It’s Only Fair!

“The Bread from Heaven” eaten in the Lord’s Supper was likened by Jesus to the manna that miraculously fed Israel. A jar of that manna was kept in the Ark of the Covenant as a memorial to God’s miraculous sustaining of their lives/souls during their wilderness sojourn. That ark was covered by protective cherubim, overshadowing the solid gold protective cover (kapporeth / hilasterion) where “atonement” was made by the spattering of blood annually, and where Jehovah promised to meet His people—the earthly figure of His celestial throne.

These sorts of images or pictorial representations intermingle and mount and recombine and romp and play with one another in symbolic attempts to convey the heavenly truths that they never quite attain. But they do manage to teach that communion is a New Covenant incorporation of atonement—ingesting heavenly power to nourish our resistance/immunity to sin. (Baptism/immersion in like manner focuses on the complementary aspect—washing.) [6/12/09]

The disposition of Jesus’ flesh was enmity toward God, just as ours is (Romans 8:7). But he was not (as incarnated) responsible for that factual circumstance, any more than any of the rest of the human race is. He was, however, responsible for walking in the Spirit of life instead of in that mortal, sinful flesh of his. Thus Jesus never gave vent to his death-oriented flesh, but only to his life-oriented Spirit. And he has left us this example so that we might follow in his steps.

Moreover, at length, through his death on the Cross, Jesus killed the enmity in his flesh, condemning sin in it (Ephesians 2:16, 14, Romans 8:3, 7, Colossians 1:20-21) as well, via his resurrection, which, conversely, acquitted him and his Spirit (1 Timothy 3:16!). Thus Jesus’ flesh was condemned and his Spirit was justified all in one fell swoop at the ‘Crossurrection’ events. Accordingly, he won/acquired/procured (peripoi–) from God a whole new body! [6/14/09]

God was “in Christ” on the Cross and God was in Christ in the Unseen, in the Tomb…and beyond! That’s why Christ could declare, “I am laying down my soul that I may be getting it again. No one is taking it away from me, but I am laying it down of myself. I have the right to lay it down, and I have the right to get it again. This precept I got from my Father” (John 10:17-18). “Raze this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). [6/17/09]

God purposed Messiah Jesus “as a protective shelter…because of the passing over of the penalties-of-sins which occurred before in the forbearance of God” (Romans 3:25), that is, God’s righteous forbearance was being manifested or displayed precisely by his provision of a protective shield over sins justifying him in passing by their penalties! It was, of course, the faithfulness in Christ’s blood that elicited His resurrectionary display of justice toward him and his. [6/18/09]

Romans 1:17-18 distinguishes between “a righteousness of God”—namely GRACIOUSNESS (1:5; 3:24; 4:4-5, 15-16; 5:1-2; 1:7; 5:15-21; 6:14-15; 8:32-34)—which is “revealed from heaven” in historic outbreaks of divine judgment. Thus both the premial and the penal are in view, but with very different results! Paul expounds God’s penal justice in 1:18-3:20, in grim terms, but then turns on a dime to expound God’s premial justice in 3:21 onward, in glorious words. [6/18/09]

Whatever Jesus got by his faithfulness is what we, too, get by our faith. God reciprocated with outrageous graciousness to Jesus in just recompense for his faithfulness in obedience to Him. Thus it is only fair and right that all others who exert a like faith receive a like reward of graciousness. [6/18/09]

Jesus’ perfection expelled any fear that his humiliating CRUCIFIXION was God’s punishment; he persisted expectant only of God’s reward of exaltation through RESURRECTION and beyond.

The reason why, in the 2^nd century Christian author Irenaeus’s ‘recapitulation’ explanation of the Atonement, “not only the death of Christ but also the life/career of Christ has redemptive significance,” is simple.  What the Father overcompensates Christ for, in and by his resurrection and exaltation, is his unsurpassed career of obedient, righteous deeds that was unjustly dishonored and violently cut short by the sins of the Jews and failures of the Romans under the common inspiration of Satan.  Even a generous recompense is only in proportion to its base injury or ‘mass’ of infraction.  Legal damages are calculated proportional to loss.  10 or 100, or even 1000 times 0 = 0.  Justice must have material to work with.  Jesus docked up a life of consistently (not to say exclusively!) worthy behaviors conformable to his Father’s desire, and well-pleasing to Him.  This he sacrificed, likewise at his Father’s wish, to established authorities whose duty was to dispense justice to the poor, distressed, injured, humiliated, and cheated.  But those authorities defaulted on their divine duties of due diligence!  A murder takes on greater ‘volume’ and value and virtue in the scales of justice in proportion to the good that it wrongfully snuffs out.  God paid damages far, far outstripping Messiah’s loss; He would not have been right to repay less.  [4/9/06]

“Fear is not in love, but perfect [telei-] love is casting out fear, for fear has punishment [kolasis]” (1 John 4:18), therefore love must not have punishment!  [4/10/06]  As God’s own Son is our Exemplar, he must have had no fear of punishment by God at the cross.  He well knew this event held no divine penalty whatever, but only amounted to “buffeting [kolaphiz-]” from Satan (2 Cor 12:7-10, Matt. 26:67, Mk. 14:65, 1 Cor. 4:9-21, 1 Pet. 2:20-24)  and “contradiction [antilogia] by sinners” (Heb. 12:3), to be endured as filial “discipline“ (paideia) from a loving Father (Heb. 12:5-9) in order to bring him to perfection (telei-) or maturity of wholesomeness (agi–) and love (agape) (Heb. 2:10-11, 12:10-14, 1 Jn. 5:17-18) through his learning obedience (Heb. 5:7-9, 7:27-28) to God’s desire (Heb. 10:5-14), so that he might receive superabundant graciousness from God (Heb. 2:9, 12:14-15, 18, 1 Pet. 2:19-20, Rom. 5:15-21) because of his humiliation by Satan, his Adversary (1 Pet. 5:5-10, James 4:5-10), and all so that we his friends, too, might be able to share in his wholesomeness, and hence his graciousness (2 Cor. 12:7-10), and likewise learn to effect his desire on earth and give God the divine service He deserves (Rom. 12:1-8).  [8/26/07]

Jesus’ honoring of Levitical Law by his true, spiritual keeping of the Law, paid whatever tribute was necessary to it.  But it must not escape us what this true obedience actually, phenomenally, looked like.  This brand of Law-keeping was repeatedly condemned by the teachers of the Law—the scribes, Pharisees, elders, and chief-priests of the Jews.  Their brand of ‘holiness’ was brittle, fragile, breakable—highly breakable!  In stark contrast, true righteousness is supple, stretchy, conformable to the actualities of daily variation in real circumstances—the spirit of the Law was conformable to reality.  The letter of the Law refuses to adapt to human variations and needs, which it can override, trample, and kill.  Jesus proved this—profoundly demonstrated what such abortive ‘virtual’, literalistic, ‘Law-keeping’ will do to One who is actually a perfect, flawless Law-keeper.  By vindicating true obedience, Jesus outright condemned every such misuse of Moses’ Law.  He came back to life—agelong life!—after wrongful official ‘Law-keeping’ had condemned and executed him!  “A Greater than Moses” has arrived to light up the true way of life for us:  durable, correctly-invested faith that justifies.  [4/10/06]

The disclosed secret of the Cross vs. the remaining mystery of our cross-wired perceptions of it.

Ever since Christ’s 40-day ‘short course’ for his community of followers immediately after his resurrection, there is no longer any mystery about the Cross itself; the only mystery remaining is our modern (I suppose I should say medieval) cross-wired understandings of it!  However, we can hardly attribute those tangles to the ‘silence’ of Scripture on the subject, as I hope to show. [4/6/06; 12/19/06]

The Father allowed the Son to be “made a curse” (Gal. 3:13) precisely because of the yet further aggravated injustice of it! It was “for our sakes” because it happily justified God to overcompensate him all the more by blessing him with the superabundant gift of Wholesome Spirit—his just due (dikaioma) as legal damages for being strung up so outrageously.  So it was the Father’s desire that the Son bear these terrible sins “in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24), cursed as it was, so that He could “make an example” of the vicious chief priests and Pharisees and lawyers and scribes and elders of the Jews (Matt. 26:47,57, 27:3,20; Mark. 15:10-11,31; Luke 23:10, 13,23; John 11:4,51) and likewise of the feckless Roman authorities (Matt. 27; Mark 15; Luke 23; John 18-19)—in short, “the sovereignties and authorities” (Col. 2:15). God made a spectacle of them all, shaming them in stark contrast to the glorification and exaltation He rendered His Son and chosen Messiah! [4/6/06]

At/on the Cross, Jesus offered up to God his entire life/career of faithful obedience and sinless innocence, letting it get sacrificed by vicious sinners who did not recognize or admit his righteousness at all. They only wanted him dead, because of their own seething envy (Mt. 27:18; Mk. 15:10).

Through offering himself up to God Himself by surrendering himself to the forces of evil, Jesus put his fate in his Father’s just and capable hands to show who was really right in this sordid affair.  By letting the sovereignties and authorities of the Jews and Romans play out their seemingly victorious hand to its ostensibly successful denouement, Jesus was submitting humbly to God’s own judgment…awaiting God’s own timing, and not, as he himself would have preferred, at the Cross or, better yet, even before the terrifying scenario ever started playing out—in fact, even prior to his being apprehended.  For this “son of mankind” did not personally wish to drink this cup to its bitter dregs at all, yet faithfully acquiesced and left the outcome in God’s righteous hands, trusting his ultimate fate to the everlasting arms beneath the bloodied dramatic stage to break his fall.  In due time God exalted him in graciousness—the identical graciousness in which he would “be getting to taste death for the sake of everyone” (Heb. 2:9).  It is such unmatched human behavior that characterized Christ Jesus the “Prince of Peace” and proves credible the exhortation, “For Messiah’s sake, be conciliated to God!” (2 Cor. 5:20).

In antiquity, God on occasion accepted this voluntary offering—this “sin[-offering]” (hamartia—alike in 2 Cor. 5:21, Rom. 8:3, and throughout Leviticus, etc., in the Greek Septuagint)—“with fire from heaven,” visible even at Pentecost (Matt. 3:11; Luke 3:16; Acts 2:3), consuming “living sacrifices” (Rom. 12:1) as acceptable, sweet-smelling offerings made wholesome by God’s promised gift of the Spirit, besides justly compensating for Satan’s violent enormity against the Son of His love.

Adam’s one offense that brought death to the whole race of mankind was more than countered by Jesus’ one just award, repaid him by God the Judge as damages in fair exchange for Satan’s fatal assault, and which brought life superabundant and gratuitous to all who believe this stirring Proclamation!  (Rom. 5:18)  Adam’s disobedience constituted his many offspring as sinners, yet Messiah’s more-than-countervailing obedience, due to its evoking super-excessive and superabounding graciousness toward him from God (Rom. 5:15,17,20), through his mediation, nevertheless constituted a multitude of others also as just! (Isaiah 53:11, Rom. 5:19, 1 Peter 2:24)   [4/7/06; 10/15/25]