Before the disruption of the world by sin, the Father had chosen His Son as the inheritor of the universe. God’s Explanation of this agelong favor upon His Son and, through him, upon anyone else who simply trusts, is the Divinely chosen means to call people back to Himself. However, human minds have become so blinded by sin (their own and others’ done against them) and lust and corruption that God appointed the demonstrative power of signs and miracles of His Wholesome Spirit to accompany the Proclamation of His Kingdom inheritance. The Spirit is, in fact, the very pledge and solid foretaste of that future inheritance. These signs, miracles, and powers, by causing amazement, astonishment, and awe, draw jaded human attention back to the light and glory (“proof”) of the Truth, triggering repentance.
The historic Resurrection of Jesus, the Christ and Son of God, is the supreme proof of the Proclamation of God’s Kingdom, of which the powerful personal experience of immersion in Wholesome Spirit is intended to be the continuing, tangible, visible seal on earth. Christ’s Resurrection is the supreme historic unveiling of God’s overcompensating justice. The agelong life that was thereby bestowed on him was the rightful award of his unjust suffering of abuse. This justification of Jesus via Resurrection, bestowing upon him transcendent, superabundant favor after favor, ipso facto justified God Himself–theologians call such a justification a “theodicy”–in His judgments toward humanity, and also thereby justifies the sinner who believes the Announcement of Christ’s Resurrection. In fact, God regards such trust as justice, not because of any medieval dogma about a “transfer of merits” or “imputation of sins,” but because human trust accords with Divine favor and is generated by the inherent persuasive power of the true narrative about God’s miraculous endorsement and certification of Jesus to be Messiah and rightful Covenant heir. [4/17/97
Consider carefully the ways in which Jesus before his baptism was like Adam before his sinning. Jesus had to learn obedience from that which he suffered throughout his life. Where Adam at length failed, Jesus continuously succeeded, being anointed as the Messiah at his baptism by John. He was tried thereafter and triumphed yet again, proceeding on to his appointed ministry with great power and spirit of wholesomeness. Yet again he was tested, this time supremely, in the Garden of Gethsemane, even up to the very moment of death…but won the victory of faith that secured even our salvation, much less his own–for, yes, Jesus was himself “saved” from death and the unseen–by God’s raising him to agelong life. [4/22/97]
Jesus says, in effect, “Let’s make a deal. I’ll die for your sake; you live for my sake. I’ll give up my kingship over the nation of Israel now so that all nations can then enter my Father’s universal Kingdom without impediment. Deal?” [5/15/97] This, however, cannot be construed as a so-called “substitutionary” exchange since Jesus did not die under a Divine penalty, or as some sort of even exchange of just so much pain for just so much gain, but entirely in the favor of God, thereby winning an incomparable reward instead. This fact takes all the wind out of the word “substitute,” so we may then fall back on the sound key terms the Wholesome Spirit has selected in Wholesome Scripture for our authentic sanctification (being ourselves rendered wholesome). [7/07/07]
The Premial Atonement 