Surprise! It was God Himself who performed the stupendous “ACT OF SUPEREROGATION” that “merited” Jesus with overflowing immortality and unlimited sovereignty over all the works of God’s hands.

John McLeod Campbell, by famously pursuing Jonathan Edwards [Sr.]’s, rejected option of Christ’s presenting to God on behalf of sinners “an adequate sorrow and repentance,” an “answerable repentance and sorrow,”* was after all still seeking “satisfaction” for sins. He never apprehended that God the Father himself “satisfied” (“paid”) for sin, as exhibited by the most heinous sin of the crucifixion of His very own Son—a sin SUPEREXCESSIVELY “PAID FOR” BY HIS REPAYING THE VICTIM WITH RESURRECTION TO IMMORTAL LIFE AND FURTHER ROYAL EXALTATION. This “premial” satisfaction far outshines any variation on the penal theme! [6/27/11]

In the apostolic premial explanation of the atonement it is none less than God the Father who performs an act of “SUPEREROGATION,” COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED, AND SO EXTREME IN ITS CAPTURE THAT THE WHOLE SINFUL SPECIES OF MANKIND CAN BE SAVED PROVIDED THEY BELIEVE THE EXTRAORDINARY MESSAGE. [6/27/11]

Campbell’s unreeling of Jonathan Edwards’ throwaway alternative to penal substitution, namely, into a theory of vicarious repentance and sorrow, has this against it, that it sees God as demanding imperfect sorrow for sin from human beings, and perfect sorrow from a sinless substitute, yet no sorrow, to speak of, from God Himself! For if Jesus was veritably commissioned to reveal the heart of the Father in Heaven, then where is the fatherly sorrow that is ostensively getting mirrored in this construction? To be sure, there must have been sorrow, even perfect sorrow in the Son, reflective of the Father’s own, but how could the Son, by exhibiting sorrow at the Cross, be making any kind of “reparation” back to the Father? Rather, such an obedient reflection of the Father’s own attitude concerrning sin more properly amounts to an additional virtue to evoke the Father’s impending premial “satisfaction” of his native justice via rewarding Christ with resurrection to agelong life plus an incomparably glorious inheritance of all things.

Much less can we agree with the notion that Jesus “satisfied” God by a perfect repentance since not only did he have no personal sins to repent of, but neither did God(!), whom he was commissioned to reveal, after all. Of course, God is indeed said to repent of His oft intention to do evil to sinners who themselves don’t repent of their sins. On the flip side, He can even repent of His plans to do them good when it appears they have turned back to those sins “like a dog to its vomit and a bathed sow to its wallowing in the mire” (2 Peter 2:22). But this is evidently not what Campbell had in mind concerning the Cross. And in any case such measures could hardly be “perfect” inasmuch as Jesus lacked the possession of the key element indispensable to render any repentance perfect: sin and the consciousness thereof.

Furthermore, Scripture is perfectly silent about any “imputation” of sin to Christ such as Reformation-era Protestants taught (and even more so the post-Reformation). Conversely, neither could Christ’s alleged “perfect repentance” be “imputed” to human beings without some sufficient warrant from Scripture. Where is it? Many a synthesizing theologian has scoured Scripture for imputation language to justify “justification” of a Protestant variety, without notable success. What good can possibly be expected of such an ostensibly “moral” fiction any more than what, for instance, John Wesley famously observed resulting from the legal fiction of orthodox Lutheran stripe (which he himself had preached for a while, but came to regret and repent of)? [6/27/11; 5/22/24]

That God can accept mere faulty human repentance and faith as quite “sufficient” to “satisfy” the insistence of His penal justice and accordingly relax the “demand” for punishment of a sin, can only be accounted for satisfactorily by a prior supervening incursion of an event of premial justice possessing such super-compensating graciousness toward sinful humanity that God is warranted to count (ΛΟΓΙΖ-) such heartfelt—and God can see all hearts!—impulses as righteousness FOR THE SAKE OF HIS SON AND THE INJUSTICE HE SO GRACIOUSLY BORE AND ENDURED FOR THEIR SAKES, AND THEREUPON POUR OUT THE SHEER GIFT THAT HIS JUSTICE DECREED FOR CHRIST: THE HOLY SPIRIT OF LIFE! For since Christ’s perfect obedience and faithfulness to God through every trial won the promised award of God’s premial justice to such a One (according to and witnessed by the Law of Moses and the Prophets), God exerted the right and authority to dispense it at His own holy ‘whim’! Praise be to God for His indescribable Gift! [6/27/11; 5/22/24]

Overcompensating Restitution Covers ALL Sins

To speak of Christ’s “fulfillment of Scripture” or even “fulfillment of the Law” as meaning primarily (much less exclusively “meeting all its DEMANDS” is to prejudice the discussion from the start, in a merely legal direction instead of a fully covenantal one. [7/22/09]

The “governmental view of the Atonement” first articulated by Hugo Grotius was an acknowledgement of a serious flaw in Calvin’s “penal payment” view—an economic problem. Grotius backed off of the strict equivalence between Christ’s sufferings and the sins thereby presumably “paid for.” And Grotius was correct in his demurring from that severity. However, even so, his solution is defective. For only the righteousness of God, understood as His supercompensating premial justice to Jesus Christ in exchange for the latter’s obedient surrender to a wrongful death, which reward was progressively unfolded starting with his resurrection, I repeat, only this divine righteousness ushered into the world a “payment” sufficient to provide salvation for ALL THE WORLD OF MANKIND on grounds that JUSTIFIED GRATUITOUS BESTOWAL WITHOUT IMPUGNING EITHER THE EFFICACY OF THE GIFT OR THE SELF-DETERMINATION OF HUMANS.

Hereby we are operating on a level that transcends the problematics of a strict economic equivalence supposedly reflecting a “sovereign election” of a “limited number” without any “wastage,” (which would allegedly reflect badly on God’s wisdom and foreknowledge), for OVERCOMPENSATING RESTITUTION COVERS ALL SINS WITHOUT REMAINDER…AND SOME! Premial justice explodes a “commercial” atonement to shameful oblivion. It is assuredly not God’s way of doing atonement. We are not dealing in the realm of “penal payment” but of “premial reward,” and the two conceptions are incommensurable. “Wastage” is never so much as calculated in the premial concept of apostolic Scripture. In fact, it would dishonor God the Father to do so! For when He deigns to award His beloved Son, He was evidently uncalculating in His lavish munificence! His royal splendor is tarnished by such prattle! Oh that we would exult to the max in the majesty of His SUPEREROGATORY GENEROSITY!

Within this magnificent conception, not only the Atonement is understood as general, unlimited, and universal, but even the variegated benefits it procured (no longer conceived as merely commercial acquisitions) are recognized as enjoyed by any and all as soon as they believe and so long as they continue to believe. This includes regeneration, i.e., getting the Holy Spirit, along with forgiveness, cleansing, justification, sanctification—the whole shot! IT ALL MAY BE TASTED, SAMPLED, ENJOYED, even by those who may later fall out of this UNREGRETTED GRACIOUSNESS only to return as dogs to their vomit and sows to their wallowing in the mire (2 Peter 2:22), AND ALL WITHOUT THE LEAST BESMIRCHING OF GOD’S WISDOM OR “SOVEREIGNTY”! GOD’S RESTORATIVE JUSTICE AND BENEFICENCE ARE THAT EXPANSIVE!!

The bottom line is that God’s premial justice, utterly eclipses the crabbed limitations of penal payment in all its usual guises and many varieties, whether Calvin’s own authentic mix or Beza’s more consistent and severe form, followed by Perkins, Ames, Owen, and many other English Puritans and all the Reformed standards, whether Swiss, Dutch, Scottish, along with all their epigones down to the present. Arminius and Amyraldus issued noble objections, to be sure, but without THE POWER OF THE RESURRECTION, THE FULL AND GLORIOUS MAGNITUDE OF THE GIFT OF SALVATION JUST KEPT GETTING SWATTED DOWN TO THE PUNY SIZE PERMITTED BY A PENAL MENTALITY AND VENGEFUL SPIRIT. THAT IS THE SHRUNKEN LEGACY OF ORTHODOX PROTESTANT ATONEMENT. [7/22/09]