In the “penal substitution” dogma, there is little mention of Satan or demons or the “spiritual forces of viciousness among the celestials,” or sovereignties, or authorities, or culture-controllers, because these cosmic enemies are rendered as peripheral as the Resurrection has been! Instead, the real enemy, the big bogey, is the wrath of God. It is this that must be “satisfied,” “appeased,” “pacified,” “placated,” “propitiated,” “paid off,” “quenched,” or “absorbed.” All attention is focused on deflecting this wrath onto an innocent “substitute” who can somehow blot it up or trigger God to “exhaust” it all on him instead. In the crude version of one famous modern defender, God “HAS SATISFIED HIMSELF,” unloading His righteous indignation on Himself. How this author can accomplish anything but make a “holy God” look ridiculous remains unaccounted for, except he can always appeal to the “mysterious” and accuse his critics of being “rationalistic,” “reductionistic,” whatever. But the glaring problem with such a preoccupation with this one frightful attribute is that many other enemies of mankind—the ones we all still encounter day be day, and which wreak such havoc in the world of daily affairs, GET ECLIPSED AND ALL BUT IGNORED IN PRACTICE, ACCORDINGLY PARALYZING ANY WORTHILY COMPREHENSIVE SOCIAL ETHIC OR WHOLESOME SACRIFICIAL ACTIVISM! THIS EVIL RESULT CAN BE DEVASTATING TO OUR MENTAL HEALTH, OUR FAMILIES, OUR BUSINESSES, OUR NEIGHBORHOODS, OUR NATIONS, OUR CULTURES, OUR ENVIRONMENTS—EVERYTHING! Only when we finally get rid of such a “substitute” and counterfeit justice and come to embrace the authentic restorative justice expressed in the Apostles’ own native terminology and sound patterns of explanation can we come to a blest rest in our quest.
Accordingly, with Messiah’s resurrection poised front and center as the most revealing manifestation and historic display of God’s restorative justice, we start to regain our sight and some balance in our worldview. Then our real, though spiritual, enemies are brought back into focus, and the power of the Resurrection can be properly aimed against them to the great relief and benefit of mankind. [8/10/07]
A “penal substitution” view of God’s justice necessarily implies an atrophied concept of God’s love. The heart of a “love” that can express itself as a “deflection of anger (‘righteous‘ though it may protest) onto the Innocent in order to appease God’s holy hatred of sin” is hardly a thing of beauty, although sinners may manage to convince themselves and their admirers of some of the most perverse notions. Napoleon is said to have quipped, “Folks will believe most anything so long as it’s not in the Bible.” [8/10/07]
Jesus was not forsaken by God on the cross “because he was bearing the world’s sin,” as J. I. Packer alleges that John Calvin taught, for such a noble and heroic deed could only win his beloved Father’s immense favor! Rather, only the curse which God included in the Law and which the leaders of Israel dared to invoke against the perfectly innocent, sinless, and righteous savior himself, but which God was pledged to uphold in that dread contingency REGARDLESS OF HIS GRACIOUSNESS, that compelled God to hide His face as well as His heart of grace (but not to change it!). [8/10/07]
The Premial Atonement 