77 Questions about the Atonement (Q&A #71)

71.     How is the Atonement linked to Pentecost?

The coming of fresh quantities of the Holy Spirit to the assembly of believers seven weeks after the Lord’s Resurrection constituted the prophesied anointing and cleansing of the sanctuary on earth.  This early harvest amounts to the firstfruits of all the spoils won by Jesus through his resurrectionary triumph over death, Satan, sin, and the Law of the Old Covenant, now fulfilled.  This is our down payment of all the promised blessings of the New Covenant, certified and sealed by our risen Master’s shed blood.  Miracle-working outbreaks are to be expected repeatedly throughout this vicious age in gracious divine response to the periodic abuses suffered by God’s wholesome children as they give bold testimony to His Kingdom and refuse to prize even their own existences facing death, in comparison with attaining the prize of their high calling as daughters and sons of God—the inheritance of sustained resurrection life with Christ the Lord, for the ages of the ages.  This is the historic pattern inaugurated by our Forerunner, Jesus, during the Passover-Pentecost events of 30 A.D. and repeated with variations on that theme ever since.

77 Questions about the Atonement (Q&A #66)

66.     Isn’t our faith disqualified as the condition of salvation because then it would be a work, which would put God in our debt?

Actually, no.  God chose the ‘simplemindedness’ of faith precisely because it is not a work at all.  It’s merely the open hand that receives His life-preserver, the open heart that accepts the seed of God’s penetrating Explanation about the means of our rescue.  Exercising faith in God, according to Scripture, is a non-work—a mandated Sabbath work stoppage.  The function of faith is a faculty of our God-created and God-imaging makeup, so by design has been placed under our own limited and mortal yet genuine sovereignty, authority, and control. This is the case because faith comports perfectly with God’s graciousness in providing a salvation of such no-strings-attached generosity. Faith simply needs to be properly invested in multiple eyewitness testimony and other solid evidence—precisely the sort of stuff you find marbled throughout the Bible, coincidentally.