The Divine Son never fell out of his Father’s good graces–neither on the Cross, nor in Hades itself!

Romans 3:25-26, in the light of Romans 2:3-5, seems to assume that God’s righteousness includes kindness, patience, forbearance, etc.  It is the unrighteous who are unkind, impatient, intolerant, etc.  Yet a penal satisfaction ideology blithely overrides, even bulldozes, this gentle yet stubborn intercontextual observation.  How did we ever obscure this simple fact regarding common decent behavior?  Do we grade God on a different scale of righteousness than we do humans?  Moreover, is it a less ‘humane’ scale of assessment than we deem proper even for mere mortals?

So even though Romans 1:18-3:20 does focus on God’s wrath/indignation against the stubborn, both on the Day of Judgment as well as before, Paul makes a decisive shift in 3:21 to another kind of righteousness–the kind that does not punish the hard-hearted but rewards the amenably faithful ON THE GROUNDS OF CHRIST JESUS THE UTTERLY FAITHFUL ONE!  This may be why Paul even bothers to bring up the observation about God’s forbearance or longsuffering, BECAUSE IT FURTHER ILLUSTRATES THE NATURE OF REWARDING OR PREMIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS/JUSTICE IN RELATION TO THE FAITHFUL COVENANT PARTNERS WHO HAPPEN TO BE SINNERS IN NEED OF GOD’S PROTECTIVE COVER/SHELTER AROUND THEIR OFFENSES.

For His part, God is faithful and just to “set forth,” provide, and proffer such a wrath-proof protective method on behalf of all who trust Him for it, thereby releasing them from their sins.  This provision in particular entails the wrongful shedding of blood so innocent, flawless, and sinless–i.e., full of faithfulness to God’s will–that God Himself was justified in intervening virtually immediately to avenge (ekdik-) it BY RAISING THAT MURDER VICTIM FROM HIS GRAVE, NOT MERELY ALIVE, BUT IMMORTAL, WITH ROYAL GLORY AND UNIVERSAL PRIESTLY AUTHORITY TO INTERCEDE ON BEHALF OF HUMANKIND CONCERNING THEIR SINS. (A just deed of that superlative quality is a tough act to follow with a needlessly punitive one! [1/13/22])

It was by virtue of this authority, rooted in Christ’s own personal and historically demonstrated faithfulness to the true spirit of the Old Covenant, that he himself constituted a protective shelter concerning the sins of all time, both before his timely appearance in human flesh, but also, and with considerably more understanding and widespread publicity, after his well-attested resurrection from the dead.  This all means that the source of Christ’s power and authority to provide such indemnity lies in a perfect sinlessness that, in line with God’s justice, would not permit his disgraceful demise but insured, instead, a glorious restoration, not to favor–FOR HE NEVER FELL OUT OF GOD’S GOOD GRACES, NOT EVEN WHILE ON THE CROSS OR IN THE UNSEEEN–but rather to AN EXPLOSIVE MAGNIFICATION OF GRACIOUSNESS, ALONG WITH ITS OVERFLOW OF DIVINE SPIRITUAL GIFTS (charismata) IN ORDER TO BLESS THE HUMAN RACE IN ITS GRAVE NEED AND MORTAL PERIL.  This is the capacious legacy of God’s atonement on our behalf.  [9/20/10]

GOD HIMSELF paid the superhuman cost of our salvation

Who “paid the price” for our salvation?  God Himself paid it, that’s Who!  “He spared not His own Son” (Romans 8:32).  But also Jesus paid the price “in collusion” with his Father, by offering up himself in death (wrongful as it was) to the Father.  Yet none of this was “payment for sin(s),” but much rather THE COST THEY JOINTLY PAID FOR OUR LIFE!  That’s what it took to procure agelong life for sinners like us and thus overturn the curse of sin, which had decreed death.  Pretty clever.  [7/30/10]

There was no conceivable cost that could be paid by human beings to bring Jesus back to life after his decisive crucifixion; God Himself alone could repay such a loss, and hence HIS JUSTICE personally intervened spectacularly with extraordinary GRACIOUSNESS to Jesus, super-compensating him for his pains faithfully suffered in perfect obedience and identical God-like GRACIOUSNESS.  [7/30/10]

The atonement is neither an expression nor a function of the wrath of God in any respect.  To the diametric contrary, it is a stupendous unveiling of the GRACIOUSNESS of God on display before human eyes, thanks entirely to the JUST DESERTS of Jesus Christ and his faithful obedience that cried out for a proper reward after his being ground down and abased so egregiously.  [7/30/10]

The grim elaboration of God’s wrath found in Romans chapter one, verse eighteen through chapter three, verse twenty, makes but one slim reference to Jesus Christ, and that in connection with Paul’s Proclamation that through him “God will be judging the hidden things of mankind” (Romans 2:16).  And for good reason.  It simply doesn’t pertain. It’s not apropos.  Jesus never experienced that wrath in any degree whatever or for any reason imaginable.  He is a WRATH-FREE SAVIOR!  Paul only starts to bring him into his discourse after the pivotal turn at chapter three, verse twenty-one, for at that precise point he is ready to start expounding “A JUSTICE OF GOD“  that had been held in virtual abeyance pending a suitably worthy object and occasion of historic magnitude.  The wicked murder of his own Son facilitated that objective to perfection, and nothing under the sun could stay its cosmically beneficent fulfilment.  [7/30/10]

We must distinguish what was achieved by the cross of Christ and what happened “on” the cross.  God accomplished human salvation by or through the instrumentality of this dread means of shameful, public, official, agonizing, and decisive death.  But only so that He could be magnified in its stunning overthrow!  This instrument of torture was fiendishly designed to magnify a humiliating death in order to cast fear into the enemies of Rome.  God’s stunning reversal of that cross by raising this victim from its intended effects mocked death and dispelled its frightful ultimacy.  [7/31/10]

The NON-WRATHFUL SEQUEL to the Cross is the show stopper!

The very nub of the Gospel is the non-wrathful immediate sequel to the cross.  God had every right to demonstrate yet more wrath from Heaven than Paul warns about in Romans 1:18-3:20 upon that heinous execution of His beloved and eminently worthy Son.  Yet He did not!  His just and rightful wrath might well have avenged their unjust and wrongful wrath, but God rather exerted His holiness by self-control, patience, mercy, kindness, and forbearance (“fruits” of the very Holy Spirit He yearned to see operating in His people!) and RAISED JESUS FROM THE DEAD INSTEAD!  [5/17/10]  Hurrah!!! However, that said, we must never forget that this was only a merciful reprieve that barely lasted a full generation before the dread prophecy of Daniel (9:26-27)–and of Jesus on the way to the cross (Luke 23:27-31)–was fulfilled in horrific detail upon those who still remained unrepentant. Literally hundreds of Jerusalem’s citizens were then crucified (according to the Jewish eye-witness, Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews), and there was certainly divine wrath at those crosses. [5/17/10]