Mark 3:5 (Jesus’ response to human callousness)
John 3:36 (God’s response to stubbornness toward His Son)
Romans 1:18, 2:5, 8, 4:15, 12:19, 13:4-5
Ephesians 2:3, 4:31, 5:6
Colossians 3:6 (and if you return to those practices, you shall feel God’s wrath again), 8
1 Thessalonians 1:10 (“…to come”), 2:16 (70 A.D., “abomination of desolation”
prophesied by Daniel and Jesus), 5:9 (“not appointed to…”)
1 Timothy 2:8
Hebrews 3:11 (because of their stubbornness!), 4:3
James 1:19 (“slow to wrath,” just like God Himself!), 20 (human wrath does not work
God’s righteousness, i.e., resurrectionary graciousness; just the opposite!)
Revelation 11:18 (nations were angered by God’s taking His great power to reign, so His
anger came…), 12:17 (but the Dragon also got angry)
[6/18/08; 6/30/16]
At the Cross, Jesus was not suffering under what so many theologians assert he was suffering under, in order that we might not have to suffer under it. Rather, he was suffering under what he should not have had to suffer under, in order that we could enjoy what he was rightfully going to get in recompense. Here the justice that is operative is entirely restorative and not at all penal or punitive. The Just One died wrongfully for the sake of the unjust and irreverent so that “Him Who is judging justly” (1 Peter 2:23) might requite him with the promise of the Covenant (Hebrews 10:36) and a “great reward” (Hebrews 10:35) to share with those who consent to believe he suffered for them. The benefit of his suffering of abuse is only enjoyed through exerting faith in the Message about what he did for us and on our behalf. Here there is not an ounce of penal substitution. It is heroic inclusion, lock, stock, and barrel. [6/18/08]
The Evangelical movement, so-called, boasts many a “guard dog” of their distinctive “dogmas.” And I would go so far as to grant them this designation…with the exception of the modifier. For they have not behaved themselves as gentlemen (they are predominantly men), but are needlessly dogmatic and denunciatory, bristling with prickly shibboleths. But worse, they have not guarded the supremacy of Scripture itself alone, in its own inspired vocabulary and conceptuality, but have fenced it off with their own novel, creedal barbed wire. One could have hoped at least for chain link, but the numerous gaps in their logic evidently demanded another recourse for protection. Non sequiturs and excluded middles fill in for many a missing link. You could drive a semi through some of the gaping holes in their logic. [6/18/08]
The Premial Atonement 