Satan had no clue that his divine Victim was going to RANSOM the human race from his diabolical clutches by escaping from death and Hades. He had absolutely no clue that by shedding Christ’s innocent blood, he would be evoking God’s justice to rescue him even from the extremity of death. Satan was totally clueless that his murder of the perfectly sinless “Lamb of God” would actually demand that God exert His faithfully covenanted promises declared in Israel’s holy Scriptures and call him back to life to inherit them!
Several patristic Christian authors were therefore quite mistaken to assert that there was some sort of agreement between God and Satan (as there had been some eighteen centuries earlier with Job—see note following Job 42:17, LXX). There was no deal with the Devil. He was caught totally by surprise, fair and square. [2/28/12; 11/12/25]
Old Testament justice required RESTITUTION by the offender to the victim. This was the “penalty” it demanded from the offender, and it is obviously restorative for the victim. Moreover, the restitution expected was not merely an equivalent restoration but entailed the addition of an extra or surplus as a ‘fee’ (‘penalty’ in the narrow sense). This superfluity was not intended as a ‘punitive’ measure for the offender, although it was certainly meant to have a sting! Yet it did actually have a ‘restorative’ effect for them, as well, for clearing their conscience via ‘making satisfaction’ (i.e., legal payment) for their theft, causing loss, injury, etc., to avert ongoing anger, reprisals, vendettas, blood feuds, clan wars, and similar cycles of revenge.
That entire system of criminal justice, therefore, fostered reconciliation and peacemaking. It can only with due qualification be termed “retributive” justice, even though it did stipulate paying back the victim, plus a bonus. This was not characterized in a vengeful or vindictive way, but simply required as an ‘evening up’ of the inequity introduced by the breach of the peace so as to restore the peace or shalom and defuse simmering wrath and brewing retribution. Hence, Darrin Snyder Belousek (Atonement, Justice, and Peace: The Message of the Cross and the Mission of the Church, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012) renders his analysis of divine justice liable to confusion. He would have to label or categorize premial (i.e., rewarding or restorative) justice as “retributive.” This designation poses an inner contradiction. He then proposes to dispose of all “retributive” justice, so interpreted, in favor of so-called “covenant(al) justice.” which is characterized by him as not “distributive” (i.e., “retributive,” so not presumably plagued by the reward/punishment dialectic). But since when was the ancient covenantal code of Moses not stamped with a binary distributive function? Although not after the fashion of much later Roman law, the Mosaic law had to deal with the same perennial realities of inter-human relations (and human-environment relations as well). These aims are not optional, dispensable, or replaceable. All societal law is intended to restore peace agreeably among contending or aggrieved parties…somehow.
Of course, in capital crimes it is not possible to make restitution properly by restoring what has been taken (think of murder, amputation, etc., but also lesser cases where the loss is irreparable or the injury irremediable). This presents difficulties that various civilizations and cultures have handled very differently. Yet they all alike are faced with the identical reality of death, which cannot be surmounted satisfactorily by nominal restoration in this age.
Accordingly, this is precisely the territory of human experience where a truly restorative solution was bound to gain universal attention and acclaim, if not acceptance. The contents of God’s proclamation about His Son is ideally suited to appeal to the ultimate need for a more powerful and more completely restorative and satisfying justice among human beings. Not only does God’s raising the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead provide “the final solution” to the problem of death, but its very circumstances and long prophetic anticipation frames it in such a manner that it necessarily alters the way all justice is viewed and administered…or at least should be. But personal habits are hard to change, and culture-wide habits harder still. Thus Western law has never adequately incorporated the premial premise and precepts of the Gospel into its criminal justice proceedings or institutions with anything like full consciousness, much less, consistency and rigor. However, the Restorative Justice (RJ) movement, launched in 1989 by Howard Zehr’s landmark book, Changing Lenses: Restorative Justice for Our Times, Third ed. (Harrisonburg, VA; Kitchener, Ontario: Herald Press, 2015), has launched a splendid revolution with that noble goal.
The elephant in the room is Roman law with its categories and procedures. Islamic law also entered Western Europe, notably during the Moorish era in Spain. These have came to domineer native legal traditions, but also to weigh in against uniquely Gospel-enlightened influences. [2/28/12; 11/12/25]
Roman distributive justice was intended to give each person his/her “due.” Isn’t this also what ancient Israelite justice was mandated with? Although not framed in these terms, God’s covenant was about returning to the injured what they were owed by their perpetrator, where possible. So “getting one’s deserts” was a central issue, although not construed in narrowly punitive terms and sanctions, and not bearing necessarily retributive overtones. Its purpose and practical function was to repair a breach of justice and so make peace by reconciling the conflicted parties.
So, when we come to the New Testament, we are not faced with an overturning of such traditional institutions of justice, for there was nothing inherently objectionable about them, per se. Instead, we behold in the Gospel the INTERVENTION of a JUSTICE powerful enough to repair and restore even from the injury of death itself. It could, moreover, give God’s sinless Son his due—his just deserts even after the ravages of torture and death had seemingly already decisively and irreversibly ‘conquered’! [2/28/12]
“ALL MY GOODNESS” Exodus 33:19
Jehovah’s words to Moses on Mt. Sinai amounted to an elaboration or elucidation of God’s righteousness/justice. This means that all of the characteristics mentioned there, including their nuancing and mutual conditioning, are elements of His Covenant justice toward His chosen people. The founding words at Sinai reveal the bedrock of all God’s royal actions toward Israel. God’s words are “cupelled seven times,” so are purified, worthy of our closest scrutiny. Compare especially Exodus 34:5-10; Numbers 14:17-24; Deuteronomy 7:9-11; Psalm 99:8.
Notice that there is a built-in ‘if-then’ subtext in these passages, showing that God’s justice is contingent on the responses of those creatures made in His own image and after His likeness. Therefore, when Israel’s God has a dispute (רִ֗יב) with them, He argues, cajoles, pleads, accuses, beseeches, hints, implores, queries, weeps, promises, warns, reminds, threatens, etc. Here is no rigid, harsh, unbending, vindictive, irritable, short-fused, unreasonable deity of popular misrepresentation. He bends over backwards to be reasonable. “Come, let us reason together, says the Lord.” (Isaiah 1:18)
Moreover, a God this gracious, loving, merciful, tolerant, longsuffering, and full of lovingkindness and benignity has the right to make ‘reasonable’ demands of his Covenant partners, His continual supply of “good things” to His children qualifies Him to warn them sternly against indulging in evil things that would harm others and themselves. [3/1/12; 11/12/25]
The Premial Atonement 