There has never been such vociferous debate on my blog over anything as there has been over this issue of the death of Christ in our place to satisfy the wrath of God. I have read every comment, and am grateful for each of them. There is, in my view, nothing more important than the doctrine of the Atonement – this argument is about the very Gospel, which is why I could not preach it dispassionately last Sunday. Eternity is at stake. I want to use this post to be clear about what I am saying and what I am not . . .
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There is no sense that God should be seen as morally responsible for the death of Jesus – He is not and never has been the author of sin. Thus phrases like “God murdered Jesus” or “Jesus committed suicide” are NOT helpful.
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Thus, it is quite correct to say that the Jews, the Romans, and the “powers of this world” killed Jesus – claiming God killed Him is in no way intended to remove these causes for His death. An event can have multiple causes.
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God did, however, plan and purpose the death of Christ and ensured that it would occur at the right time.
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The reason that it is vital to understand that God actively put Jesus to death is simply this: God was actively making Jesus to be sin, condemning sin in His body, and passing out the punishment for sin due to us. Where the wages of sin is death, God arranged for Christ to pay the bill!
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Jesus Himself was very clear about two things, which if you believe in the Trinity are entwined – firstly it was Jesus Himself who laid down His life; thus because of their unity, God the Father was in Jesus laying down the life of His Son. Secondly, Jesus spoke of a “cup” to drink given Him by His Father – He said “not My will but yours be done” because He recognised that there was no other way to save the world.
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The whole message of Romans is clear that God’s wrath against sin is our biggest problem; a system of theology that makes God a passive observer of the cross fails to answer the question – What happened to the wrath of God and how was it satisfied?
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It is clear that on the cross Jesus was suffering great anguish that exceeded the natural pain He would be expected to experience. Where did this come from? He tells us Himself when He cried out, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” The answer is clear – Jesus was forsaken on the cross because God in His nuclear reactor of holiness could not bear to look upon the sin that Jesus had taken into His flesh. In some mysterious way, without destroying the unity of the Trinity, at that moment a chasm occurred in the very nature of God as He found a way to do the unthinkable and deal with sin that simply could not exist within His nature.
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As I have already said, Jesus’ early death on the cross is a big clue that something else was going on than merely the physical death of the cross – the fact that Jesus was hanging on a cross was not the key issue – multitudes of people hung on crosses. No, the key event on the cross was Christ propitiating the wrath of God and experiencing all the torments of hell as He hung there in the dark, deserted by His God and bearing the full brunt of all the righteous hatred of God for sin.
Some would say “But where is the love of God?” I would reply it is precisely because of the love of God that He hates the cancer of sin so much. Sin destroys all that God made to be so precious. In fact, the Bible is clear that the most loving act ever committed was the death of Jesus for us.
John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.”
1 John 3:16 “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us.”
1 Corinthians 5:8-9 “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.”
We have, indeed, been “saved by Him from the wrath of God.” Romans 5:8. Please, somebody, explain how Jesus saves us from the wrath of God if He didn’t bear it in His body on the cross!
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