The OATH and PROMISE of the Old Covenant bound God to its fulfillment in spite of every conceivable contingency relative to His faithful and just covenant partner, the Lord Jesus Christ, not even death itself excepted.

If Jesus’ getting “given up” to his enemies was due to the “wrath of God” (à la the Protestant Reformers) then who’s to say our own dreaded occasions of getting delivered into the hands of some enemy or other is not likewise due to the wrath of God for some sinful provocation, known or unknown? This could well catapult us into spiritual limbo, not to add existential terror! How much needless drama and trauma result from spiritual insecurity deriving from this source in unsound doctrine concerning God’s inner character and disposition toward mortally sinful human beings? [4/18/11; 4/23/24]

In view of the deeply embedded prevalence of the penal satisfaction theory of Christ’s Atonement, then for the diametric opposite stance of premial restitution to have plausibility in the current climate of rampant institutional abusiveness by political partisan self-interest, military establishment, criminal justice system, policing, public and private prison systems, stock market, financial services, payday loan industry, pharmaceutical industry, healthcare industry, fossil fuel industry, petro-chemical industry, agribusiness, trucking industry—I’ve barely gotten started!—virtually every passage of Scripture traditionally commandeered and impressed into forced service to the dominant ideology will have to become repurposed to serve a more evidently sound and natural interpretation in support of the premial perspective. What are the prospects if such a revolution should happen to succeed? This perspective should lend a fresh and convincing light to the solution of many perennial difficulties of Bible interpretation and especially incline toward the harmonious reintegration of seemingly intractable, or at least traditionally irreconcilable, positions on textual interpretations resulting from their captivation to systems of doctrine by way of prooftexting. Above all, the new expositions should be more in accord with the Holy Spirit of the Gospel as taught both by Jesus and his apostles (including the most misinterpreted of all: Paul). The end result of such a radical-biblical adjustment in Christian consciousness for the more rapid progress of fundamental societal reforms would be seismic. Dare we settle for less in the shadow of looming political crises and simmering violence? [4/18/11; 4/23-24/24]

In his epistle to the Romans, Paul is intent on emphasizing the “justice of God” that accounts for Christ’s resurrection. The oath and promise of the Old Covenant bound God to its fulfillment in spite of every conceivable contingency relative to His faithful and just covenant partner, the Lord Jesus Christ, not even death excepted. Hereby, his resurrection was secured against all odds whatsoever. [4/19/11]

To be “humbled under the mighty hand of God” is a far cry from experiencing the “wrath of His countenance,” etc. The first is aimed at discipline in justness toward the goal of maturation in love. The second is for punitive reasons of extreme correction or, failing that, of grim destruction. The first is intended for the amenable, the second for the stubborn. The first is fully in accord with God’s favor and its goal is to extend favor yet further. The second is a reflex of God’s righteous indignation at the incorrigible when milder measures prove ineffectual. [4/21/11]

TRADITIONAL PROTESTANT EXPRESSIONS NOT NECESSARY OR APPLICABLE TO THE NEW TESTAMENT’S PREMIAL EXPLANATION CONCERNING ATONEMENT THROUGH CHRIST JESUS:

Adam’s sin accounted to his descendants by God

Christ accounted with human sin(s) on the cross by God

Christ’s righteousness accounted to believers by God

Christ assuming the guilt of sin(s) on the cross

Christ condemned by God on the cross

Christ cursed by God on the cross

Christ drinking the cup of God’s wrath on the cross

Christ experiencing the displeasure of God on the cross

Christ experiencing the justice/vengeance of God on the cross

Christ identifying with sin(s) on the cross

Christ made sin on the cross

Christ paying for sin(s) on the cross

Christ paying the debt of sin(s) on the cross

Christ paying the penalty for sin(s) on the cross

Christ propitiating God on the cross

Christ punished by God on the cross

Christ reconciling God to man on the cross

Christ satisfying God’s justice on the cross

Christ satisfying God’s honor on the cross

Christ suffering as a substitute on the cross

Christ suffering in our place/stead on the cross

Christ suffering the curse for sin(s) on the cross

Christ suffering the pains of hell on the cross

Christ suffering the pangs of hell after the crucifixion

Christ suffering the punishment for sin(s) on the cross

Christ suffering the wrath of God on the cross

Christ suffering what sinners deserved on the cross

[4/21/11; 4/23-24/24]

Flotsam & Jetsam from the Slow Shipwreck of Calvinistic Soteriology on Account of Neglecting the Premial Atonement in Heaven

Occasionally sprawling, not seldom convoluted, excruciatingly tedious, yet often extraordinally innovative, seclect elaborations of the Atonement such as those of Hugo Grotius, John Owen, William Pynchon, John McLeod Campbell, Robert C. Moberly, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Leon Morris, René Girard, H. D. McDonald, John Stott, I. Howard Marshall, Fleming Rutledge, Eleonore Stump, N. T. Wright, William Lane Craig, Adonis Vidu, Michael Gorman, David Brondos, Greg Boyd, Hans Boersma, Douglas Campbell, Darrin Snyder Belousek, Mako Nagasawa, and W. Ross Hastings, hailing from widely disparate standpoints and Christian traditions, all alike manifest obliviousness to the inextricable roles of Christ’s resurrection, ascension, and enthronement WITHIN THE INTEGRAL PROCESS OF GOD’S PREMIAL JUSTICE CULMINATING IN THE PROTECTIVE COVER (“ATONEMENT”) CHRIST OFFERED EXCLUSIVELY AT GOD’S THRONE IN HEAVEN, followed by the outpouring of the promised award of Holy Spirit and Christ’s continual intercession thereafter. And that’s despite the sterling advances of many of these authors in multiple respects. I find this state of affairs almost heartbreaking, especially in view of the visibly and increasingly deleterious societal consequences of this “little” perennial oversight by “us Christians (all!).” The inevitable side-effect and byproduct of thus shunting around these vitally essential components is the palpable sense of ill-satisfaction that proliferates via compulsive but needless over-qualifying, over-elaboration, and over-defensiveness—in effect, “multiplying words without knowledge.” [3/13/11; 4/10-12/24]

A telling example of the burgeoning excesses that can spawn from just one prominent sectarian tradition of theologizing is the following ample tally of historically scattered and systematically superfluous flotsam & jetsam that has accumulated over five centuries from the slow-motion deterioration and imminent shipwreck of Calvinistic soteriology in particular, including both its own due property as well as outlying spinoffs by way of inevitable counteractions and overreactions. It should be disturbing to “true believers” that none of the following phrases or technical terms is to be found, as such, in Scripture itself, unless by way of unwarranted imposition and even outright mistranslation from the original, a practice regrettably becoming more common among scholars now that such error has become increasingly and calmly assured of widespread acceptance without risk of contradiction. (Accordingly, some or parts of the following might have been placed in quotes, but where to stop? That said, I shall spare you the technicality.)

acceptilation

active righteousness/obedience [vs. passive righteousness/obedience] of Christ

Amyraldianism

antinomianism

common grace [vs. special grace]

divine decrees

divine sovereignty [vs. human freewill]

double/triple imputation

double jeopardy (of the reprobate)

double predestination

effectual calling

equal ultimacy

eternal conscious punishment (of human beings)

eternal security

external call [vs. internal call]

fideism

freewill (hunan) [vs. divine sovereignty]

God’s reconciliation to man

governmental theory of atonement

hypothetical/conditional universalism

impetration vs. application

imputation of Adam’s sin to his descendants (from Augustine)

imputation of Christ’s righteousness to believers/the elect

imputation of sin(s) to Christ

infralapsarianism

internal call [vs. external call]

irresistible grace

justification vs. sanctification

legalism

limited atonement

monergism [vs. synergism]

order of decrees

ordo salutis

original sin (reprising Augustine)

passive righteousness/obedience [vs. active righteousness/obedience] of Christ

payment for (debt of) sin(s)

penal satisfaction

penal substitution

perfectionism

predestination

perseverance of the saints

preterition

prevenient/preventive/preceding grace

rectoral theory of atonement

reprobation (decree of…)

sanctification vs. justification

secret regeneration

sovereign grace

sovereignty of God

special call [vs. universal call]

special grace [vs. common grace]

spiritual death (being dead in sin)

sublapsarianism

suffering of Christ in hell

supralapsarianism

synergism [vs. monergism]

total depravity

unconditional election

universal call [vs. special call]

universalism

The foregoing litany comprises, one and all, artificial byproducts of a toxic (if well-meaning) theology industry: plastic pollution. These irreversibly degrading plastic components cannot be rendered non-toxic and will inevitably spread within the environmental footprint of any church that tolerates their use. We must pursue the difficult task of disemploying them and getting comfortable with the crisp, spare, consistent terminology of apostolic formulation inspired by the Spirit of wholesomeness. Isn’t it about time to take out the trash, provided we can somehow dispose of it where it’s not liable to re-enter the safe places of the church and surrounding environment to recontaminate them, perhaps with yet more inveigling iterations? [3/13/11; 4/9-12/24]

The curious fact that an extremely low percentage of relatives, friends, pastors, scholars, authors, and other Christian leaders to whom I have communicated the premial approach to the Atonement, even on multiple occasions, have ever responded, and that even those who have replied were mostly non-enthusiastic, rather curt, and certainly non-committal (although curiously, somewhat fewer in number being overtly opposed or hostile to the message), and, finally, that after several years I can still count on one hand those who seem to have warmed up to it, and on the other hand those who did not maintain objections to it—all suggest the unusually captivating grip of the penal hypothesis concerning atonement on a worldwide scale (my contacts span the globe).

Clearly. I have not yet communicated…clearly! Or the Holy Spirit, whose message I firmly believe this to be, has not yet deemed it quite ready to endorse. Now, I’m not whining, but what sober, plausible reasons might be advanced to account for this odd circumstance (well, of course, aside from my own delaying to submit it for publication in normal book fashion)? [3/14/11; 4/10-12/24]

77 Questions about the Atonement (Q&A #31)

 31.     Weren’t the sacrifices of the Old Testament payments for sin?

No, such discourse is foreign to Scripture.  It could easily have stated that, but it simply never did.  The Law of Moses did not specify sacrifices as payments for sins.  That’s adding words without knowledge.  These sacrifices, though often costly, to be sure, foreshadow the priceless self-sacrifice of Jesus’ existence on the Cross as a ransom to Death in exchange for Life to all mankind—now greatly enhanced and powerfully augmented!—a recompense that God Himself undertook to repay His Son.  That deadwood Christ got hung on, bearing sins, hereby rejuvenated into the veritable Tree of Life, bearing prolific good fruit and therapeutic leaves for the abundant life and salutary healing of the nations of earth.