Today I started my morning with reading the first three chapters in Matthew. I’ve decided to read through the gospels and the rest of the New Testament once again. In doing so, I’ve also decided to read a chapter a day of “The Passion of Jesus Christ” by John Piper. In this book Piper gives 50 reasons why Christ suffered and died.
We often get a variety of different teachers with slightly different beliefs and theological backgrounds in seminary. I for one don’t mind that because it helps me to test and approve what I believe. Two weeks ago I took an apologetics class with a guy who strayed away from the calvinistic side of reformed theology. One of the people who he openly declared that he didn’t care for was John Piper. He didn’t agree with Piper’s constant vision toward everything being done and purposed by God for God’s glory. I don’t think he meant to say that Piper’s theology was bad, or that Christians shouldn’t read Piper, he was simply disagreeing with some of the beliefs brought out in all of Piper’s books. This sparked some interest in me to read some more Piper books.
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us-for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” - Galatians 3:13
“God put [Christ] 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.” - Romans 3:25
“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” - 1 John 4:10
Why did Jesus have to die? Why couldn’t God just ignore our sin and make everything ok? These questions can be answered in one word, justice. God is a God of justice and that justice demands that a price be paid for crimes committed against Him.
Within the last couple months I have hit hard the idea of sin being God’s holiness violated. I heard that in a sermon preached by Dr. Al Mohler and then it just stuck. God is infinitely pure and holy, beyond my imagination and beyond what I can grasp. For anything to violate that holiness would be an infinite and eternal injustice. That is why eternity apart from God is the punishment for such crime. Why eternity? Because the penalty can never be fully paid for by a mere human, therefore God’s justice demands an eternal suffering because he is an eternal God. “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).
Because of God’s justice his wrath burns against any violation of His eternal holiness. To not punish such sin would be unjust on God’s part. Therefore all mankind is cursed because all men sin against God and all men bring down God’s wrath upon themselves because of this sin and thus we all stand condemned before God with no way of paying the price for this sin. We have no ability within ourselves to pay this eternal penalty. Did Jesus have to die? Yes. Because God is just, a penalty is demanded. Because God is loving he sent His son to pay the penalty in our place. Christ is our substitue, our propitiation. All of our sin against God’s holiness was cast upon Christ who was willing and able to bear that sin. Christ was fully man which allowed him to take on the sin of man and Christ was fully God which allowed him to pay an eternal price. Why did Christ have to suffer and die? To pay the penalty of our sin and to absorb the wrath of God.
We must recognize the seriousness of our sin and its great cost. Sin takes away life. It has taken the life of humanity and to save humanity it took the life of Jesus. Unlike humanity, Jesus defeated death by rising from the dead three days later. We too are risen again in Christ by his saving grace and through Jesus we are no longer condemned. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” - Romans 8:1
Only in Christ’s death and resurrection are our sins paid for and it is only through Christ that we can find forgivness and saftey from the wrath of God that burns against sin. Without Christ there would be no hope.
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Conscept from:
Piper, John. The Passion of Jesus Christ. Crossway Books. (c) 2004 by Desiring God Foundation. Pg. 20-21
Let me get this straight. God’s ticked (wrath) at us so Jesus steps in and gives us hope. 2 questions–
1. How do you keep from splitting up the Trinity here-wrathful Father/loving Jesus?
2. Am I more loving than God when I forgive persons unconditionally?
Thanks for the post!
Well first off I think all that God is and every quality or attribute that God has is pure and perfect. When we talk about God’s wrath we talk about his pure and perfect wrath, when Jesus was angry in the temple, it was a pure and perfect anger (he did not sin), and when Jesus loves or when God loves it is pure and perfect. Why do you have to assume that wrath and love cannot co-exist? Have you ever been angry at someone you loved? Parents disipline their children, they can be angry at their children, and they can enforce punishment upon their children and still love them. I don’t think that The father being wrathful and Jesus being loving in anyway seperates the trinity. Those are both attributes of God that can exist at the same time, just like they do in us.
I would question whether or not unconditional forgivness is a loving act. It seems to me that you are saying that God requires justice (punishment for sin) and therefore he does not forgive unconditionally because he requires a payment for our transgressions. If the grounds for unconditional forgivness is removing justice and allowing the sinner to reign free with no consequences or disipline then I would say that unconditional forgivness is an unloving act. If a small child continued to try to run out into the street and I unconditionally forgave them without correction or disipline because I “love” them, then the child would eventually destroy themselves by continuing to do it until a car hit him. Thats not love. However, if the child ran into the street and I corrected him, and if they did it again and I punished him for his actions, it is because I love the child that I would enact punishment for his crime.
If you mean that in order for God to unconditionally forgive he has to not require payment for our sin which is disipline for our transgression and if you mean that when you unconditionally forgive that you don’t require such justice, then no I don’t think you are more loving than God, in fact I would think quite the opposite.
The difference I think is the fact that the requirement of justice is too big for us to pay and therefore the most pure, perfect act of love was that God sent His Son to be our substitue. That is mercy and grace that we don’t deserve. There is a big difference between unconditional forgiveness as I have understood you to potray it, and mercy and grace. I think we can be just and be merciful. For instance, I don’t go out and excommunicate every teenager from our church who I went to such and such party and got drunk the night before. I will talk to them, I will not let them lead, I would help them to recognize what they did, but I wouldn’t get angry and have them brought before the church to be removed. I would have mercy and do what I could to help them, all the while sill enacting discipline and helping them to do the right things. So I do think we can be merciful and still require justice to be served.
Thank you for commenting.
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