PSALMS OF DREAD–Anticipations of the Cross

If suffering at the brutal hand of Satan and his pawns was insufficient to account for the dread that Jesus felt in the Garden of Gethsemane, then what shall we say about Job?  And Job wasn’t facing certain death as Christ was!  Shall we minimize such an agonizing fate just so we can emphasize the wrath of God against him?  Shall we invoke God’s wrath on account of our own inability to conceive the fearsomeness of Satan’s arsenal of torments to the consciousnesss and sensibilities of the Son of mankind?  This deficiency of theological imagination reflects poorly on our capacity to engage the Biblical record as it stands, without contriving superfluous rationalizations. [7/06/10]

The Psalms constitute a thoroughgoing repository of voiced agony over undeserved enemy attacks, such as Job underwent, and much worse!  Shall we minimize such repeatedly elaborated terrors under the wayward impulse to magnify a, verily, mythical “wrath” against/upon God’s ever-obedient and morally worthy Son lest “penal substitution” comes off looking like the exorbitantly costly substitute it actually is, mocked and exploded as a sham doctrine, along with its assembled host of pathetically baseless, yea, pathologically base insinuations concerning the unimpeachable wisdom and kindness of God’s nonviolent atonement strategy? [6/06/21]

Alternatively, let’s take a long second look at the following passages from the Psalms:

Psalm 3; 4:1-3; 5:2-10; 6; 7:1-7; 9:13; 10; 11:1-3; 12:1-5, 8; 13:1-4; 14:1-6; 17:8-15; 18:4-6,17-18; 22:6-8,11-21; 25:16-22; 27:9-12; 30:9; 31:1-13, 17-18, 22; 34:17-19; 35:1-12, 15-17, 19-26; 36:1-4, 11; 37:32; [38:12, 16, 19-20;] 40:13-15; 41:5-9; 42:9-11; 43:1-2; 44:9-19, 22-25; 54; 55; 56:1-9; 57:1-6; 58:1-5; 59:1-12; 60:14; 62:3-4; 63:9-10; 64:1-6; 66:10-12; 69:1-4, 7-12, 14-15, 17-21, 26; 70:1-3, 5; 71:4, 10, 20; 74:18-23; 83:1-5; 86:1-7, 14-17; 88; 89:38-45; 94; [102;] [105:17-22;] 109:1-5; 119:21-23, 31, 39, 50-51, 53, 69-71, 75, 78, 84-88, 95, 107, 110, 115-116, 118-119, 121, 126, 134, 136, 139, 141, 143, 150, 154-155, 157-158, 161; 120; 123:3-4; 124; 129:1-7; 138:7; 139:19-22; 140:1-12; 141:9-10; 142; 143:3-4, 7, 9, 11-12; 144:7-8, 11. [6/07/21]

Now, if that’s “cherry picking,” yet what a bowl of cherries it is NOT!!!  Unless this mountain of wrenching lamentations and dreadful forebodings is apropos to experiences and circumstances appealing to God’s well-known rescuing impulses and established reputation, then He was wasting His valuable Breath!  The above, more than 60 Psalms–some 40%–contain such anguished utterances of dread, terror, torment, and agony in the face of looming threats of savage foes plus palpable vicious assaults.  Couldn’t such emotions have afflicted the Son of humankind during his subjection to the wise and ultimately gracious training program of his Father?  [6/08/21]

True Justice sorts out the respective glories of Christ’s Cross and Resurrection

God’s attitude toward the continuation of miracles into our present time appears to be that ‘one good Resurrection deserves another’!  It’s “graciousness upon graciousness”  (John 1:16).  [7/1/00]

Is the Cross or the Resurrection the locus of our salvation?  Has our theological tradition misplaced our redemption?  This may seem a small matter for those of us who have become accustomed to talking about the Cross of Christ as a saving event.  It may seem small in comparison with the revolution we must effect and endure in order to give Messiah’s Resurrection back the glory that properly belongs to it alone.  But unless we are willing to risk the wrath of human theologians as we strive to correct our inherited “doctrine of the Atonement,” we are no nobler than those who habitually (I had almost said superstitiously) defend the Anselmian or Calvinistic theories of atonement.  These approaches, however, only perpetuate the kindred muffling of the true glory of the Cross of Jesus.  Much, therefore, is lost unless we alter our ways of explaining, teaching, and proclaiming to conform more radically to Scripture.  [7/4/00]

Jesus died for the sins of the whole world.  The Biblical worldview frames that kind of death as a grave injustice, since Jesus was just and righteous without measure.  Hence followed the subsequent revelation of God’s ultimate justice at his Resurrection.  But what of the martyrs?  And what of our own suffering of abuse that happens not to be for our own sins?  The appalling judgments against ancient Israel (see the Former and Latter Prophets and Psalms!) were for their heinous sins.  But more poignant and puzzling, what does “suffering abuse because of righteousness” (1 Peter 3:14) achieve?  Is this for the salvation of others?  Is this that “fellowship of his suffering of abuses” (Phil. 3:10)–that “filling up in my flesh, in his stead, the deficiencies of the afflictions of Christ for his body, which is the church…” (Col. 1:24)?  Does it also assist in bringing salvation to the world?  [12/09/00]