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Christ’s death, God’s wrath: the vital connection

Avatar by Dr Ransom at 05:53 PM ET , Thursday, Jul 30, 2009
Tags: Columns, Rebuttals, Deep Doctrine Magic: Biblical Theology, Life Applications



(This is adapted from forum discussion posts written July 27 and July 29. These were mostly in response to a member who wrote that he disagreed on that Christ on the cross suffered God’s wrath as punishment for humans’ sin — an issue that transcends “Calvinism” vs. free-willieism.)

Both Biblical Calvinists and Free-Willies believe a loving God will send people (and/or allow them to go) to Hell. We also fully agree that God allows suffering for his own good reasons. And both Calvinists and Free-Willies would (or should!) disagree with the sentiment below:

I fail to see how any such sin sacrifice would pacify God. Does God delight in blood and vengeance? Is he not a merciful God?

The two “sides” within Christendom both believe that God is merciful, yet also just. Yes, a sin sacrifice is what is required, made evident from the entirety of the Old Testament and Christ’s fulfillment of the Law. God is love, but if He ignored a rebel sinner spitting in His eye, He would not be holy; He would be evil.

As my wife said over the weekend, some think as if God were like Tinker Bell from Peter Pan, only able to have one attribute or emotion at a time. This not only cheapens and humanizes God (and we are able to have more than one emotion at once!), but worse, bypasses Scriptures that clearly present Him as both love/mercy and holy/wrathful, not just all-love-all-the-time.

I believe free-willies also exaggerate God’s love to an extent, but not so much as this. My free-willie friends may believe Christ died to set up a salvation “system,” rather than as a direct substitute for His people. But at least they believe that His sacrifice was for people’s sins and did satisfy God. This is the essence of Christianity, however you think the “mechanics” work. Scripture is so clear about this — try the whole book of Hebrews just for starters!

Rather than talking about Predestination versus Free Will, I think the question needs to become: why did Jesus have to die? That is much more foundational to Christianity, and what our beliefs are based upon — God’s Word, or human-limited “logic”? To be frank, what one believes about it will separate true Christians from “Churchians.”



More paramount than predestination

As to the discussion, I simply find predestination intensely interesting. [. . .] I find the topic of Christ’s atonement a little less interesting[.]

Intriguing — because I find the topic of Christ’s atonement even more interesting, and not only interesting but vital. Scripture talks a lot about predestination and such, but as a corollary of Christ’s atonement for sin. What one believes about why Christ died is much more paramount to growth in Christ, or whether one is a Christian in the first place.

My basis is the Roman Catholic Church. Reject her authority if you like, but the ultimate test for any theological meanderings I might engage in is the Church's dogma.

Though I am unfamiliar with the Catholic Church’s teaching on the atonement, persp, it doesn’t much matter to me because — as we’ve already established — we have different starting points for what counts as ultimate authority. I would have the same perspective against a church or denomination that claims it’s a requirement for believers to speak in tongues, or else they’re not believers or don’t have the Holy Spirit; or a church that claimed one cannot be a good Christian if one enjoys recreational alcoholic beverages or reading fantasy novels; or a group that claims drums, guitars, or any kind of instrument in church is of the Devil or else automatically takes the focus off “real” worship. Scripture should be the test.

But I think that even if people here quote lots of Scripture “at” you — Romans 9, 1 John 2, lots of other passages, perhaps a reference or two to Jesus clearly drinking the “cup” of God’s wrath — am I right in assuming you’ll side with what you believe is the Catholic Church’s teaching instead? If so, I hope to avoid “picking” at you, but I do want to show others too — and remind myself — where such views are at odds with the Bible’s plain wording.

Furthermore, the discussion here is not meant as just on-paper-only debating, scoring points against the other side which are thus redeemable for — um — what exactly? Slapping ourselves on the back? Rather, it should be to edify each other, and encourage all of us, Christians and non-Christians alike, to think harder, and perhaps re-evaluate what they’re using as their “ultimate test” for Truth.



The God Who crushed His Son

In the case of Christ’s atonement, I am familiar with a lot of professing Christians (I am not necessarily saying you are one of them) who are uncomfortable with the idea of a merciful God needing to punish anyone, even if that is Himself/His own Son, in place of sinners.

“Emergent church” groups, for example, refer to the idea of God crushing His own Son as disgusting to the modern mind and equivalent to “divine child abuse.” This is an un-Biblical objection that should be appalling to all Christians, whether they are Calvinist, free-willie, Catholics or Protestants. Why? Because Scripture is so clear, not just in a single word like “propitiation” (the NIV’s “atoning sacrifice”) that Jesus didn’t just suffer physical or abstract pain. He suffered God’s wrath. This may be personally uncomfortable, or seem offensive to the modern mind (as argued by nonbelievers and some professing Christians). But it’s Biblical.

Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

[. . .]

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

Isaiah 53: 4-6, 10 (ESV)(emphases added)

God is a wrathful God, and He will impose penalties for rebellion against Him. If Christ did not “take the hit” of God’s wrath on the Cross, where do you believe that wrath went? Did God divert it somewhere else? Did He ignore it? How could He do so, and continue to be the loving-yet-holy-and-righteous God Scripture clearly shows Him to be?

I do not think he took the literal penalty of our sins and suffered it on our behalf. This is why I say he suffered for us, but do not say he suffered our punishment, in our place. You can see the difference, right?

That may be what you think — in which case I would ask why, and upon what basis — but what does Scripture say? Was Christ’s death meant only to remove some other kind of abstract penalty — perhaps the some kind of natural consequences of sin? Or did He suffer the specific penalty of God’s punishment for humans’ rebellion against Him?

He is saving us from the penalty of sin - and the reality. You seem to be conflating ‘saving us from the penalty of sin’ with ‘saving us from the penalty of sin by taking that penalty upon himself.’

This is where I believe the focus on human responsibility, untempered by the Biblical balance of God’s sovereignty and ownership of the universe, leads to some tricky theology. Yes, sin has “natural” consequences, such as death, but those consequences were enacted by God, made clear from checking in Genesis. The main consequence is God’s wrath. Jesus did not just suffer torture and death on the cross. He suffered the withdrawing of God’s very presence. He even cried out, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?” Isaiah 53:10: “It was the will of the Lord to crush him.” It doesn’t say, “It was the will of the Lord to let Him be crushed,” but “to crush Him.” It’s an active verb. God actively crushed His Son and that was His will all along.



Justice or mercy

We have different conceptions of God’s justice. I think God desires repentence; you think he desires a blood sacrifice. [. . .] God does not truly want payment in pain and death - he desires restitution. He desires that wrongs be set right.

This seems a false dichotomy. Scriptures shows that God desires both. The first because He wants people (or in the Reformed view, His people) to be reconciled to Him. The second because He is holy and “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22; this whole chapter, and book, is vital to seeing the connection between Christ’s sacrifice and Old Testament sacrifices, and the reasons why Jesus needed to die).

He wants us free from sin, and that’s the purpose of Christ’s Atonement. It is first and foremost an act of mercy, not justice.

No, recall the words of Paul: the Cross showed God’s mercy as well as His righteousness. In fact, if we read this passage by itself, it would almost seem God’s main purpose was to show His justice and righteousness, not just His mercy.

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Romans 3: 19-26 (ESV)(emphases added)

However, the main difference we may have is this: the reason, underlying all this, why Jesus had to die, and why God wanted this redemption to go forward in the first place. Is it because God is love and He loves people? Or is there a deeper magic behind even that?

In closing, I’d like to make that my main question here: According to Scripture, what is God’s main goal, or “chief end,” for doing anything?


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