Saved from the Savior
Been reading a lot about the atonement lately. Gerald Hiestand at Straight Up posted a very thought-provoking article about our being saved through Jesus and from God.
God is for the Israelites, but they have not been properly for him. They have joined the opposition and sided with the enemy—an enemy God is determined to crush. But God is gracious in the midst of his vengeance. Another ark of salvation is prepared in the midst of a second flood of vengeance; the blood of a lamb is shed and God’s people are delivered once again…from God. We, like the Israelites in Egypt, need to be saved from our Savior.
And that’s a basic point of penal substitution—that God, in his willingness to save us from the power and dominion of sin—must also somehow save us from himself. Any view of the atonement that fails to grapple with this uncomfortable—yet distinctly biblical—reality, falls short. [From Saved from the Savior]