The superabundance of God’s blessings to Christ, destined for us, rests on the rationale of Jesus’ worthiness to receive God’s premial justice without measure, on account of his faithful obedience untainted by sin.

A few theologians (and philosophers) in recent years are finally warming up to the illuminating significance of “gift,” “excess,” “superfluity,” “abundance,” etc., in their connection to the fruit of Christ’s achievement and the operation of the Holy Spirit. But no one so far appears to have connected it unequivocally to the super-compensatory nature of God’s premial justice toward the worthiness of Christ’s faithful obedience during his earthly career. Yet without this ultimate rationale, their asseverations seem to lack sufficient, or at least sufficiently persuasive, grounds. They seem to float or hang in suspension, insufficiently integrated with other vital components of God’s premial project in that resounding News from 30 A.D. [7/8/11]

How could the Lord Jesus Christ possibly have “paid” our “debt” of sin to God since God “owns” everything anyway? Put this way, of course (as countless voices have vainly protested, evidently, and for multiplied generations!), the question itself sounds silly. Yet if God lacks for absolutely nothing good but is instead the source and spring of all that is created, then what “payment” does He need either from us directly or from a substitute? We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that Scripture never represents God as requiring or even being pleased with any postulated “payment” from anybody for sins, but instead as FORGIVING, PARDONING, or RELEASING them from their wrongs, by His graciousness (for His precious Son’s worthy sake) expressed toward anyone who sincerely repents and trusts Him for it. Duh (respectfully)! [7/10/11]

Without the velcro of a correct systematic understanding of the atonement, many a true exegetical insight has gotten detached and then drifted off untethered into the ether of outer space, sadly forgotten, never properly or fairly recaptured and repatriated. Only the correct explanation will provide the adhesive that can bond the valid particulars of scattered exegetical findings into a coherent and integral whole, where each distinct term and passage is given its due. The premial focus of God’s justice in relation to atonement renders illuminating justice also to the diverse contexts that treat the topic. But don’t take my word for it! [7/11/11] (But even so, please don’t neglect to consider my “Theses for the Reconstruction of Ancient Historic Christian Atonement Doctrine” at the top of this blog site. [11/22/24])

The Lord Jesus Christ pinned to a cross was God’s sacrifice, His offering, His offer of forgiveness, not only to the self-righteous nation of Israel, not only to the oppressive Romans, but to every nation without discrimination. For this grim spectacle constituted His unmistakable demonstration of non-retaliation! And as if that were not enough, on the third day hence, instead of carrying out the well-deserved avenging of His Son’s precious blood at the guilty hands of his slayers, God, his father, set His own stamp of hearty approval on that gracious behavior by RAISING JESUS BACK TO LIFE, AWARDING HIM A VAST OVERFLOW OF SURPLUS GLORY, POWER, AUTHORITY, WEALTH, AND MORE! This “graciousness in exchange for graciousness” (John 1:16) sets the pace for a responsive human emulation during the remainder of this age…yes, and far, far beyond! [7/11/11]

MUSLIMS HAVE US DEAD TO RIGHTS!

Intelligent, educated Muslims ask penetrating questions about the “atonement” that orthodox Evangelicals are hard pressed to answer to their satisfaction. “Why did Jesus ‘have to’ die?” is a stumper. By now, we all can parrot the ‘right’ response as if from a catechism: because our sins “had to” be “paid for” in order to “satisfy God’s justice” and “appease His wrath“—or perhaps “restore His honor,” as in the older, more Anselmian, iteration—understood as “having to” suffer the punishment/penalty for our sins as a “substitute” because God “has to” punish every particle of sin one way or another, whether directly or vicariously. Rubbish (can’t you smell it?). This dubious solution, however, is full-on illusory, not to say morally offensive to anyone’s best sense of justice and sound conscience. It is only perpetuated on the ruse that it’s because God “loves” us that He was willing to be satisfied with a substitute instead of punishing wrongdoers directly. But where does rewarding or premial justice show up in all this chatter? Where is the logic of dozens of Psalms reflected in such hyper-vengeful sentiments? Embarrassingly, nowhere at all. [7/15/11]

The Prince of Peace impartially judges his subjects for avenging themselves

Jews are not in a flattering position who condemn the Christian church for inciting pogroms against them.  It is, in point of fact, only a corrupt church that could do such a thing.  And the evaluation of the church as corrupt requires a higher norm by which to judge it.  That higher norm—the apostolic Scriptures—arrives at a judgment of “apostate” and “corrupt” regarding the church that would sponsor a pogrom (or even just look the other way) by the same criterion as it condemns the Jews as corrupt for crucifying their own Messiah, Jesus.

Thus a judgment against Christians for persecuting Jews, by the same token, implies a judgment of Jews for executing Jesus and the prophets, and for persecuting Christians.  We must ever remind Jews that the early Christians, regardless of suffering persecution by corrupt Judaism, never taught or practiced or justified retaliation of any sort whatever against those Jews.  They loved and prayed for their enemies, giving over to God, exactly as their Master did, a just reprisal, while totally denying this privilege to themselves or their survivors.  [3/19/03]

POGROMS:  THE VIOLENCE OF “CHRISTIANS” WHO WERE NOT CHRISTIANS UPON “JEWS” WHO WERE NOT JEWS

When did Christians start killing Jews?  It never happened in the early church era, because Christians at that time were all non-retaliatory like their Master Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, had directed.  In fact, it typically did not occur until centuries later when Christians, sadly, became mimetically like the Jews who persecuted them!  Pogroms never happened until so-called “Christians” learned how to take up the sword—for, as in the ironic words of the song from South Pacific (1949) by Rodgers and Hammerstein (both of Jewish extraction), “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught.”  But they first fell victim to their own warlikeness when, after Constantine (272-337A.D.), they battled “heretics” and one other in disgraceful episodes that echo the unspeakable crimes that similarly warlike Jewish zealots perpetrated upon one another within the walls of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., thereby fulfilling the dire prophecies of Jesus against those Jews “after the flesh” who refused to learn the ways of peace by accepting him as the Messiah promised by Jehovah their God.  Internecine warfare was the inevitable conclusion of God’s covenant with a disobedient, stiff-necked people—the dischosen descendants of Abraham who “say they are Jews but are not, but are liars,” a “synagogue of Satan” (Rev. 2:9, 3:9) who, like their real father, the Adversary, are man-killers and liars (John 8:44, 1 John 3:14-15).

How did Christians ever fall so low as to imitate the Jews who persecuted them and killed them?  It is because they were beguiled away from the pure teaching of their Master, who had forbidden them from taking up the sword or resisting the vicious person.  They therefore became non-Christian, anti-Christian (“antichrist,” ironically!) by slaying one another.  It was only a matter of time before they would start in on the Jews.  By this time they were scarcely Christians but now reflecting the phoniness of Jews who themselves were “not Jews.”  [1/10/04]

SALVATION FROM SIN, NOT FROM ROMANS

The leaders of the Jews in Jesus’ day were so ignorant of their own Scriptures that they just didn’t ‘get’ the message of their own fifteen-century history as a distinct nation!  They should have seen the obvious fact, writ very large indeed from generation to generation ever since Moses had to suffer their whining, idolatry, and lawlessness in the wilderness, and in spite of God’s abundant, magnanimous wonders end on end!  Stephen, in his inflammatory speech in Acts 7, only barely got a running start on the enormous subject when he was stoned to death for daring to face them with the grim facts:  Israel always got oppressed by enemies, by famines, by pestilence, by plagues, and even by their own kings (which, however, they themselves had fatefully demanded), because of their own sins!  God even demonstrated with them that they could live relatively happy in captivity within a foreign land, Babylon, if they remained faithful to Him.  Think also of the young Israelite maid who became captive to Syria and served in Naaman’s household.  She was a wonderful blessing to others even there.

Ergo:  what Israel needed salvation from was not foreign enemies or alien rulers, but her own native sins.  Her own sins with tedious regularity brought on the oppressions.  So to regain peace she needed a Savior from sin.

However, Israel’s leaders, by Jesus time, had it backwards.  They ignored their own sinfulness while seeking for a Messiah who would drive out foreign oppressive rule.  Had they never read the Book of Judges or the Former Prophets?  Didn’t they, after all, understand their ultimate and fundamental need?  Didn’t they see that they actually, ultimately, and always needed One who could save them from themselves?  If they could become wholesome and righteous and clean from sins, oppressions would melt away!  If they could make peace with God, He would stop making war on them by sending them oppressors to enact the covenantal curses on their heads for their sins.  Simple, really.

Please note, however, that this by no means implies that this Kingdom of Heaven is not earthly!  There is no contradiction or paradox or dialectic, much less war, between heaven and earth.  The struggle is between the Kingdom of God, from the heavens (where His throne is), and the Kingdom of darkness, from the world, deluded by Satan.  Both of these kingdoms contend for the earth, but with different rules.  (See Zechariah’s Song, Luke 1:69-79.)

This all implies that, although the Jews rightly expected a Messiah who would make an earthly difference, they didn’t understand the only rules that would really work to bring peace with the Romans, prosperity for themselves, along with true happiness, joy and liberty.  Had they known this, they would never have crucified Jesus—their only hope against the might of Rome and its local puppets and deputies, such as Herod and Pontius Pilate.  This Jesus was their true Messiah.  He had demonstrated in outward, tangible, practical ways, the love, joy, peace, graciousness, mercy, provision, kindness, tolerance and amenableness, not to mention honest-to-goodness healing and miracles, potent enough to change the weather, that made for enduring peace.  He showed them, in short, God’s Kingdom and justice in earthly substance.

But, at the last, the Jews wanted none of it!  The majority still wanted to wave swords and spears!  They still yearned for the good old-fashioned blood-and-gore methods of winning over their enemies!  They wanted revenge.  They wanted ‘respect’.  And so they reaped the “abomination of desolation” of Daniel the prophet and the most horrible internecine warfare of their fifteen-century history—70 A.D.  They did it to themselves.  They even called down a curse on themselves and their children just to get Jesus executed!  They did not know “the day of their visitation” with judgment, their date with grim destiny.  “They that usurp the sword shall perish by the sword” (Matt. 26:52).

For another 250 years, the Christians around the empire persisted in demonstrating what the Kingdom of Heaven over earth could look like.  It wasn’t a perfect representation—certainly no “utopia”—yet it was still ‘good enough’ to score an indelible historic point.  They would exhibit its community, charity, wholesomeness, unity-in-diversity, generosity, resilience, amity, clemency, concord, compassion, etc., just long enough to make others either jealous enough to get in on it themselves, or envious enough to pursue and oppress them often to the point of death for presuming to teach the nations these odd doctrines of peace with God and reconciliation with one other.

Under such conditions, the leaders, who knew the teaching of Jesus the best, were the first targets, leaving the younger generation somewhat imperfectly taught and trained in this counter-cultural explanation and practice of life and destiny.  Over the decades and centuries, something was bound to get lost from memory and practice, despite the continued existence of the missionary writings of the first generation, which became known as the “New Covenant.”  Even so, the widespread existence of these documents held out the promise of recurrent revivals, renewals, restorations, reformations, reconstructions, etc.  Thus has God’s Explanation continued to race on and get glorified or accredited generation after generation (2Thess. 3:1).  Nor shall it ever cease until Messiah Jesus’ conquest of the world and its kingdoms is made complete by his actual return from on high to consummate the foregone conclusion of his Resurrection from death-by-crucifixion.  Amen.  [1/10/04]

JESUS BORE SINS BY REFUSING TO RETALIATE AND INSTEAD TRUSTING GOD TO DO JUSTICE …TO HIM!

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]