Covenant Renewal
We see a commitment to a covenant relationship in David’s
Psalm 51, after having committed sins that were classified as not atoneable.
Notice how David acknowledges that a sacrifice is only legitimate after he
has dealt with his personal internal problems:
“You will not delight in sacrifice, or I
would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The
sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O
God, you will not despise . . . THEN will you delight in right sacrifices,
in burnt offerings, and whole burnt offerings; THEN bulls will be offered on
your altar.” Psalm 51:16, 17, 19
Jesus also referenced this same principle, that God wants
your heart and relationships to be right before an offering is given. Notice
also in this next passage that he did not consider an offering to be an
acceptable substitute for repenting and repairing the offense that had been
done to another. Furthermore, the offering is a gift to God, not payment. Jesus
taught:
“So if you are offering your gift at the
altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave
your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother,
and then come and offer your gift.” Matthew 5:23-24
Sadly, the PSA doctrine mostly views God being restored
to the sinner by means of a transaction where Jesus is a substitutionary, propitiating
(appeasing) gift offered to an angry God, often with no expectation of genuine relational
reconciliation. The PSA-based reconciliation is merely a legal fiction! In
fact, the erroneous sacrificial payment-for-propitiation idea is what
apparently happened to God were a pagan deity who needed to be paid off. This was
a corruption and it made God very angry. Compare the idea of paying God for sin
versus what God said He really wants.
[author quotes Isa 1:11-18; 1 Sam 15:22; Prov 21:3; Psa
40:6; Matt 12:7]
(Kevin George, Atonement
and Reconciliation: On what basis can a holy God forgive sin? A search for the original
meaning, contrasted with Penal Substitutionary Atonement [2023], 39-40)
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