XTREME JUSTIFICATION

In the Old Covenant, the priests ate from most of the sacrifices, with the exception of the sin[-offering] and trespass[-offering]. This prefigures our living from Messiah’s sacrifice, deriving life from his sin[-offering] for our sakes. This is now also figured by the Lord’s Supper. But the deeper reality is that his self-sacrifice justified God in reversing the objective injustice of what was done to him precisely because of his perfect obedience in subjecting his just soul to such an outrage of indignity, dishonor, abuse, and mortification. His right broke through their wrong by the act of God’s Solomonic judgment simultaneously conquering evil and vindicating good…in one Wholesome Breath!

Therefore we very well can speak (pace Jürgen Moltmann) of “the resurrection of an expiatory offering” (The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology [Harper & Row, 1974] p. 183), provided that expiation is not regarded as including “propitiation,” i.e., a “paying off the Judge” (a bribe!). But the Old Testament does not reckon them as “propitiatory” either, so there is no contradiction or tension between the covenants.

The sacrifices of the Old Covenant also had, therefore, a resurrectionary outcome in the figurative shadow of their bestowing life on those who consumed them. And even the inedible sacrifices pictured a life-giving function within the nation of Israel that would have suffered death and destruction by disease, pestilence, and enemies had they not been faithfully performed…although the exact mechanism involved has often been mistakenly interpreted as “propitiating” God’s righteous indignation against their sins. No, no! These rites called down God’s graciousness, to be sure, but not because they staved off His wrath against sin. And when Israel thought otherwise, God even shattered their ritual practices—think of the Exile!—rather than allow them this illusion of “sacrificial, propitiatory protection” available for the mere mechanical performance. For they all prefigured the accomplishment of Messiah’s personal protective sacrifice, the exact mechanism of which was a subjection under the undeviating favor and well-pleased heart of his Father—a graciousness now shown us, in turn, for Messiah’s sake! [4/18/06; 11/22/25]

What we behold on an intimate viewing of Jesus’ crucifixion-and-resurrection are the two epicenters of salvation. In their juxtaposition is justification—for the Father’s actions, for the Son’s actions, and for human salvation from God’s threatened wrath against stubborn unrepentance. It’s all right there. What’s more, there’s eminent justification for the evil in the world, temporary and ultimately reversible as it is.

This is the secret hidden since the disruption of the world by sin. The exact circuitry of this decisive turning-point in the history of mankind was never before made known in such a concentrated manner until now. Here was an amplifying circuit achieved by a feedback loop secured in a firm covenant containing mutual promises between the Father and the Son from time immemorial. Here the sub-critical mass of human injustice was explosively thrust into xtreme proximity with the sub-critical mass of divine justice, yet safely within the protective shield and shelter of a single Mediator who, as both divine and human (besides being perfectly sinless while in principle mortal), could both suffer xtreme injustice (all the way through death and beyond, to the Unseen), but then enjoy xtreme vindication within moments, historically speaking. THE BLAST WAS COSMIC! THE BLINDING LIGHT HEALS OUR BLINDNESS! THE DEAFENING SOUND CURES OUR DEAFNESS! XTREME LIFE SPRANG FORTH AND DEATH WAS ANNIHILATED! [4/18/06; 11/22/25]

By raising Lazarus, Jesus overwhelmingly reversed Mary and Martha’s brief sorrow. Yet even Jesus wept only moments before this jubilant resurrection, effected by the Father, by the Hand of the Spirit, at His Son’s request. There is a time to weep and a time to joyfully dry our tears. [4/18/06; 11/22/25]

One would have thought that Paul Peter Waldenström’s superb (if gently devastating) treatments of the “wrath-of-God-against-Jesus” theme would have put it to rest in its well-deserved grave once and for all. Yet it came back to life again and buried him in obscurity instead. Why is that?

If the strange misrepresentations of Waldenström’s position in theological encyclopedias and dictionaries are indicative, it may be largely because he did not quite achieve resurrectionary closure to bring his basically correct understanding to the triumphant climax of a satisfying victory. But with the elapse of a century that milestone has been reached…and overreached! [4/18/06] So when’s the victory celebration? Where’s the party?

“THE GRACE OF GOD”

All my life, I have never quite understood “the grace of God” as it is formulaically known. It never really computed. It did not make sense. It always seemed like the highly processed byproduct or residue of lofty, arbitrarily selective calculations pertaining to a rather complicated manufacturing process using precise conversion units and high-heat, high-pressure molecular-exchange mechanisms. Once the theologianeers finished laboring over the arcane procedures, the product resembled something cranked from an assembly line, churned out of a factory. And after all that rigamarole, the thing still didn’t compute!

Not until every last joule of divine wrath was banished from the cross did the calculations really start to click in the core of my understanding. Ever so slowly, the ultimately simple and universal formula—the E=mc² of theology—started to take shape in my mind. The inner mind of Messiah was unfolding in magnificent, wondrous, marvelous perfection at long last! The Father’s heart was peering through the evaporating mists of well-meaning but² obscure “words without knowledge” that long usage and speciously hallowed tradition had passed down as “Gospel truth.” The new computations, to the contrary, actually yield an answer that comports with real life. All the math works! [4/18/06; 11/22/25]

CROSS-WIRED: PENAL SUBSTITUTION

The dominant so-called “orthodox” Protestant doctrine of “atonement” has been handed down to us badly cross-wired. The evangelical legacy of “penal substitution” has negative leads attached to the ‘pole’ and a very loose positive connection to the tomb, so it barely lights up at all when the switch is thrown. The terminals have corroded so there’s hardly any power flowing from the sepulcher. Meanwhile, the cross has been collecting a massive negative charge of ionized vapor—a smoke screen—that surrounds it with a repellant and repulsive magnetic field of violent magnitude that threatens all life forms within range. The old high-resistance circuitry is obsolescing and in danger of total meltdown in case of a power surge. The primitive, in fact downright medieval, wiring has been heretofore heavily insulated, but bare wire has repeatedly been exposed in recent times, whereas repairs seem less and less effectual. Sparks have been flying, and even the circuit breakers are broken! The old dynamo appears less dynamic, and by all indicators more heat than light is being radiated.  [4/16/06]

“THE FRUIT OF THE LAW”?

The Law of Moses scarcely demanded, much less produced, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, amenableness, or self-control. And although it did very explicitly, even primarily, command love, yet this, too, it was powerless to evoke.

Thus the great superiority of our getting the Wholesome Spirit in this age, post-Pentecost, is that these multifaceted traits actually do get sprouted and bud and blossom and come to mature fruitage within us. And it is the duty of senior/elder learners in our assemblies to test for these fruits regularly. Against such character qualities, there is no law.  [4/17/06]

We pass, as if through a magnifier, from this age into the future age, for in that age, whatever is done intentionally in this one is superabundantly overcompensated. This is what Scripture teaches us about God’s Justice. There is a transformation between the ages. Even our bodies are as seeds in comparison to what their planting will manifest and unfold on the other side of the first death. The first resurrection (by our faith, which implants us into Messiah’s already consummated resurrection, exaltation, and glorification—that is, transformation—via water and Spirit immersion) enables us to enjoy a foretaste of that future so that we can even here and now start to realize and recognize Messiah and be transformed into his image, “the eyes of [our] heart having been enlightened for [us] to perceive what is the expectation of His [the Father’s] calling and what the wealth of the glory of the inheritance of His allotment among the wholesome ones, and what the transcending greatness of His power for us, who are believing, in accord with the operation of the might of His strength, which is operative in the Messiah, raising him from among the dead and seating him at His right hand among the celestials, up over every sovereignty and authority and power and lordship, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is future, and subjects all under his feet, and gives him, as Head over all, to the assembly, which is his body, the contents with which all in all is getting filled.” (Eph. 1:18-22)  [4/17/06]

GOD’S ANGER AGAINST INCORRIGIBLE VIOLATORS CANNOT BE BOUGHT OFF; CHRIST INDEMNIFIED THE SINFUL BY STEPPING BETWEEN THEM AND SATAN, AT THE LOSS OF HIS OWN SINLESS LIFE, YET IN RELIANCE ON GOD’S JUSTICE TO REVERSE IT WITH DUE COMPENSATION

Scripture does not represent God as “the righteous judge who requires the propitiation which Jesus alone can offer” (á là Thomas A. Smail in The Forgotten Father, 1981) so that He can pardon sins gratuitously.  This strikes us as downright stingy, crabbed, and warped…not to add, ‘mechanical.’  ‘Payment’ for sins is sufficiently exacted by the wrath of God periodically released against persistently stubborn rebels as frightful object lessons to the rest of us.  And if that were not payment enough, the last farthing will be collected soon enough at the Lake of Fire.  For the anger of God against unrepented wickedness cannot be bought off at any price.

However, having said that, the “propitiation” (better:  protection, shielding, shelter, or indemnification) that the Father sent and officially commissioned His faithful Son to make on behalf of the entire human race effected with astounding thoroughness the whole heroic feat!  How?  By placing himself between “him who had the might of death, even the Adversary” (Heb. 2:14)—”that Great Dragon“ (Rev. 12:9), fire-breathing and red with rage—and us fated victims, helpless in our corruption and weakness.

This “chief of the authority of the air (Eph. 2;2),” using his agents, “the chiefs of this age (1 Cor. 2:6, 8),” unloaded his full payload of viciousness at this Target, with evident deadly results.  So far so bad.  But the story wasn’t over.  Allowing a few grim hours for the full realization of this deadly blow to sink in to all those who had perpetrated and witnessed it, God the Father Himself answered this enormity of infernal assaultiveness with TRANSCENDENTLY OVERWHELMING, SUPERABUNDANT OVERCOMPENSATION that totally exploded the most generous calculations of the actuaries.  Such exuberant super-excessive repayment was OFF THE CHARTS.  THUS WERE WE INDEMNIFIED BEYOND MEASURE, UNSTINTINGLY!  THAT’S GOD THE FATHER’S GRACIOUSNESS ON FULL DISPLAY.  [4/17/06]