By faith we are immersed into and continue to participate in THE FRUITS OF CHRIST’S INNOCENT AND OBEDIENT CAREER MAGNIFIED BY GOD’S JUSTICE WHEN HE WAS WRONGLY DEPRIVED OF HIS JUST DUE AS MESSIAH-IN-WAITING. That MAGNIFICATION was utterly essential in order to stretch wide enough to include all of mankind, potentially. For when we got baptized, we were incorporated as beneficiaries in the just due (dikaioma) won by Jesus Christ on account of his cross, at his resurrection and ascension to “David’s throne” on high. In the Lord’s Supper we keep partaking of that benefit as from a tree of life, for these are the fruits of his abuse-taking from sinners, the product of bearing their sins and assaults. This is the genius of God’s inscrutable plan for our salvation.
We see in this marvelous plan the discrete, essential, and complementary roles of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In sheer fact, only in these climactic events of Israel’s covenantal history can we see clearly for the very first time both the multifold nature of deity and the strategic rationale for waiting so long to reveal it. Simply put, if Satan had known the full payoff of his slaying Jesus, he would never have laid a brutal hand on him; for Christ’s perfect obedience to God–this was the result of who he was as God’s only-born Son–made him eligible for immortal kingship over Israel as David’s rightful heir. BUT HIS DEPRIVATION OF THAT ROYAL RIGHT MADE HIM ELIGIBLE FOR FURTHER DAMAGES AS WELL! WHAT A DIVINELY SURPRISING BENIGN SNAFU! [9/10/10]
It shouldn’t seem too surprising that the peculiar circumstance that occurs throughout the Book of Leviticus regarding the use of the identical term for “sin offering” as for “sin” recurs with precisely the same translation ambiguities in another sacrificial context, namely, apostle Paul’s famous passage at the end of 2 Corinthians 5. However, given the sacrificial parallelism, the solution should be immediately forthcoming, especially because the long-standing alternative leads only to innumerable difficulties, including speculative spinoffs wildly vagrant and elsewhere unattested by sound exegesis. [9/10/10]
It is not that Jesus got what he did not deserve (the cross) so that we could get what we did not deserve (everlasting life). This does not fairly represent the exchange in view within the Gospel, much less the precise mechanism at work. Rather, God’s plan was (as we can now see retrospectively) that Jesus should allow sinners to give him what he did not deserve (the cross) so that God could reveal His own supervening justice/righteousness from Heaven to give him what he really did deserve (everlasting life and royal glory via resurrection) in order that we, too, could share in his just award (which, of course, we did not deserve) by baptism and communion in Holy Spirit. Only when these various deserts are sorted out and weighted properly does the brilliance of God’s authentic Idea stand forth full force. Several kinds of “exchange” must be excluded from consideration while we ferret out the singular truth that is efficacious.
By baptism in water we enter the graciousness that was Christ’s judicial reward from God for enduring the cruel cross so as to make an escape for us from our sins and pave the only path back to God. And by communion in the Lord’s Supper we continue to stand in that graciousness by regular participation.
We can see that these appointed means of “exchange” serve the purpose of placing believers within the realm or Kingdom of God where God’s awarding of superabundant graciousness to Christ is made available to us for free (i.e., by baptism) and placing the power and graciousness of that Kingdom within us (i.e., communion). Accordingly, the love of God is both poured out into our hearts so that others can experience it from us, and demonstrated toward us so that we can experience it firsthand for ourselves. Thus, by the Holy Spirit we are both in Christ (baptism) and Christ in us (communion). In this dual sense Jehovah is “our righteousness,” for by doing justice premially to Jesus, all the blessings of his unimpeachable covenantal faithfulness gush down from Heaven onto and into God’s needy, thirsty people–“whosoever desires,” from every family, tongue, land, and nation! This is the gargantuan payoff of the flawless obedience of our Master, Jesus Christ. This is the authentic Gospel of apostolic endorsement. [9/10/10]
The Premial Atonement 