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A Lenten Meditation
Have you noticed? People seem just wonderful the first weeks on a new job or the initial months at a new church, but then reality sets in. Eventually, even in healthy and growing relationships, we get beyond the idealistic honeymoon stage and begin to grapple with the way people really are.
We should expect a relationship with God to be no different. The Lenten season naturally brings us to a consideration of the centrality of the cross to our faith. I would suggest that the mystery of the cross of Christ can begin to be unfolded only when we are open to the reality of God’s anger as well as His love.
Mark Twain said that it wasn’t the parts of the Bible that he didn’t understand which bothered him as much as the parts that he did understand. The agnostic or spiritual seeker isn’t the only one who struggles with who God is. Those of us who seek to know God and have determined to live in a dynamic relationship with Him also find Him to be a mystery and to possess characteristics which are hard to comprehend and even cause a measure of discomfort. One such attribute of God is His wrath.
We hear little these days of God’s anger. It’s not politically correct theology. In an era when people are creating their image of God from the buffet of New Age offerings and licking their lips with the delight of mixing their favorite parts of the world religions, the bowl of God’s wrath is avoided like broccoli.
Some people are under the impression that the Old Testament emphasizes a wrathful God while the New Testament emphasizes a gracious God. Not so. The Song of Solomon, the prophecies of Hosea and many other parts of the Old Testament give clear testimony to the love of God. On the other hand, the New Testament has its share of references to the wrath of God. An example: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.” (Romans 1:18) The New Bible Dictionary states, “Everywhere in the New Testament there is the thought that God is vigorously opposed to evil.” (p. 1046)
It would be difficult to ignore the wrathful side of God in Scripture. Excising all such references would leave our Bibles with the appearance of a leather-bound stack of sliced Swiss cheese.
Anger can be good. A faithful mate has a right to be angry at an unfaithful mate. A parent has the right to be angry at a disobedient child. A lack of anger can reveal a level of apathy caused by an absence of love.
True, human anger is often wrong, just one more expression of our sinfulness. The danger is to anthropomorphize this kind of anger when reflecting on God’s nature. J.I. Packer wrote, “God’s wrath in the Bible is never the capricious, self-indulgent, irritable, morally ignoble thing that human anger so often is. It is, instead, a right and necessary reaction to objective moral evil.” (Knowing God, p. 176)
Just as an unfaithful mate can expect anger from the offended mate, so the Biblical record shows God’s anger against the unfaithfulness of His people. “They angered him with their high places; they aroused his jealousy with their idols.” (Psalm 78:58) Just as a parent has a right to be angry with a disobedient child, so the Biblical record shows God’s anger being expressed when His children are disobedient. “God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.” (Ephesians 5:6)
Anger is not only an integral part of healthy relationships, it’s also key to pursuing a just world. “Justice is regarded as the highest of virtues,” said Aristotle. Anger expressed at the absence of this “highest of virtues” is righteous anger. Anger is appropriate in response to the shootings in the halls of Columbine High, the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We are angry at what happened, at people’s inhumanity against people, and we want justice to be served. We would be outraged if we heard of a judge allowing the perpetrators of any one of these tragedies to go free. Righteous anger is key to expressing a passion for justice.
God is certainly the supreme judge of the universe and by His very holy nature must be against that which is wrong and evil. Author Jerry Bridges writes, “God’s wrath arises from His intense, settled hatred of all sin and is the tangible expression of His inflexible determination to punish it.” (Discipleship Journal, Issue 121, p. 20)
We may acknowledge that God can express anger, but it’s certainly reserved for others. Human nature is such that we exclude ourselves from being real sinners and thus from being recipients of God’s wrath and justice. After all, we’ve not fired a weapon in a school hallway, placed a bomb at the base of a government building, or flown a planeload of people into a crowded building. Yet, are we so different that God sees no wrong in us?
As a pastor I’ve seen the same look on people’s faces in my office as I’ve seen on the faces of victims or relatives of victims of the shocking tragedies reported in the media. These “mini tragedies” don’t make the national news because they represent one human’s inhumane treatment of another, usually somewhere short of murder. In fact, most of the “people pain” I see occurs between individuals who have cared about each other and often still do. Honesty demands that I tell you I am not only an observer of this phenomenon but also a participant in the giving and receiving of such pain that has sin as its source. Honesty also demands that I remind us that we all act wrongly in our actions, our words, and even in our thoughts. The apostle Paul summed it up when he wrote to the Roman Christians, “There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God . . . ” (Romans 3:22-23)
Case study: The man was one of the most morally upright of his country and of his generation. God was going to use him as a spokesman of His truth. You and I can only wish we’d rank anywhere near him on a scale of holy spirituality. His name was Isaiah and he was to be God’s prophet, but first God had to meet with Him. What a meeting! Let Isaiah describe it: “I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings . . . and they were calling to one another: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.’ At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. ‘Woe to me!’ I cried, ‘I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.’” (Isaiah 6:1-5)
Isaiah was traumatized by the holiness of God, and he was the spiritual cream of the crop! When we perceive God to be approachable, a holy buddy, we are exposing how clueless we are in reference to both His holiness and our sinfulness. God is holy and just and His anger is against that which is anything but holy and just; His anger is against sin and those who sin.
Still, God is love and He loves people. What was He to do? The apostle Paul states God’s response this way: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
The cross of Jesus Christ has always stood as the ultimate symbol of the Christian faith, and for good reason. The New Testament writers make clear the crucial role of the death of Jesus on the cross. Jesus Himself saw that His Messianic mission was to be put to death on a Roman cross. “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45) Let’s return to a previously quoted portion of a statement by the apostle Paul and allow him to finish his thought. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:23-24) God’s need for justice was satisfied at the cross. I for one don’t claim to fully understand it, but that’s part of the mystery of the cross.
What about the love of God? “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 4:10)
It is at the cross where God’s need for justice and His desire for love meet. “Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God . . . ” (Romans 11:22)
If there were any other way for God to bring reconciliation between Himself and His beloved people, there would have been no need for the death of Christ upon the cross. No wonder the apostle Paul declared, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 6:14) This could well serve as a mission statement for every preacher.
If the cross was not Christ’s tool for bringing salvation, His death upon it was as a victim or a martyr but not a savior. Calvin Miller writes, “I’m disturbed that the “why” of Calvary is so untroubling to the masses.” (Once Upon a Tree, p. 24) The cross of Christ is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is God’s singular option offered to people as the way to reconciliation with Him.
One of the greats of Congregational preachers and thinkers was Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758). He is most famous for his sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” which certainly emphasizes the wrath of God. There was, however, another side to Edwards that’s often overlooked. This side of Edwards is reflected in many of the 1200 plus sermons that are in manuscript form in the Yale Library and in his books.
In one of his books, Religious Affections, he writes of the apathy that exists in full view of the cross of Christ. His wake-up call rings loud and clear down through the centuries. “Here their love is cold, their desires languid, their zeal low, and their gratitude small. How can they sit and hear of the infinite height, depth, length, and breadth of the love of God in Christ Jesus, of His gift of His infinitely dear Son offered up as a sacrifice for the sins of men, and yet be so insensible and regardless! Can we Christians find anything worthier to respond to with all our affections than what is set forth to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ? Can anything be worthier to affect us than this? For the glory and beauty of the blessed Lord shine in all their luster in the face of an incarnate, infinitely loving, meek, compassionate, and dying Redeemer.” (Classics of Faith & Devotion, Religious Affections, pp. 27-28)
Meditation upon the cross of Christ leaves us with a reminder of how offensive to God sin is, including our sin. It declares that He experiences holy satisfaction only when justice is done. It reveals to us how supreme His love is that drove Him to this extreme solution to the alienation that results from sin. It shows us the way back to Him. It prompts a passionate response to love God back and to live for Him.
The cross may have been the chosen instrument of death for the ancient Romans, but it was also the final destination for Jesus in His earthly sojourn. He changed forever what the image of a cross represents. According to the Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary a cross is made “of an upright with a transverse beam.” Interesting!
Two beams that intersect.
“Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God.”
The cross—where God’s need for justice and His desire for love meet.
Contributing Editor, the Rev. David J. Claassen, pastors the Mayfair Plymouth Congregational Church, Toledo, Ohio. His most recent contribution
dealt with contemporary worship, October/November 2002.
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