IF “His righteousness” in Romans 3:25 is premial instead of penal, whose “revelation” (1:17), “manifest[ation] (3:21), and “display” (3:26, twice) is supremely visible in Christ’s resurrection from the dead, THEN the following phrase, “because of the bypassing of the penalties-of-sins [hamartematon] which occurred before in the forbearance of God,” must be construed as precisely the ancient spectacle of premial justice on display. For the passage goes on to parallel “His righteousness” in “the current era,” that is, God’s display of premial justice in raising Jesus from the dead , by which God showed Himself “to be just [by overwhelming His Son with the life-making Holy Spirit of graciousness, power, and glory] and a justifier [by virtue of its superabundant gratuitous spillover] of the one who is from the faithfulness of Jesus” (3:26).
This explains the peculiar phraseology, “the bypassing [paresin] of the penalties-of-sins [hamartematon],” which means the overlooking of the exaction of the consequences of sins in some display of punitive wrath. For precisely such a bypass was supplied by the protective cover (hilasterion) Paul has just referred to (v. 25), in the graciousness of God. For it was the “faithfulness in [en, i.e., “within” or “inside (of)”, not eis, which would denote “trust in”–a meaning unattested by any identical construction elsewhere in Scripture] Christ’s blood” (3:25) that called forth an immediate exhibit of His graciousness toward Christ instead of immediate wrathfulness toward his crucifiers. His wrath could wait (40 more years, till 70 A.D.) against any stubborn holdouts among the criminal offenders; by contrast, His graciousness could not delay being exhibited toward the sinless Victim! And that’s the story of the whole Bible. For God’s “longsuffering” or “forbearance: (anoche) is intended to lead to repentance (Romans 2:4), and He is “not tardy…but patient…not intending any to get destroyed, but all to make room for repentance” (2 Peter 3:9; cf. Romans 2:4-11). [8/15/10]
The foregoing premial interpretation of this famously “difficult” Pauline passage is reinforced by Paul’s squeezing in the clarifying words of verse 24: “Getting justified gratuitously to His graciousness, through the release [apolutroseos] which is in [en] Christ Jesus.” The word “release,” commonly rendered “redemption” or “deliverance,” is predicated both of “sins” (Colossians 1:14), “offenses” (Ephesians 1:7), and “transgressions” (Hebrews 9:15) via Christ’s BLOOD, as well as of bodily mortality itself (Romans 8:23, Ephesians 1:14, 4:30, Hebrews 11:35) via RESURRECTION. And the two kinds of release are clearly linked. As I have been at great pains to demonstrate elsewhere and often, sacrificial blood represents resurrected life in Biblical thought. [7/17/21]
The premial solution to God’s atoning righteousness solves, by the same token, the historic irresolution regarding the real nature of justification, as we might have expected! God’s giving Jesus at his resurrection what he deserved for willingly bearing the hyper-sinful attacks that his envious enemies imposed but which he did not deserve (and which God had never “demanded”!), at his cross, provides a whole new and jubilant thrust to the meaning of “justice/righteousness” and its cognate terms, such as “justification,” wherever they occur in Paul’s letters on the subject. Not to add that it brings closure to the depressing debates over the connection of justification (and atonement) to the work of the Holy Spirit. In one fell swoop a hornet’s next of afflicting problems is cast down and trampled in the dust. [8/15/10]
The Premial Atonement 