SUICIDE MISSION WITH A TWIST ENDING

The dogmatic insistence on the part of penal substitution theologians that “reconciliation happened ‘objectively,’ ‘once and for all,’ at the Cross” is based on the erroneous supposition that “God needed to be reconciled to sinners.” Of course, since God is a singular party, then IF He actually did need to be reconciled, then it does seem plausible that this should occur at a single historic moment. But this is a specious need, hence the trend of apostolic language toward conciliation as occurring in a multiplicity of discrete moments whenever and wherever sinners one by one believe the “Explanation of conciliation” (2 Cor. 5:20). Paul Peter Waldenström, in principle, secured this crucial advance in the history of soteriology in the early 1870s. (See post for April 3, 2012, “The Nature of Conciliation with God.”)

God chooses our faith on account of Christ’s faithfulness, who was the Inaugurator (arch-) and Perfector (-tel-) of our faith. Even faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. Therefore God reckons the tiniest degree of true faith to be uprightness worthy of reward for Christ’s sake, whose own faithfulness, when matured and perfected, won the just award of his resurrection from the dead, since one who is righteous by faith, as Christ was, shall inevitably live, regardless of “impossibilities” even as “irreversible” as lethal public execution itself. Jesus proved it so that we could have solid expectation and therefore would endure in faith through our own severest trials. Faith is the genuine article; every other virtue stems from the power of the Holy Spirit that Christ’s perfected faithfulness won from God’s justice in answer to the extreme injustice he underwent. [4/3/12; 1/25/26]

Jesus died for us so that we could get the Holy Spirit. That’s the bottom line of the New Covenant he inaugurated by his sacrifice on the cross. He died for our sins so that the Holy Spirit could cleanse away those sins and give us immortal life in exchange for the death that is otherwise our looming, inescapable, and final fate. [4/4/12; 1/25/26] Christ Jesus was on A SUICIDE MISSION WITH A TWIST ENDING. [4/5/12]

Only Christian, i.e., New Testament (New Covenant) principles and precepts can build safe, caring, and prosperous civilizations. Granted, without the presence and welcoming of the Holy Spirit of that New Covenant, made available as a result of the shedding of Christ’s blood and God’s prompt, marvelous, and counter-intuitively merciful response to that gross human miscarriage of justice by raising him from the dead with power and glory and explosive graciousness to dispense freely to all who believe this Proclamation—I repeat, without that Spirit of Wholesomeness such progress is greatly inhibited, even stalled. But there is no other path to true progress in any sector of society. Every other proposal eventually shows its true colors as a cover, a masquerade, a facade for corrupting self-interest, and such “progress” gets exposed as only a tawdry secret history of mounting injustices preparing the way for Divine judgments.

Accordingly, we need to focus on the Christian rudiments of civilization found in the teaching of Jesus and his select apostles. These principles far transcend the letter of Old Testament Scripture, while extending its very Spirit of tough love and public justice. Frederick Denison Maurice, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Kingsley, Charles Dickens (recall, e.g., Marley’s remark to Scrooge about “responsibility,” and “duty,” especially in business), Abraham Kuyper, Henry George, Richard T. Ely, John R. Commons, Walter Rauschenbusch, Toyohiko Kagawa, et al, caught glimpses of this noble imperative as overriding individualistic selfishness, utilitarian self-interest, corporate capitalistic greed (“which is idolatry,” Colossians 3:5–devotion to “Mammon”), etc., engendering a rugged moral ethos of care and even starting to flesh out creative and worthy structural alternatives with varying degrees of acceptance and success, giving rise to diverse reform movements around the world from which we can still draw inspiration. [4/17/12; 1/25/26]