The inner disconnect of divine character in Evangelical atonement theory is reconnected by premial justice

Orthodox Evangelical atonement theory teaches perforce that the ultimate logic of the Atonement is the necessity of penal retribution—the logic of God the Father. Subordinate to that is the logic of the Son of God—forgiveness. The Son manifests God as love; the Father, as “holiness.” This inner disconnect in Deity is what necessitated the Cross, putting together again what all the king’s horsepower and all the king’s manpower were powerless to achieve, for they too “had a great Fall” (though winter came early…). To give us a choice of logics to emulate (being the sinners we are) is almost to guarantee a landslide victory for avenging, i.e., unforgiveness. For if this representation of ultimate realities is anywhere near accurate, God made a big boo-boo by revealing it to sinners.  [12/19/06]   Only the premial justice of God, showing up at the Resurrection to reverse the fait accompli, can set the record straight and make the Story come out right.

“IMPUTATION”: A SHORT CIRCUIT

The doctrines (there are three) of so-called “imputation” amount to short circuits—wayward alternative paths of access to the meaning and power of Messiah’s saving work. Following the rewirings by Augustine, Calvin, Ames, and Piscator, the pivotal significance of Pentecost was often shunted past so that the Holy Spirit’s role in the Atonement got bypassed. Historic attempts of the Holy Spirit to gently retake full and proper governance were bitterly accused of “irregularities” and viciously downgraded: Montanists, mystics, Anabaptists, Huguenot prophets, Quakers, Moravians, Cambuslang, Great Awakening, Second Great Awakening, frontier Camp Meetings, Edward Irving, Charles Finney, Revivals, Faith Cure Movement, Scandinavian Free Church Revivals, Pentecostalism, Charismatic Movement, Third Wave, Toronto Blessing, Brownsville Revivals, etc. [12/20/06]  As if we should not expect Satan to be wily enough to insinuate occasional counterfeits especially in the midst of fresh manifestations of his Enemy’s Kingdom of authentic healing and restoration!  Now who’s being naïve?

The WRONGFUL shedding of Christ’s innocent blood, RIGHTLY overcompensated by the sending of life-making Spirit, empowers human conquest over WRONG

To compensate someone we injure at more than the cost of their loss is redemptive.  It is redemptive for them, and it is redemptive for us.  God has both stipulated this in Moses, and more fully demonstrated it in Jesus.  What the Law and the Prophets demanded, the Proclamation of the Kingdom delivered—and how!  This must, then, become the practice, the habit, the reflex of the citizens of God’s Kingdom.  [10/1/04]

STATIC OR CURRENT?

The Pentecostal and even the Charismatic movements have all too often treated the Wholesome Spirit of God as a form of static electricity—good for the occasional zap, but nothing you can get much work out of.  Yet the impression we get from the New Testament after Pentecost, and on into early Christian history, is that this promised Gift of the Father in the New Covenant by Messiah’s blood is more like current electricity.  Those of us who by faith in the Proclamation of God’s Kingdom get cleansed from our sins by the blood of Jesus that speaks better than the blood of Abel (by virtue of Christ being far “more just“ than even Abel—Heb. 12:24, cf. 11:4), become conductors of God’s wholesome power that then energizes us for good work!   We should consequently depend on this steady flow of power to energize and sustain those commendable acts, actions, and activities that we know are pleasing to God because they are in accordance with Messiah’s directives.  [10/9/04; 10/2/25]

Apart from the pouring out of blood there is no release from sins, because without the unjust outpour of perfectly innocent blood (i.e., loss of life/soul) there would have been no outpouring of God’s Wholesome Spirit to compensate (in fact, according to the stated norm of Divine justice, to overcompensate) for that incalculable loss.  For it is precisely the superabundant Gift of God’s graciousness via His Spirit of wholesomeness that releases us from our past sins and regenerates us with the uncreated life of God to resist our corruption, decay, death, and, consequently, the resulting lust, covetousness, and craving that impel us, during temptations, to further, aggravated sins.

Thus the outpouring of Messiah’s blood and the soon-to-follow outpouring of God’s Spirit are correlates—causally linked events.

The mechanism whereby God’s pledge to act in terms of a covenant is secured through “cutting” the covenant victim in pieces, amounts to nothing less than His justice in avenging the pouring out of innocent blood (life/soul).  In other words, the covenanted promises of God to give (agelong) life and all other (lesser) blessings of the Covenant, are in fact realized by way of overcompensation for the very brutal and wrongful death of the covenant victim that is therewith sacrificed.  Its being offered in sacrifice “unto God” is a ritual act done in recognition of, and before the face of, the Creator/Redeemer who originally bestowed creaturely life and alone can restore life superabundantly.  The ‘mechanism’, so to speak, amounts to God’s character of rectitude itself!  [10/25/04]

Happily, in the case of Jesus, through the profuse testimonies of the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, we can convincingly observe up close how God’s justness = The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  [10/28/04]