The resurrection of Jesus Christ achieved a definitive demonstration of the righteousness of God. There is no mystery to this; it is the luminous end of “the secret hidden from the ages” (Ephesians 3:4-5, 9) concerning the salvation of mankind. To call anything concerning the Gospel a “mystery” is to misuse the word and to re-mystify the open secret of God’s graciousness now revealed in the career of the Lord Jesus Christ. Such a reversion would amount to a culpable cover-up.
Furthermore, and most emphatically, this demonstration of divine justice in Christ’s resurrection is perfectly (!) rational. This can hardly be overemphasized, especially as a counterweight to orthodox rationalizations in the face of Abelardian, Socinian, and many other less notorious objections to the irrationality of penal substitution (and vicarious satisfaction). [2/17/09]
Once the erroneous notion of “identification with sin” (based on a mistranslation of hamartia as “sin” instead of “sin offering” in 2 Corinthians 5:21 and of a similar misunderstanding of Romans 8:3) is subtracted from the concept of Christ’a “identification” with sinners, there is not much solid content left to recommend it, unless we only mean that he became one of us and entered the world that had been subjected to the evils consequent on sin. But we can only get so much mileage out of this meaning of “identification.” Other words better depict this reality, and none must bear the weight of any penal substitutionary bric-a-brac. [2/17/09]
“THE MYSTERY”
The mystery “of the Atonement” is why theologians have not seen the resurrection of Christ as the righteousness of God in action. The mystery is why evangelical theologians ridiculed the suggestion that the sacrificial blood was a symbol of resurrection life made available for all through death of an innocent victim. The mystery is why theologians continue to translate hamartia as “sin” instead of “sin offering” in 2 Corinthians 5:21 even though it is translated “sin offering” literally scores of times in the Septuagint version of Leviticus and beyond, in similar sacrificial contexts, right alongside its translation as “sin” proper (as if it were intended to force us to struggle with its deeper meaning).
The mystery of the Atonement is that the Psalms actually associate God’s righteousness with “raising” scores of times, yet theologians don’t notice! The mystery is that even Moses’ Law required overcompensation by offenders to their victims, but this kind of divine justice “just” is not noticed by atonement theologians. The mystery is that the actual “faith of Christ” counts for nothing with penal substitution champions.
The mystery is that although sins are never declared to be “imputed (logiz-) to Christ” in Scripture, penal substitution theologians insist they are! Add to that the mystery that the Bible nowhere teaches that Adam’s sin was “imputed” to his descendants, yet theologians remain stubborn that they were. Those two mysteries are compounded yet more by the mystery of “Christ’s righteousness” (in itself, not a biblical expression at all!) being “imputed” to believing sinners, about which God’s Word is mysteriously (!) silent.
The culminating mystery of the Atonement is why the original words translated “atonement,” “propitiation,” “expiation,” etc., were ever rendered that way when the original words literally meant a protective cover or covering (“coverage”). [2/18/09]
The Premial Atonement 