SATISFACTION vs. RESURRECTION

Only the Proclamation of a Resurrectionary Justification, i.e., of God’s Restorative Justice, and an understanding of the Atonement that accords with it, can provide sufficient discernment to judge among the composite options that have come down to us in the whole history of theology and credology.

The Socinians, it turns out, in spite of their serious errors, nonetheless displayed astonishing insight into the work of Christ that it behooves every serious Berean of a Bible student to analyze with care and due appreciation. Likewise Abelard, the Anabaptists, the Amyraldians and many other minority positions must be mined for their nuggets of wisdom and gems of truth. But God’s rewarding (not penal) justice is the indispensable criterion. [03/02/08]

Utterly foundational to the Protestant (i.e., Lutheran and Calvinistic) doctrine of “forensic justification,” by which they always mean “the imputation of Christ’s own righteousness to the believing sinner” is a shearing of this ostensibly “objective” justification, forgiveness, and reconciliation from whatever the Holy Spirit does, allegedly, “subjectively” within the believer, which is commonly termed “sanctification,” and which, they assert, always comes “afterward.” This shearing of “objective” from “subjective” (their distinction and terminology), paralleled or at least echoed in their distinction between Christ’s “active” and “passive” “righteousness” or obedience, constitutes a pernicious dualism that sabotages an integral apostolic ethic again and again. The Holy Spirit is said to do a “subjective” work in us—not including justification, forgiveness, or reconciliation!—only after and subsequent to the “objective” accomplishment of those three aspects of salvation “on the cross.”

This was an overreaction to the Roman Catholic error of making justification, forgiveness, and reconciliation subsequent to the lifelong operation of the Holy Spirit. Thus Protestantism is an overreaction to Roman Catholicism; neither is truly apostolic at this pivotal point. The truth is that all of those three (and much more) are continuously operative or true so long as faith exists and even reinforce faith, but do not guarantee continued faith since our increated (although restricted and mortal) sovereignty and authority resulting from our being made in the image and after the likeness of God always exists and remains inalienable until death. God’s forceful and heavily corroborated Proclamation of His Kingdom must be given the credit for keeping and preserving us in safety by its power to induce faith.

Moreover, this characteristic Protestant disconnect between “Christ’s work on the cross” (not a pattern of sound explanation found anywhere in Scripture) and “the Spirit’s work in the heart,” in effect, virtually snips the vital conduit that empowers ethical fruit or productivity. They may teach otherwise, indeed, the Holy Spirit may get a great deal of work done in spite of the erroneous doctrine, especially in those who are tutored in it less than they are in Scripture alone (which has power to override errors for those who stay in it faithfully and regularly). Nevertheless the Protestant doctrine is subversive of sound teaching by its very nature and needs to be exposed, confronted, and rejected in favor of the apostolic literature in the New Testament. [03/02/08]

SATISFACTION vs. RESURRECTION

The notion of “satisfaction” at the Cross cannot be dispensed with unless and until the Resurrection is grasped in its full justifying significance. This is why all attempts to deny and nullify the Anselmian notion of “satisfaction” have tended to be unsuccessful. For unless God’s justice can be clearly read out of Messiah’s resurrection, it will invariably be read into his crucifixion, where, to be sure, none whatever is to be found. Yet the opponents of the notion that the Cross is in any way “just” have routinely failed, one and all, to perceive God’s saving, rewarding, restorative justice in his resurrection and hence have denied the centrality of the “juridical metaphor” and, consequently of divine justice. But this loss only weakens the meaning of the Atonement as a whole and thus actually guts the full glory of God’s graciousness, which is, amazingly and wonderfully, the just outcome of Messiah’s unjust crucifixion via resurrectionary reversal!

Medieval cataracts concerning justice as seemingly purely penal (by the time of the Reformation of the 16^th century) all but blinded theologians concerning the ancient Hebrew assumptions about justice as avenging evil to restore good, i.e., eviscerating the vicious in order to enrich the righteous. [03/02/08]

“Justice vs. Mercy” or Penal Justice vs. Premial Justice?

The common apposition of the words “mercy” and “justice” in popular theology and sermonic speech is due to the common, but erroneous, conception of justice as exclusively penal or punitive. Then the notion of mercy and justice “agreeing” or “kissing” is attached to the Cross of Christ where allegedly we were shown God’s grace (mercy) because he was shown God’s wrath (justice). BUT THIS INTERPRETATION COMPLETELY IGNORES GOD’S RESTORATIVE JUSTICE!

Yet, to be sure, restorative justice is not the same as mercy. For mercy is still but oriented to the sinner, even as penal justice is, whereas restorative justice is oriented to the one injured or harmed, that is to say, the one sinned against.

Thus, when Paul in Romans writes of “God’s righteousness,” with only rare exceptions, he means God’s restorative justice manifested in the Christ’s RESURRECTION. [10/17/07]

It is noteworthy to observe that the Levitical version of restorative justice naturally required that the injurer should restore by repaying the injured. Therefore the necessary reparation needed to be extracted from the injurer before it could be given to the injured.

In the Cross/Resurrection, however, something absolutely unprecedented takes place. Not only does restoration occur to the injured before the injurer makes reparation, but the restoration comes from another source altogether—God Himself, Who also suffered from the injury! This is a stark revelation of the graciousness of God, beyond all expectation based on mere penal justice. Yes, the injury was even a capital offense of aggravated proportions, so any normal reparation by human beings was impossible. Yet to not even demand penal justice for the injurers, but rather to reprieve them for a full generation to make room for repentance was the grandest revelation of the mercy of God ever manifested in Israel’s long, tortured history. [10/17/07]

On the grounds of the wrongfully shed blood of Jesus, applied to our sinful hearts when we simply believe the Explanation of the Proclamation about what he did for us (which Message is the power of God for our salvation), we are cleansed or pardoned from our sins by the actual washing operation of God’s Holy Spirit that is then poured out in our hearts and thereupon God is justified in openly declaring us “just” or imputing righteousness to us, i.e., in justifying us on account of our believing His Message, because this accords perfectly with His graciousness, aside from any acts on our part whatever.

This is contrary to the teaching of both the Roman Catholic Church and of the Protestant Reformation. Each will tend to see the other in this corrected doctrine of salvation, but it is neither. Romanism made justification depend on the end product of progressive sanctification. Protestantism made justification depend on the imputation of “Christ’s righteousness,” and in Calvin’s version that imputation in turn depends on a faith generated not by the power of the inspired Gospel itself, but by an arbitrary infusion of the Holy Spirit to the “particularly elect” as a “gift” (by which he meant not the Holy Spirit but the faith!), without which the Gospel itself is regarded as powerless to evoke faith in sinners, due to “total depravity.” Both are in error.

In the ppure and simple apostolic version, the faith of any sinner is counted (imputed) as righteousness when created by the power of the Gospel narrative (inspire by God’s Holy Spirit, in written or spoken form), and thereupon God bestows His Spirit of power into the sinner’s heart to cleanse away sins and thus justify God in declaring the former sinner to be righteous instantly, the sign of which, in conjunction with water immersion, was often the miraculous utterance of unknown languages, prophecy, and other extraordinary manifestations of the Spirit’s redemptive presence.

The Gospel narrative that has such power to effect so much is, of course, the Story of Jesus, especially his cross-and-resurrection, which jointly manifest the covenantal faithfulness or obedience of the Son and the covenantal righteousness or justice of the Father. [10/17/07]