John McLeod Campbell, by famously pursuing Jonathan Edwards [Sr.]’s, rejected option of Christ’s presenting to God on behalf of sinners “an adequate sorrow and repentance,” an “answerable repentance and sorrow,”* was after all still seeking “satisfaction” for sins. He never apprehended that God the Father himself “satisfied” (“paid”) for sin, as exhibited by the most heinous sin of the crucifixion of His very own Son—a sin SUPEREXCESSIVELY “PAID FOR” BY HIS REPAYING THE VICTIM WITH RESURRECTION TO IMMORTAL LIFE AND FURTHER ROYAL EXALTATION. This “premial” satisfaction far outshines any variation on the penal theme! [6/27/11]
In the apostolic premial explanation of the atonement it is none less than God the Father who performs an act of “SUPEREROGATION,” COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED, AND SO EXTREME IN ITS CAPTURE THAT THE WHOLE SINFUL SPECIES OF MANKIND CAN BE SAVED PROVIDED THEY BELIEVE THE EXTRAORDINARY MESSAGE. [6/27/11]
Campbell’s unreeling of Jonathan Edwards’ throwaway alternative to penal substitution, namely, into a theory of vicarious repentance and sorrow, has this against it, that it sees God as demanding imperfect sorrow for sin from human beings, and perfect sorrow from a sinless substitute, yet no sorrow, to speak of, from God Himself! For if Jesus was veritably commissioned to reveal the heart of the Father in Heaven, then where is the fatherly sorrow that is ostensively getting mirrored in this construction? To be sure, there must have been sorrow, even perfect sorrow in the Son, reflective of the Father’s own, but how could the Son, by exhibiting sorrow at the Cross, be making any kind of “reparation” back to the Father? Rather, such an obedient reflection of the Father’s own attitude concerrning sin more properly amounts to an additional virtue to evoke the Father’s impending premial “satisfaction” of his native justice via rewarding Christ with resurrection to agelong life plus an incomparably glorious inheritance of all things.
Much less can we agree with the notion that Jesus “satisfied” God by a perfect repentance since not only did he have no personal sins to repent of, but neither did God(!), whom he was commissioned to reveal, after all. Of course, God is indeed said to repent of His oft intention to do evil to sinners who themselves don’t repent of their sins. On the flip side, He can even repent of His plans to do them good when it appears they have turned back to those sins “like a dog to its vomit and a bathed sow to its wallowing in the mire” (2 Peter 2:22). But this is evidently not what Campbell had in mind concerning the Cross. And in any case such measures could hardly be “perfect” inasmuch as Jesus lacked the possession of the key element indispensable to render any repentance perfect: sin and the consciousness thereof.
Furthermore, Scripture is perfectly silent about any “imputation” of sin to Christ such as Reformation-era Protestants taught (and even more so the post-Reformation). Conversely, neither could Christ’s alleged “perfect repentance” be “imputed” to human beings without some sufficient warrant from Scripture. Where is it? Many a synthesizing theologian has scoured Scripture for imputation language to justify “justification” of a Protestant variety, without notable success. What good can possibly be expected of such an ostensibly “moral” fiction any more than what, for instance, John Wesley famously observed resulting from the legal fiction of orthodox Lutheran stripe (which he himself had preached for a while, but came to regret and repent of)? [6/27/11; 5/22/24]
That God can accept mere faulty human repentance and faith as quite “sufficient” to “satisfy” the insistence of His penal justice and accordingly relax the “demand” for punishment of a sin, can only be accounted for satisfactorily by a prior supervening incursion of an event of premial justice possessing such super-compensating graciousness toward sinful humanity that God is warranted to count (ΛΟΓΙΖ-) such heartfelt—and God can see all hearts!—impulses as righteousness FOR THE SAKE OF HIS SON AND THE INJUSTICE HE SO GRACIOUSLY BORE AND ENDURED FOR THEIR SAKES, AND THEREUPON POUR OUT THE SHEER GIFT THAT HIS JUSTICE DECREED FOR CHRIST: THE HOLY SPIRIT OF LIFE! For since Christ’s perfect obedience and faithfulness to God through every trial won the promised award of God’s premial justice to such a One (according to and witnessed by the Law of Moses and the Prophets), God exerted the right and authority to dispense it at His own holy ‘whim’! Praise be to God for His indescribable Gift! [6/27/11; 5/22/24]
The Premial Atonement 