----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark K LaCour" <lacour1@...>
>God doesn't owe me

If God promises something on a condition and the condition is met, he owes 
it.  Period.  His justice demands it.  Only when God gives it when the 
conditions aren't met is it grace.

Which is precisely the issue here: Justice.  The only question we need ask 
for the Fuller/Shepherd/Wright/NPP house of cards to fall in their fusion of 
merit and grace is this: would my employer pay me if I didn't do my job?  If 
not, his payment is never grace.

I don't deny God's love is present in the pre-fall Garden in his communion 
with his creatures.  At issue is whether or not his love stops where his 
justice starts.  Wright (and Shepherd) says justice plays no part in the 
garden.  That frees him to suggest Christ's death did not appease God's 
wrath because justice was never an issue to begin with.

Chad