Christ Jesus came, the pity of God pledged upon the world, the appointed sufferer who, Warrior King, conquered all in one great heavenly battle. This he achieved under Torah, under "the law," that is, as one of us.
As us, as our obedience, as our renewed and truly new human activity before the eyes of an angry God, he is the great exchange, the son sold into slavery in order to adopt the slaves as heirs.
You cannot escape Torah. It is a great curb, a guide, an ultimate mirror built into, and proclaimed by the heavens throughout all that is seen. Their voice has gone out and preached the singularity of creation, the holy devotion with which the cosmos is knit: everything works just so; distort it only a touch, and distort it entire. But such is this great Torah that all of our attempts to distort it only bring its truth barreling back down upon our heads.
This is the great mystery of the Torah become flesh, the birth of God from woman in order to obligate his new-inspired flesh and blood with all the perfect obedience a creation of the Good God ought rightly display.
Here, again, standing before the world in the "carne" of Jesus of Nazareth, the Torah remains a revelation of the everlasting and singular oath of our Creator-God: You are my son. Today I have begotten you.
God the Just punishes his rebellious slaves by adopting them into his own deity, a mystical union that is well worth praying over at length. God the Justifier punishes his Only-Begotten in order to bring our discord into concord with his far-seeing will.
Giving up is the temptation to reject patience as a virtue.
God's patience is his rejection of giving up on you.
Forgiveness is God's claim that you are his own: chosen, emphatically, with a giant "Yes!"
Because that's who Jesus is.
Till angel cry and trumpet sound, Rev. Fisk
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