In spite of our sins, God loves us, His children who trust Him. In fact, God wants us more than He wants revenge. God has no stake in extracting the last pound of flesh. He craves conciliation with His sinful creatures, not vengeance. He wants us to love and mature, not die before we can possibly reach maturity. Therefore, He forgives and shows boundless favor to those who trust Him to actually be such a God! Jesus in no way “bought” or “paid for” this favor from his Father. Rather he came forth from the Father and thence to earth to perfectly express—to image—his Father’s favor. In this, he was being like his Father. (Suggested by a sermon of Jean LeMahieu.) [10/12/97]
When Jesus the Messiah came the first time, it was to clean house—the house of Israel, the house of David. He cleaned out diseases; he cleaned out demons; he cleared out money-changers; he cleaned out sins; he even cleaned out death on more than one occasion! However, he wasn’t assigned the job of doing it completely or single-handedly. He was promised and given progeny, descendants, who, along with himself and according to his pattern and power, are likewise to manifest the cleansing effects of God’s Kingdom on the earth and, after the defeat or cleaning off the earth from all his enemies, are to inherit that Kingdom in a New Earth together with him—a place for uprightness to dwell unmolested. [10/18/97]
Jesus’ illustration commonly titled “The Prodigal Son” is evidently mislabeled. The greater prodigality by far is that exhibited by his father. In fact, it is precisely his father’s prodigality that causes his brother to get offended at the end! He was not only prodigal in giving the younger son his part of the inheritance before he himself had died–how smart was that?—but when the son returned, he gave him the fatted calf to roast for a party; he gave him the first robe; he gave him a ring for his finger…which gave him access to the other half of the estate! Now who was the more profligate, the son or the father? Like father, like son. The father is obviously the star prodigal, the chief spendthrift of the family. These details should clue us in about our Father in heaven. As in the illustration of the vineyard owner and workers, God comes off fabulously generous. Beyond that, Jesus informs us that we should be like his Father, who is even generous to the vicious, not only the good. That’s some ethic! That’s some God! [10/22/97]
It is staggering to consider the thought that the conciliating gift that God offered in Jesus the Messiah, was Himself, His very contents (pleroma), His very motivation (pneuma) of wholesomeness, life, power, peace, favor! In other words, God conciliates us, God pacifies us by giving us gratuitously, in His Son, His own nature! This is the reality symbolized in the Lord’s Supper. God “bribes” us back to Himself with Himself! That’s overwhelming! The body and blood of the Messiah himself, with all of his Father’s life and Spirit therein represented, are given to us—“paid” to us!—into our very souls, our existences, our own flesh and blood. [11/04/97]. Now assimilate that!
The Premial Atonement 