation is a corollary of the identification of the believer with Christ.“* Michael F. Bird, Introducing Paul: The Man, His Mission and His Message (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008) p. 98 (my emphasis).
*Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, 3rd ed. (Eerdmans, 1984) p. 282 (italic emphasis his; bold emphasis mine): “On the other hand he [Paul] never says in so many words that the righteousness of Christ was imputed to believers, and it may fairly be doubted whether he had this in mind in his treatment of justification, although it may be held to be a corollary from his doctrine of identification of the believer with Christ.” [5/04/10] However, this appended qualification is not founded on a Biblical pattern of sound explanations, but rests on a completely spurious notion of imputation, so we must never concede it, nor should Michael Bird have concurred with it. [5/05/21]
To “SHED BLOOD” is to TAKE LIFE. [5/04/10]
The statement, “we pay for our own sins by our death,” has exactly the same textual support from Scripture as the statement, “Jesus paid for our sins by his death,” i.e., NONE WHATSOEVER! However, the first statement, at least, possesses both prima facie validation from human experience as well as comportment with the general trend of payment language in Scripture, while the latter is an imposture. [5/04/10]
“The first fact to be mentioned will be very unwelcome to many, viz., that Marcion, the most famous heretic of the second century, was the earliest, and, in important respects, the truest precursor of Anselm in the Ante-Nicene period.” — T. Vincent Tymms, The Christian Idea of Atonement (London & New York: Macmillan, 1904) p. 22 (emphasis added). [5/04/10]
The notion that Christ’s “identification with humanity is so complete that it even includes the experience of death,”* puts an alien spin on the purpose of his death, as if the point of it was to achieve some sort of efficacy or potency called “identification.” Rather, the point of his death was not to “identify with sinners” but to suffer an inherently wrongful death, unlike ours, unlike a sinner’s death, precisely so that his Father would do him a resurrectionary justice gigantic enough to include all the rest of us in the bargain!
*R. Larry Shelton, Cross & Covenant (Paternoster, 2006) pp. 163-64. [5/04/10]
The Premial Atonement 