Because the Cross of Christ Was NOT A PENALTY BUT A CRIME, It Could Not Be Penally Substitutionary in Any Sense

To “take responsibility” for something is to be willing to absorb whatever loss may be involved.  At the cross, Jesus, for whom everything was made, absorbed the loss that all human wrongdoing exacted from him.  Enormous as this was, his just compensation for suffering this loss was infinitely greater, for it amounted to a NEW CREATION!  God’s justice would not let him be taken down by the sins of his creatures, therefore, astonishingly, He made a way for even those sinners themselves to benefit from Christ’s vast repayment in return for his unjust injuries.  This mighty act of inclusive graciousness–the natural overflow of God’s premial justice–is the proof of His great love.  [8/19/10]

An atonement by way of premial justice does an end run around the pile-up of all penal satisfaction wrangling.  The contentious encounters over “substitution” can at long last be quashed since it only comes up and persists when the issue of a penalty to be justly endured is at stake.  However, NO PENALTY IS EVER REQUIRED TO SATISFY PREMIAL JUSTICE, AND IT IS PRECISELY THIS LATTER JUSTICE THAT THE LORD JESUS DESERVED FROM GOD FOR THE SINS HE BORE, WILLINGLY AND SO EXTREMELY UNJUSTLY.  [8/19/10]  If you missed the point, I’ll rephrase:  THE ONLY DIVINE JUSTICE THAT THE LORD JESUS CHRIST EVER “ENDURED” WAS “HAVING” TO GET RAISED FROM THE DEAD AND EXALTED TO THE THRONE OF THE ANCIENT OF DAYS IN ORDER TO RECEIVE A GARGANTUAN AWARD FOR ALL HIS EARTHLY TROUBLES ON ACCOUNT OF SIN.  Oh dread.  [1/3/22]

The degree to which theologians have ignored (or at best minimized) God’s premial/rewarding justice/righteousness is a measure of the pervasive bancruptcy of our Protestant theological enterprise as a whole, since no category better characterizes the Pauline Gospel at its core than that of JUSTICE!  Yet penal justice offers only a pathetically crabbed and contorted caricature of the Father’s role in atonement and justification.  [8/19/10; 2/6/22]

Overcompensating Restitution Covers ALL Sins

To speak of Christ’s “fulfillment of Scripture” or even “fulfillment of the Law” as meaning primarily (much less exclusively “meeting all its DEMANDS” is to prejudice the discussion from the start, in a merely legal direction instead of a fully covenantal one. [7/22/09]

The “governmental view of the Atonement” first articulated by Hugo Grotius was an acknowledgement of a serious flaw in Calvin’s “penal payment” view—an economic problem. Grotius backed off of the strict equivalence between Christ’s sufferings and the sins thereby presumably “paid for.” And Grotius was correct in his demurring from that severity. However, even so, his solution is defective. For only the righteousness of God, understood as His supercompensating premial justice to Jesus Christ in exchange for the latter’s obedient surrender to a wrongful death, which reward was progressively unfolded starting with his resurrection, I repeat, only this divine righteousness ushered into the world a “payment” sufficient to provide salvation for ALL THE WORLD OF MANKIND on grounds that JUSTIFIED GRATUITOUS BESTOWAL WITHOUT IMPUGNING EITHER THE EFFICACY OF THE GIFT OR THE SELF-DETERMINATION OF HUMANS.

Hereby we are operating on a level that transcends the problematics of a strict economic equivalence supposedly reflecting a “sovereign election” of a “limited number” without any “wastage,” (which would allegedly reflect badly on God’s wisdom and foreknowledge), for OVERCOMPENSATING RESTITUTION COVERS ALL SINS WITHOUT REMAINDER…AND SOME! Premial justice explodes a “commercial” atonement to shameful oblivion. It is assuredly not God’s way of doing atonement. We are not dealing in the realm of “penal payment” but of “premial reward,” and the two conceptions are incommensurable. “Wastage” is never so much as calculated in the premial concept of apostolic Scripture. In fact, it would dishonor God the Father to do so! For when He deigns to award His beloved Son, He was evidently uncalculating in His lavish munificence! His royal splendor is tarnished by such prattle! Oh that we would exult to the max in the majesty of His SUPEREROGATORY GENEROSITY!

Within this magnificent conception, not only the Atonement is understood as general, unlimited, and universal, but even the variegated benefits it procured (no longer conceived as merely commercial acquisitions) are recognized as enjoyed by any and all as soon as they believe and so long as they continue to believe. This includes regeneration, i.e., getting the Holy Spirit, along with forgiveness, cleansing, justification, sanctification—the whole shot! IT ALL MAY BE TASTED, SAMPLED, ENJOYED, even by those who may later fall out of this UNREGRETTED GRACIOUSNESS only to return as dogs to their vomit and sows to their wallowing in the mire (2 Peter 2:22), AND ALL WITHOUT THE LEAST BESMIRCHING OF GOD’S WISDOM OR “SOVEREIGNTY”! GOD’S RESTORATIVE JUSTICE AND BENEFICENCE ARE THAT EXPANSIVE!!

The bottom line is that God’s premial justice, utterly eclipses the crabbed limitations of penal payment in all its usual guises and many varieties, whether Calvin’s own authentic mix or Beza’s more consistent and severe form, followed by Perkins, Ames, Owen, and many other English Puritans and all the Reformed standards, whether Swiss, Dutch, Scottish, along with all their epigones down to the present. Arminius and Amyraldus issued noble objections, to be sure, but without THE POWER OF THE RESURRECTION, THE FULL AND GLORIOUS MAGNITUDE OF THE GIFT OF SALVATION JUST KEPT GETTING SWATTED DOWN TO THE PUNY SIZE PERMITTED BY A PENAL MENTALITY AND VENGEFUL SPIRIT. THAT IS THE SHRUNKEN LEGACY OF ORTHODOX PROTESTANT ATONEMENT. [7/22/09]