The superabundance of God’s blessings to Christ, destined for us, rests on the rationale of Jesus’ worthiness to receive God’s premial justice without measure, on account of his faithful obedience untainted by sin.

A few theologians (and philosophers) in recent years are finally warming up to the illuminating significance of “gift,” “excess,” “superfluity,” “abundance,” etc., in their connection to the fruit of Christ’s achievement and the operation of the Holy Spirit. But no one so far appears to have connected it unequivocally to the super-compensatory nature of God’s premial justice toward the worthiness of Christ’s faithful obedience during his earthly career. Yet without this ultimate rationale, their asseverations seem to lack sufficient, or at least sufficiently persuasive, grounds. They seem to float or hang in suspension, insufficiently integrated with other vital components of God’s premial project in that resounding News from 30 A.D. [7/8/11]

How could the Lord Jesus Christ possibly have “paid” our “debt” of sin to God since God “owns” everything anyway? Put this way, of course (as countless voices have vainly protested, evidently, and for multiplied generations!), the question itself sounds silly. Yet if God lacks for absolutely nothing good but is instead the source and spring of all that is created, then what “payment” does He need either from us directly or from a substitute? We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that Scripture never represents God as requiring or even being pleased with any postulated “payment” from anybody for sins, but instead as FORGIVING, PARDONING, or RELEASING them from their wrongs, by His graciousness (for His precious Son’s worthy sake) expressed toward anyone who sincerely repents and trusts Him for it. Duh (respectfully)! [7/10/11]

Without the velcro of a correct systematic understanding of the atonement, many a true exegetical insight has gotten detached and then drifted off untethered into the ether of outer space, sadly forgotten, never properly or fairly recaptured and repatriated. Only the correct explanation will provide the adhesive that can bond the valid particulars of scattered exegetical findings into a coherent and integral whole, where each distinct term and passage is given its due. The premial focus of God’s justice in relation to atonement renders illuminating justice also to the diverse contexts that treat the topic. But don’t take my word for it! [7/11/11] (But even so, please don’t neglect to consider my “Theses for the Reconstruction of Ancient Historic Christian Atonement Doctrine” at the top of this blog site. [11/22/24])

The Lord Jesus Christ pinned to a cross was God’s sacrifice, His offering, His offer of forgiveness, not only to the self-righteous nation of Israel, not only to the oppressive Romans, but to every nation without discrimination. For this grim spectacle constituted His unmistakable demonstration of non-retaliation! And as if that were not enough, on the third day hence, instead of carrying out the well-deserved avenging of His Son’s precious blood at the guilty hands of his slayers, God, his father, set His own stamp of hearty approval on that gracious behavior by RAISING JESUS BACK TO LIFE, AWARDING HIM A VAST OVERFLOW OF SURPLUS GLORY, POWER, AUTHORITY, WEALTH, AND MORE! This “graciousness in exchange for graciousness” (John 1:16) sets the pace for a responsive human emulation during the remainder of this age…yes, and far, far beyond! [7/11/11]

MUSLIMS HAVE US DEAD TO RIGHTS!

Intelligent, educated Muslims ask penetrating questions about the “atonement” that orthodox Evangelicals are hard pressed to answer to their satisfaction. “Why did Jesus ‘have to’ die?” is a stumper. By now, we all can parrot the ‘right’ response as if from a catechism: because our sins “had to” be “paid for” in order to “satisfy God’s justice” and “appease His wrath“—or perhaps “restore His honor,” as in the older, more Anselmian, iteration—understood as “having to” suffer the punishment/penalty for our sins as a “substitute” because God “has to” punish every particle of sin one way or another, whether directly or vicariously. Rubbish (can’t you smell it?). This dubious solution, however, is full-on illusory, not to say morally offensive to anyone’s best sense of justice and sound conscience. It is only perpetuated on the ruse that it’s because God “loves” us that He was willing to be satisfied with a substitute instead of punishing wrongdoers directly. But where does rewarding or premial justice show up in all this chatter? Where is the logic of dozens of Psalms reflected in such hyper-vengeful sentiments? Embarrassingly, nowhere at all. [7/15/11]

God’s Premial Justice Exalted Jesus to Give Us Expectation in Our Own Sufferings

Embrace the agony in your life within your embrace of God, and God will transmute it into a matchless pearl.  Believing Christ’s resurrection and expecting our own, let us endure suffering and thus become perfect in all things, lacking nothing.  [11/28/99]

God’s justice in the Old Testament Scriptures had demanded that the sinner/offender must repay or redress his own infractions himself, with interest.  But the New Testament Scriptures—the Proclamation of God’s Kingdom—revealed that, because of human inability and deficiency, God Himself would repay Israel’s and the nations’ sin of crucifying His only-born Son.  For this was an impossible burden for deceived mankind to carry, feeble and auctioned off to sin as we were.

However, what was impossible for us was possible for God.  He therefore repaid His only Son for the loss that human injustice under Satanic inspiration had wrought.  God raised Jesus from among the dead and exalted him to the highest post in the created universe, far above all his enemies on the earth, under the earth, or in the skies above!  Not only so, but God gave Jesus the vast storehouse of Wholesome Spirit held in reserve until this very moment, even as God had exalted Joseph over all Egypt and gave him authority over all of Pharaoh’s kingdom  and servants and subjects and treasuries of grain, food, cattle, and eventually even the very land of Egypt, to redistribute as seemed wise to Joseph.  Jesus, son of Joseph (“according to law”) was exalted yet higher and has given us Wholesome Spirit beyond measure as a mere foretaste of an unimaginably wonderful future throughout the eons ahead!  Similarly, we Christians are “lambs for the slaughter,” suffering with Christ…to share his ultimate glory.  Lord, help our unbelief!  [12/8/99]

77 Questions about the Atonement (Q&A #14)

 14.     Doesn’t God’s holiness demand that He punish every sin?

Certainly not!  God’s holiness is the exhaustless wellspring of His agelong life.  Holiness is to life as decay is to death.  Thus a better word for this concept might be ‘wholesomeness’—the healthful purity that characterizes everything that is vigorously alive and life-giving.  God’s love impels Him to share His vitalizing wholesomeness with those who are deteriorating and dying.  Love found a way to do it that was right and faithful to God’s ancient covenantal promises, in spite of humanly impossible odds.  The viciously shed blood of His blameless Son evoked God’s rightful super-compensation, which included the sending of vast new quantities of His life-making Spirit of wholesomeness to actually clean away sin by reversing the corruption at our motivational core.  This is the real function of God’s holiness or wholesomeness.  If people become resistant to exposure of their failings, then God gets tough and sends punishments in fatherly measure to humble and correct them.  God cannot personally be threatened by human unwholesomeness or corruption, but he knows that the creatures He dearly loves are placed at risk by it, hence his get-tough policy under the Old Covenant.  Still, He need not demand the last ounce of pitiful human flesh.  God is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and with much kindness and covenantal troth, preserving kindness to thousands, bearing with depravity, transgression, and sin, although not summarily rendering sinners innocent, but holding out for repentance, for He wants our hearts.  He is bound to behave like this; it’s His nature.  He overlooks many sins in His leniency so that sinners may repent.  He loves all His creatures and hates none of them or He would not have made them.  Sins He can pass over, for He knows we are mortal, ephemeral.  Now, good deeds, on the other hand…