“For thus says the Lord, ‘There shall not be cut off a man of David’s line from sitting on the throne of the house of Israel. As for the Levitical priests there shall not be cut off a man from before Me who offers up the ascent approach and fumes the approach present and offers sacrifices for all the days.” (Jer. 33:17-18)
Now that Messiah has arrived in the person of Jesus, many Old Testament prophecies are changed in meaning, actually transformed before our eyes to reveal their true substance and New-Covenant import!
Jer. 33:18, for instance, now reveals God’s intention (although it was implicit in the provisions and promises of the first covenant, “which covenant [Israel] broke” Deut. 31:20, Jer. 11:9-10, 31:31-33, Heb. 8:8-10) for all His people, in light of Jer. 33:17, the immediately preceding verse, when the Wholesome Spirit opens our eyes to see Jesus in it!
Thus occurs a ‘transvaluation’ of prophecies that an unbelieving, stubborn people—“Israel according to the flesh”—could never apprehend.
O Father, continue to open our heavy eyes to see Jesus so that then we might also behold our true destiny before Your face! Hallelujah! [11/26/04]
The notion of ‘progressive sanctification’ is a residue of the penal substitution theory of the atonement that does not understand the blood of Jesus as actually, truly cleansing our hearts/consciences from misdeeds. To be sure, it is not the literal blood that is applied to our hearts/consciences to effect this result but the agelong life of the innocent and perfectly just soul of Jesus (which is “in the blood”), the Lamb of God—it is this life, poured out from heaven into our believing hearts via the Wholesome Spirit, the promise of the Father in the New Covenant in Messiah’s justly innocent blood, which is the active ingredient which cleanses from misdeeds and dead works; see Acts 10:15-16, 44-47; 11:9-10, 15-17; 15:8-9; Heb. 9:13-14, 22-26; 10:2-4, 19-22; 13:20. (See also the works of P. P. Waldenström concerning Reconciliation/Atonement—a single word in the Swedish language.)
In the penal substitution theory, the blood was presented to God to pacify or appease or placate or satisfy His wrath against sin so that He could ‘forensically’ justify the sinner who believes. Yet the sinner is then understood to be a sinner still, except that, having been justified ‘in the blood‘ instantly upon faith in Christ because of what he accomplished ‘at/on the cross’ (i.e., his death on our behalf), the sinner is understood to be ‘sanctified‘ by a process throughout life thereafter. Thus passages like Heb. 10:14 are thought to be teaching a lifelong ‘being sanctified’ rather than our “getting wholesome” instantaneously by our Chief Priest’s “one approach–present” by which he “has perfected to the finality” (Heb. 10:1-2, 12-14) those who are, one by one (an historical procession!) getting and remaining wholesome by this priestly ministration.
The penal substitution model of the Atonement as taught by the Protestant Reformers, made justification personally instantaneous but sanctification personally progressive. However, Scripture, to the contrary, teaches that both justification (in the epistle of Romans) and sanctification (in Hebrews) are personally instantaneous upon faith, as witnessed by the receipt (‘signed and paid for’ by Christ himself in his own blood!) of the Holy Spirit “with signs and miracles following.” This was the empirical proof to Peter (cf. Acts 10-11 and 15:8-9) of the nations having received both of these boons in one fell swoop, all at once. We don’t get more and more wholesome before God any more than we get more and more upright. We simply walk enduringly in the faith that keeps us in that state of rectitude and wholesomeness and forgiveness. To be sure, our faith should ever grow and get more firmly rooted and established against all opposition. But it is rooted exactly in the instantaneously and gratuitously given realities of righteousness and holiness/wholesomeness.
Both of these realities are founded alike in the blood of Jesus (i.e., his sinless soul given up to a public, violent, unjust death and raised from the dead by the justice of God to agelong life, thus justifying God in giving us His promised Spirit for free). This is why both the New Testament and the early church teach that we are repeatedly to “eat the flesh” and “drink the blood” of the Lamb of God (the Passover) in the Lord’s Dinner. For in this way we enjoy its agelong benefits continuously in this life, i.e., righteousness and wholesomeness. [11/30/04; 10/3/25]
The penal substitution theory of the Protestant Reformers, ironically, retained the substance of the Roman Catholic (Augustinian) notion of progressive justification (which is equally false) under the rubric of ‘progressive sanctification.’ However, it is not a necessary ingredient to a full and entire comprehension of justification (a judicial metaphor) and sanctification (a priestly metaphor).
Having said that, it is still necessary to affirm that throughout our current earthly sojourn through this present vicious age of the world ‘with devils filled’, as we are remaining in Messiah’s explanations and declarations, keeping his directions, walking in the light of truth, we are participating or communing with the Father and the Son by Their Spirit, according to the distinctive promise of the Father in the New Covenant in the blood of His only-born Son, and thus partake of the divine nature, including righteousness and wholesomeness, in an increasing way as we stay in trust. We are to become full of Spirit, letting Messiah’s Explanation dwell in us richly, completing wholesomeness in the fear of God (2 Cor. 7:1) until love casts out fear when it has become perfect, so that our joy becomes full (1 John 4:18; John 15:9-11), etc., etc.
These are all progressive, to be sure, But they are the fruit of a rectitude in the eyes of God that is imputed to us instantaneously and continuously as we keep trusting Jesus, and only so long as we endure in that faith, steady, rooted, grounded, founded, stable, steadfast.
However, no less is this true of wholesomeness. For all the fruit of God’s Spirit of wholesomeness grows naturally (“if the firstfruit is wholesome, the kneading is also; and if the root is wholesome, the boughs are also” Rom. 11:16) in those who are called “wholesome [ones]/saints“ by a faith that causes the blood of the Wholesome One to get applied to their hearts, thus cleansing away their misdoings.
In both of these procedures, God wants to glorify our simple trust or faith in Him as manifested in doing what the Messiah, His Son, directed us. And the reason is eminently plain: keeping his directions (εντολ-) leads us, in the power of his Spirit of wholesomeness, along the path to maturity (-τελει-) of wholesomeness for agelong life. The root, if we stay put, produces the fruit of uprightness and wholesomeness—the whole spectrum of virtues listed by Paul (Gal. 5:22-23), James (James 3:13, 17-18), and Peter (2 Peter 1:5-8). Not surprisingly, each list explains them in terms of “fruit.” Do we get this? [12/1/04]
The Premial Atonement 