But for the grace of God, a great many more of us would be just like Martin Luther, John Calvin, Theodore Beza, John Owen, Francis Turretin, if not worse. [2/26/11] Even allowing for the residual barbaric vindictiveness of those centuries, many of their noble contemporaries rose above the brutal instincts of their human milieu to deserve divine accolades, as did their exemplars in the first centuries after the Light of Christ’s resurrection first broke through. In view of that record, what excuse can we muster to defend the embarrassingly unchristlike tenor of well-known historic words and works of notable founders and promoters of modern reform movements in the church? Surely it is no longer “in our interest” (it never really was) to suppress unseemly examples, any more than the Bible would dare to do so (which episodes, bear in mind, have become causes for slander by many a gleeful accuser of saints, despite their source in holy Writ). Better to err in the interest of exposure than of concealment. We ought, accordingly, to applaud intrepid filmmakers who let the chips fall where they may (think only of “Maestro,” “Oppenheimer,” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” in 2023, among others). [2/19/24]
How seldom we reflect on the probing question exactly why we must insist on a doctrine of atonement with teeth in it, a theory ‘red in tooth and claw.’ What inner impulse overrides the native reticence of Scripture to cooperate with our punitive venture of bullying its vocabulary and semantic integrity into a tortured confession of our carnally cruel orthodoxy?
Witness only the disgracefully irresponsible renderings scattered throughout the New International Version (NIV)—and now also the newer and widely endorsed English Standard Version (ESV)—of the Bible. If, as hoped, these little spins and twists of meaning did somehow manage to pass muster at the moments they cropped up for initial scholarly scrutiny, yet have never been adequately exposed, much less repented of, then how dreadfully might they play out on the projected “international” stage over the long haul after attaining widespread uncritical acceptance? [2/26/11]
We may cry up “love” and shout down “justice” (penal, naturally) all we want, but the resulting contents of love will remain actually denatured unless we reconstitute the premial contents of integral justice. For full and entire justness (human no less than divine!) is simply the conformity to (in the case of personal righteousness) and restoration of (in the case of public justice) a law whose fulfilment IS LOVE! Accordingly, it is LOVE that both punishes the vicious (who violate the norm of love by their stubborn behaviors and harm the innocent by predatory habit) and rewards the virtuous (who actualize the norm of love by their resolute conducts). We can see this strikingly in its fairness and wisdom when God’s “punishment” of offenders amounts pedagogically to coercing them with official force to supercompensate their victims by restoring with a surplus of good. [2/27/11]
The penal substitution theory underestimates the damage done by sin. That’s, at least in part, why it is compelled to augment the actual harm sin causes with the supplemental notions of “guilt” and “punishment.” Accordingly, in common parlance Christ is not said to actually “bear sin(s)” (as Scripture however does teach), but to “bear the guilt and punishment of sin(s) (which Scripture, curiously, does not teach). It all sounds so plausible, especially in combination with the fabricated theory of imputation, so-called, which confers the glory of a solid Biblical concept upon a specious theory that environs it with alien contexts of discourse and, in effect, reconceptualizes it perversely. Sadly, the existential declension that ensued remains all but undetected by its devotees, and evidently even by most challengers. [2/28/11; 2/19/24]
If the premial understanding of the atonement and justification is not restored to the church, certain behavioral reflexes within thought and practice will assuredly continue to build up pressure and burst through toxically to assault the cause of Christ at unpredictable times and places. In particular, the popular tendency to avoid asking God for JUSTICE (in preference to mercy) seriously debases our expectation of observing restorative justice on our behalf within personal experience and current events, much less in the panoramic drama of unfolding history going forward. Not only may we despair of seeing it happen on our own behalf (“I’m just an unworthy sinner, scarcely deserving of mercy!”), but the eager longing for justice expressed by others within our purview tends not to arouse our sympathy or compassion, much less our emulation! This consequence severely debases Christian motivation to do justice in the earth. It threatens to compromise our whole ethic, our very witness to God’s Kingdom before a barely watching, marginally curious, cynically doubtful, but mostly skeptical and increasingly hostile world. We face a huge problem. [3/1/11; 2/19/24]
The Premial Atonement 