Christians should be able, on occasion, to joke about death. Now life, that’s another matter entirely! “Life is sacred.” But in light of our solid expectation of being raised from the dead, the joke’s on Satan. So give a hoot! [5/12/02]
For Jesus to “carry up our sins in his body on the pole” (1 Peter 2:24)–did this mean to not retaliate, especially in view of the fact that as Messiah, and as innocent, he had the right to avenge these injustices and call more than twelve legions of messengers to destroy these vicious enemies? It would appear so. Peter says, “he does no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.” Yet he says that Messiah “being reviled [i.e., sinned against], reviled not again“ and ” suffering abuse [i.e., sinned against], threatened not,“ but “surrendered to the One judging justly” (1 Peter 2:22-23).
In this way, instead of striking back, he bore with those sins, receiving them on his body, in his flesh, and then offering this marred, injured, bleeding object of victimization up to God for His judicial inspection and appropriate judgment in response. Messiah voluntarily absorbed the wrongful assaults, carving out a last-ditch, one-generation window of opportunity for Jerusalem’s repentance, while breathing out only forgiveness toward the Romans nailing him down and casting lots for his cloak. What choice did God have? He must honor His dear Son’s merciful requests: reprieve the presumptuous city for a while and pardon his clueless executioners outright. That left only one option for fulfilling justice to the Victim: Raise the Innocent from the grave! [5/26/02; 9/20/12]
Getting the Holy Spirit is like catching a disease, only in reverse! If you ‘catch’ the Spirit, it gives you health and life. It’s the downpayment of God’s Kingdom, and we’re free to spread the contagion further in any appropriate God-crediting way we choose. It endows us with powers of the coming age that accredit the Truth about God’s Kingdom that Jesus taught us. [6/7/02]
If the Messiah had not been the one in, through, and for whom the universe itself had been created by God, his suffering and death would not have been a sacrifice weighty and worthy enough to justify God in overcompensating him for it with a salvation sweeping enough to embrace the whole world, capacious enough to swallow Death whole, powerful enough to regenerate the universe into a New Creation—heaven, earth, and all! None less than the Mediator of creation could possibly have mediated a salvation of this magnitude. May praise and credit agelong be rendered to the Father and the Son for their wisdom and love, now even spread abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit! [6/9/02]
Even as Adam ate the flesh of the fruit hanging on the Tree (ξυλον—Genesis 2:2; 3:3,6,11-12,17 LXX) of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and thus inherited death, so must we eat the flesh of the Last Adam, hanging on the pole (ξυλον—Acts 5:30, 10:39, 13:29, Gal. 3:13, 1Peter 2:24, Rev. 2:7, 22:2,14), who thereby became a curse for our sakes in order that we could inherit life agelong. Eating the fruit of the last tree far overcompensated, indeed atoned, for eating the fruit of the first tree. [6/9/02; 9/20/12]
God, by giving His divine Son a body of mortal human flesh, prepared the window of opportunity whereby Satan, by wrongfully depriving the Son of that body through his unjust crucifixion, justified God in overcompensating His Messiah with a new body of human flesh–the assembly of which Messiah is the Head—through his resurrection from the dead! Thus was the Deceiver deceived into opening the window for our salvation as Death disgorged its Prey alive and whole! God conferred on His Son the right, by a just verdict, to inherit a new and vastly larger body into which any human being can be immersed/implanted by trusting him, believing his Proclamation of peace through the blood of his cross. [6/9/02]
The blood guilt for murdering Jesus the Messiah is on Satan. That’s how Satan was convicted and will be conquered by the blood of the Lamb of God. [7/11/02]
The Premial Atonement 