The historic record of God’s justice to Jesus is what creates the trust that conciliates hesitant sinners to Them; thereupon God sends them His Holy Spirit with assorted powers to corroborate the truth with gracious tokens of Their love. SWEET!!!

“And for the lamb he shall pay fourfold [LXX, sevenfold], because he did this thing, and since he had no pity!” 2 Samuel 11:6.

This prophetic exposure of David’s sin with Bathsheba (“sheba” also meaning “seven”) is “[i]n keeping with the law in Exodus 21:37.” *

*Everett Fox, Give Us a King!: Samuel, Saul, and David. A new translation of Samuel I and II with an introduction and notes by Everett Fox. New York: Schocken Books, 1999, p. 203, note 6. [3/16/11]

Everything we get by believing the Gospel is ipso facto accounted to faith. Therefore, because we receive the Holy Spirit when we believe, that is, the dispensing of the righteousness of the New Covenant (2 Corinthians 3:7-9) in Christ’s blood (Hebrews 13:20), then that righteousness is reckoned or imputed to us as we believe (Romans 4). In this marvelous way, God honors our simple faith in His own proclamation about His Son’s suffering abuse on our behalf, since faith is nothing in itself, but is dependent (is dependence!) upon external testimony and proof for its very existence. [3/17/11]

The spirit of Calvinism, insofar as it is distinguished from other streams of Christianity, tends to be uniquely punitive, joyless, smug, and abusive. Those (among other) destabilizing qualities and traits are, I would suggest, inseparable reflexes of the penal satisfaction theory of the Atonement and are well (if only partially) summarized by the Five Points of Calvinism that constitute key points where it hardened up against the gentle corrective attempts of Jacob Arminius, who otherwise, it should be emphasized, had no special bone to pick with Calvinism (as represented in Calvin’s own writings, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Belgic Confession). Insofar as the offending theory is radically false, the spirit of Calvinism is, by reflex, an evil spirit and produces evil fruits that battle against the fruits of the Spirit, good intentions to the contrary notwithstanding. Since Calvinism early became callused against the gentle discipline of Arminius it has repeatedly churned out attitudes contradictory to the authentic graciousness of God for Christ’s sake. Once the penal substitution theory is effectively overthrown by premial restitution, all Five Points must fall like dominoes, and attitudes will morph accordingly. [3/18/11; 4/17/24]

It is difficult to read Hugo Grotius’s refutation of Faustus Socinus’s critique of satisfaction theories of the Atonement without the growing conviction that he is all too often merely quibbling and captious. (See Robert S. Franks, A History of the Doctrine of the Work of Christ. [Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2001]; reprint of A Historical Study of Christian Doctrine [Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1962]), pp. 389-409). He ‘divides and conquers’ by splitting hairs and neglecting the basic thrust of Socinus’s treatment, and before long takes to swallowing camels. [3/18/11]

God does not “demand” faith from us, which we somehow have to “work up.” Much rather, He gives testimony, i.e., proof by way of eyewitness reports by credible observers concerning His own historic interventions on behalf of His beleaguered Son, AND THIS HISTORICAL RECORD ITSELF GENERATES FAITH IN THOSE WHO HEAR, EVEN IN SPITE OF THEMSELVES. ONLY PROOF, TESTIMONY, EVIDENCE, etc. HAVE SUCH POWER TO CREATE FAITH. So, believing, at bottom, is not itself the problem here. God has invested much that is necessary to induce faith within sin-darkened hearts between the covers of the Bible. Furthermore, He has followed up with signs, miracles, healings, and other powerful interventions before the eyes of every generation since then as additional corroboration. So if people do not trust Him upon reading/hearing such a well-attested (not to add Spirit-inspired) Story and observing the powers of God’s impending Kingdom in their midst, it is not for lack of these fiducial requisites (although, to be sure, the latter are too often in meager supply due to the inroads of cessationist theories among our teachers). Rather, it is because they love the darkness rather than the Light for their acts are vicious” (John 3:19), hence they are hating the Light lest their acts get exposed and they get put to shame.

All this means that the necessary condition of faith in order to be saved is no high-handed, arbitrary, harsh “demand,” as it were, to make “bricks without straw,” nor is it (as Calvinistic doctrine is wont to insist) “impossible without the gift of the Holy Spirit to make it effectual in the elect.” For the Gospel itself, the resurrectionary Explanation for the cross, the Proclamation of Christ, is itself the power of our salvation, which, when believed, is THEREUPON further corroborated by an empirical outpouring of the Holy Spirit to immerse and embrace us in a fuller consciousness and enjoyment of salvation’s reality by actual experience. This all amounts to an exhibit of “graciousness [in the outpoured Spirit] in exchange for graciousness [in the Reasoning of the Gospel]”—the fruit of spiritually examining the favors God is making ready for us via the Spiritual words He has matched them with in Scripture (1 Corinthians 2:9-16). [3/18/11; 4/17/24]

The doctrine of Christ’s satisfaction is not contained in the Bible.

“It is a pity that so much is said and written on the doctrine of Christ’s satisfaction, and with so much untempered warmth, when the doctrine is not contained in the Bible.” — Barton W. Stone, “An Address to the Christian Churches in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio on Several Doctrines of Religion,” p. 49.  [3/01/10]

Defenders of penal substitution, intent on “glorifying” the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ against incursions by his glorious Resurrection, thinking thereby to preserve the alleged “atoning” value of his sufferings and death against any imagined compromise, HAVE HARDENED THEMSELVES AND BLINDED THEIR LISTENERS TO THE FACT THAT THE RESURRECTION IS EQUALLY A PART OF THE WORK OF JESUS CHRIST, THE RISEN LORD!  Have they never read John 2:19 & 10:18, “Raze this temple and in three days I will raise it up,” “I have the right to lay [my soul] down and I have the right to get it again.  This directive I got from my Father“?  [3/06/10]

The basic simplicity of the Gospel somehow baffles theologians.  They keep looking for tortured explanations concerning God’s justice, righteousness, or fairness.  To read most Protestant (to venture no farther than that!) theologians on this fraught subject is to risk throbbing headaches.  They just don’t get it.  May God’s Spirit come rushing through afresh to dissolve the quirks, straighten out the kinks, and iron out the wrinkles.  God’s children (not to mention the needy world) deserve better than this!  The Gospel is so simple in fact, when rightly understood, that many theologians would be out of a job but for the complications they themselves feel compelled to introduce.  [3/10/10]  What? For the sake of “clarification”?  May God save us!  [3/23/21]

The offering of a mere animal sacrifice under Levitical administration was much too trivial  a compensation for willful sins of murder, adultery, stealing, false witness, etc.  It would therefore be an insult to the honor of the Law.  And thus God forbade it.  David understood this completely; therefore, after his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah her husband, finally stricken in conscience, he appealed directly to God in Psalm 51, a supreme tribute to God’s forgiveness:

“For You are not delighting in sacrifice, that I should give it;

An ascent approach You are not holding dear.

The sacrifices to God are a broken spirit;

A broken and crushed heart, O God, You shall not despise..

In Your benevolence, bring good to Zion,

Build up the walls of Jerusalem.

Then You shall delight in righteous sacrifices,

Ascent approach, and wholly fumed offerings;

Then young bulls shall be offered up on Your altar.”  [v. 16-19]

David well knew there was no ritual means of atoning for his grievous sins.  He pled for God Himself to “rescue me from bloodguilt, O God, the God of my salvation, that my tongue may be jubilant at Your righteousness/justice.”  [v. 14]

Barton W. Stone had highlighted, urged, and defended these truths already two centuries ago!  [3/11/10]