God barely squeaked by in His promise to raise up His vanquished Son in “three days”! HE COULD BARELY WAIT! You must see what it meant for God to have to wait “so long” before DOING JUSTICE! “How Long O Jehovah? Shall You be concealed permanently?” (Psalm 89)
Then on the “eighth day” of that week, God answered from heaven and UP FROM THE GRAVE HE AROSE, WITH A MIGHTY TRIUMPH O’ER HIS FOES! [4/21/06]
No force on earth or in heaven could have wrestled Jesus onto that cross or pinned his hands and feet with nails! He permitted it—graciously permitted it!—causing no loss of life…except his own, on that dreadful day. This means that he bore or carried that towering crime against his just soul instead of resisting it. He did “not resist the vicious,” but instead prayed for them. Thereby he “absorbed” their evil in his own body of mortal flesh, “sin’s flesh.” So instead of avenging himself, he awaited God’s just avenging, and God came through with “a VENGEANCE”! God glorified him with immortality (which he evidently did not possess before this, or he could not have borne/carried our sins to their just deserts: death). Without his death “to a finality” there could have been no reversal, exaltation, and enthronement “to a finality.” (Heb. 10:1,14) [4/21/06]
The cleansing of our consciences from dead works (Heb. 9:14) and sins was achieved by the Savior’s SELF-ABNEGATION since it was exactly and precisely his soul/self whom we offend whenever we sin, do a misdeed, do wrong, etc. the honor and rights we infringe are the honor and rights he gave up and NEGATED for our sakes, on our behalf, on our account, for us! That’s the essence—the concentrated essence—of what Jesus, Messiah, Son of God accomplished by the cross.
On the other hand, what God, the Father, did at the cross was…exactly nothing…but observe with a giant-sized—a divine-sized—measure of “satisfaction” the faithful, reliant, dependent, expectant surrender of His Only-born to the ravages of the most sinister malevolence ever stirred up by man or demon, while in perfect subordination to the directions of his Father in heaven. (This can only have a good outcome…I can feel it!)
The Father deliberately, designedly, strategically passed by any and every opportunity to play His hand at the cross at all, period. He, as it were, allowed His liberating, rescuing, avenging, vindicating pressure to build up a head of steam till all heaven hissed with the barely contained fury of his impending release. And when God the Father unleashed the dynamo of his justice into a cold tomb, it transformed into the warm womb of a brand new, fresh, sustainable, immortal creation! AND THE SON CAME FORTH INVINCIBLE! The terrestrial recoil was so mighty that even more graves opened to disgorge their surprisingly revivified contents! Laugh if you want; the fun has only BEGUN! [4/22/06]
The divine Son’s humble incarnation, displayed in a Jewish manger, found its culmination in his humiliating “incarnage,” displayed on a Roman cross. [4/22/06]
The Premial Atonement 