Indeed, Jesus, the Messiah, the only-born Son of God was truly “forsaken“ by God–“My God”–but not “alienated” thereby from Him. Having emptied himself (i.e., his entire contents–graciousness and troth) out of his heavenly form of deity in order to possess the form of a slave, i.e., a human body (Philippians 2:6-8), and then having that mortal body stripped off him (i.e., from his essential contents of deity) in the “circumcision” of the crucifixion (Colossians 2:11), instead of immediately re-entering his divine form, he joined all those human beings who had been “forsaken” by God previously by the alienation of their own sin, in death, and were now in the Unseen. It was there (not in heaven) where he proclaimed his victory while he himself awaited the enactment of God’s just decree of resurrection in fitting response to His Son’s necessary yet only momentary forsakenness. The original Psalm (22) prophetically foresees and proclaims this.
Yet none of this implies that Jesus ever suffered the abuse of God’s wrath, for all this forsakenness had not one particle of smoky divine wrath in it. That, in fact, is the very point of his death from whatever aspect we may view it–it was wrongful, satanically perpetrated…but reversible by God’s justice, so that we may live in expectation of life everlasting! [12/1/09]
“In this is love, not that we love God, but that He loves us, and dispatches His Son a protective covering concerned” NOT WITH HIS WRATH BUT “WITH OUR SINS.” (1 John 4:10) The penal substitution theory has switched the focus radically and wrongfully, ignoring the plainest Scriptures as well as the aggregate witness of the whole. [12/4/09]
BELIEVING GOD’S DECLARATIONS WORKS LIKE POWER STEERING TOWARD SALVATION
Contrary to the deterministic error of Calvinism, our salvation is like POWER STEERING. As soon as we turn the wheel, the power kicks in to augment our “free”(i.e., “self-authorized,” autexousi-) decision or choice. The “power system” does not make the choice (“election”) for us, but only re-in-forces our TRUST, which is based on God’s declarations in the proclamation concerning Messiah Jesus, accompanied with its abundant testimony and proofs. [12/8/09]
Every particle of graciousness that we receive through the Lord Jesus Christ is a credit to God’s justice to him because of the cross. [12/9/09]
JESUS BECAME ACTUALLY WHAT BLOOD SACRIFICES WERE SYMBOLICALLY
Did the cattle, sheep, and goats sacrificed by ancient Israelites “become sin” for their sakes, at least symbolically, somehow? For unless we can reason in that manner, it seems unlikely that 2 Corinthians 5:21 is saying this about Jesus either. In any case, I have never heard or read such a rationalization regarding those offerings. But if these Levitical rituals are meant to be prophetic of the reality that would eclipse and banish these substitutes, then we should expect (in terms of sound interpretation) that the antitype should fulfill the type. If that is a fair hope, then Jesus actually “became” what those “flawless” sacrificial victims “became” only as metaphors: A SIN OFFERING. Accordingly, Christ’s sin offering did actually (i.e., by the power of the Holy Spirit) what those sin offerings could only do figuratively: make righteous! [12/13/09]
The Premial Atonement 