Christ, Our Propitiation

The story is told of D.L. Moody who had a preaching engagement out of town in St. Louis and he invited a British preacher named Harry Morehouse to preach in his absence and he did what most preachers do when someone fills their pulpit. His wife had been present to hear this new preacher and he inquired of her when he returned about his preaching and this is what his wife said. Well, he preaches a little different from you. He preaches that God loves sinners.

He is wrong, Moody shot back. Moody's wife advised him to withhold judgment until he had heard Morehouse preach. I think you will agree when you hear him because he backs up everything he says with the Bible. Well, Moody did subsequently hear Morehouse preach and realized a serious imbalance in his preaching and vowed to change his emphasis. That may shock us a bit to see that kind of imbalance in the preaching of an era of Christianity but it shows us how prone we are to presenting truths about God in an unbalanced way that has in its overall effect a distorting of the God that we're trying to set before people. You see, Moody wasn't alone in his unbalanced preaching. Preaching as a rule 100 to 150 years ago portrayed God as stern, demanding and cruel. They so magnified God's wrath that they virtually ignored his love. God was preached primarily only as a fierce judge whose fury burned against sinners.

Well, we have an imbalance in our day but it's not that imbalance. The problem today is that the pendulum has swung and swung in such an extreme fashion that God is presented as having one basic attribute, that of love. But just as in Moody's day that unbalance was unhealthy, in our day the imbalance we see is unhealthy because it presents God in the lack of fullness as he has revealed himself in scripture. If the love of God is divorced from his righteousness and his justice and his holiness, then we have a distorted view of the love of God. It's my conviction that people who are speaking the most in our day about the love of God, it seems to me, understand it the least. Because for many in our day, God's love and goodness ultimately nullify his righteousness, his justice, his holiness and his wrath. People have had God set before them, God is envisioned as a God who's a kind, heavenly grandfather type, he's tolerant, he's lenient, he's permissive, he's devoid of any real displeasure over sin. He forgives, he accepts people as they are because it's God's business to love.

Well, that's a distortion. So my desire tonight is that when we come to the Lord's table and gather around the table, that our understanding of the love of God will be deepened. That our response to the love of God will be enhanced because we have an appreciation of what God has done in the person and work of Christ to redeem us while still satisfying his righteousness, his holiness and his justice. So, in order to properly understand the biblical doctrine of the love of God, we must see it in its relationship to the wrath of God.

Those two doctrines, they're not in conflict with one another, they're complementary, they enhance each other and until we have this balance, we will not have a correct and a proper view of God. As I've read to you from 1 John 4, 7 through 21, I say 27 references to the love of God, John weaves the threat of love throughout his letter, not just in this chapter but throughout the letter. And when it comes to the greatest, the grandest manifestation of the love of God, where does he point us? Notice verse 10. In this is love, not that we love God but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

The consummate proof of God's love of divine love is seen in the cross of Jesus Christ. But to be biblically balanced, we must also add, do you want to see the wrath of God? The wrath of God is also seen in the cross and the work of Jesus Christ. So tonight in preparation for the Lord's table, I've taken a break from our study in the book of Revelation but we've been dealing and we will be dealing with the manifestation of the just wrath of God upon an unbelieving world at the end of this age.

So although we're not in Revelation, the theme is basically the same. I want to talk to you tonight about the wrath of God and I have four questions that I want to ask and answer from the scriptures. Question number one, is God angry? Is there a place in our thinking, in our theology for divine wrath?

Does the Bible teach the doctrine of the wrath of God? That's the first question. Question number two, assumes an affirmative answer to the first question. Question number one, is God angry? Question number two, why is he angry? Question number three, with whom is God angry? And question number four, how is God's anger satisfied?

Those four questions. Again, question number one, is God angry? And the content here of 1 John 4 demands an affirmative answer. Is God angry? Yes, he's angry. And why is he angry?

Well, we'll answer that in a moment. But notice again verse 10. In this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Now that's a theological word that is very seldomly referred to, but it is a critically important theological word. Propitiation means and speaks of a sacrifice designed to turn away the wrath of an offended deity. Jesus Christ offered himself once and for all as an offering to God, as a propitiatory sacrifice to God, to satisfy God's just wrath, not against him, but against us. Christ did that as our substitute. Now, is God angry?

Well, yes, he's angry. But listen to how God's anger and God's wrath are set in a context that also speaks of the love of God. Not just there in 1 John, but listen to John chapter 3. We all know John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Verse 17, for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. Verse 18, he who believes in him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God.

Now, John's going to conclude that same chapter with the same emphasis. John 3 verse 35, the father loves the son and has given all things into his hand. He who believes in the son has everlasting life, and he who does not believe the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. God's wrath is abiding on those who will not, have not, and refuse to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

What does a person have to do to come under this condition? Refuse to believe. Some people say, well, I haven't done anything that would cause God to be angry with me or for God's wrath to be upon me. This text says the wrath of God is abiding on those who have not believed. So, any in my hearing who have not believed on the Lord Jesus Christ to the saving of your soul, the Bible says God's wrath is abiding on you. It's over you. It's hanging on you. You are in a condition of condemnation before God.

That's a horrible state to be in. And God has done something for sinners to remedy that situation. Listen to Romans chapter 1. We're answering the question, is God angry?

Is there a place? Is there a doctrine of the love of God in scripture? Paul is talking about the gospel.

In Romans 1 verse 16, he says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. Verse 18, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. You may have a translation that renders that first part of verse 18.

I read it. The wrath of God is revealed. You may have a translation that says is being revealed. And that nuance captures the fact that it is a progressive tense. Not something that's in the future.

It's something that's happening right now. The wrath of God is right now in our day, in Paul's day, being revealed against whom? Against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. So, is God angry? Is there a place in the Bible where we can find the doctrine of the wrath of God set before us?

And the answer is absolutely. The good news of the gospel is not that God is willing to overlook sin and forgive sinners. If that's the good news, then God has compromised his holiness.

That would leave justice unfulfilled. That would trample on true righteousness. And furthermore, that would not be love on God's part, but would be apathy. You see, after devoting two and a half chapters to show how the entire race is cursed and under the wrath of God, in Romans chapters 1, 2, and 3, and under the wrath of God because of sin, Paul expounds how Christ's death was God's wise plan to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the justifier of all those who believe in Jesus. And again, in that wonderful salvation passage, Romans 3, 21 through 26, verse 25, the Bible tells us that Jesus has been set before us, given to us as a propitiation in his blood. The blood of Jesus Christ is the propitiatory sacrifice that he offered on the cross of Calvary to satisfy the wrath of God for those who will believe upon him. That's the doctrine of propitiation. So again, not only does the Bible teach the doctrine of the wrath of God, but we have clearly set before us at the same place, at the same time, God's remedy for those who are under the wrath of God. We could turn to Romans chapter 3. Paul has spent three chapters demonstrating that regardless of what place a person finds themselves in society, whether they're a Jew, whether they're a Greek, whether they're educated, whether they're uneducated, whether they're rich, whether they're poor, that all are guilty before Almighty God. What then? Are we better than they?

No, not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. And then he goes on with the passage there, 10 through verse 18, verse 19, he says, Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. We all know, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But it's amazing the blindness of the human heart.

I remember talking to my brother about this basic universal reality. He bowed up, got red in the face, because I dared to include him in all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. What are you saying? I'm simply saying what the Bible says. But the blindness of the unregenerate heart and mind. So the evidence is clear. It is irrefutable.

It is undeniable. The Bible teaches the doctrine of the wrath of God. God is angry. And there must be a place in our theology for this difficult doctrine of the wrath of God. Now there are a number of reasons why people struggle with this doctrine.

Some, it's just out and out rejection. I don't like it. I don't care what the Bible says. I don't believe it.

That's clear enough. But most people are a little more sophisticated in their rejection. A lot of people are fashioning a God after their own image. And it's not uncommon for us to hear people say, well my God wouldn't do this or that. What do we say when we're talking with people and they come across, my God wouldn't do this? My God wouldn't send anyone to hell. My God wouldn't be angry with anyone.

Well, I beg to differ with you. Your God may not, but the only God we're interested in is the God who's revealed himself in the scriptures. And that God says, and then we point them to the word of God. People are guilty of what Psalm 50 verse 21 condemns people for. God says, you thought that I was just like you. I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes. People want to create a God like themselves.

Maybe a little bit, he's a little bit better than me, but he's a lot like me. We struggle to comprehend an infinite God with our finite minds. And things are going to get a little bit more challenging here, so try and listen carefully to what I'm trying to get across to you. In human experience, wrath and love normally abide in mutually exclusive compartments. Love drives wrath out or wrath drives love out. We have difficulty reconciling how a loving God can at the same time be wrathful or angry. But unlike us, with God there is nothing intrinsically impossible about wrath and love being directed toward the same individual or people at the same time.

Now I hear you, you're going, all right, you're going to have to flesh that out, you're going to have to illustrate that, show it to me in scripture, all right, I plan to do that. One commentator helps us here when he says this, quote, God in his perfections must be wrathful against sinners for they have offended him. God in his perfections must be loving toward sinners for he is that kind of God, end of quote. Is God angry? The only conclusion to draw when examining the biblical evidence is yes, God is angry, God is a wrathful God.

Question number two, why? Why is he angry? Why is God angry? Why is God wrathful?

Well, the simple answer to that question is because of sin. Because of sinful disobedience, God's wrath is directed against human wickedness. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. All are liable to the wrath of God. Wrath is a function of God's holiness against sin. Where God in his holiness confronts his image bearers in their rebellion, there must be wrath. Or God is not the jealous God he claims to be and his holiness is impugned. When we dilute God's wrath, we diminish God's holiness.

Do you understand what I'm saying? When we dilute God's wrath, we diminish his holiness. It is because God is holy, perfectly holy, that he demands what? Justice. He demands sin to be punished and dealt with. We have no respect for a judge or for a judicial system that doesn't punish wrongdoers, that doesn't punish law breakers. And God is a just God and he will demand payment for sin.

So, we're asking some questions and answering them. Is God angry? I hope by now you would say, I don't like that doctrine. I don't like the emphasis on that doctrine. I'm uncomfortable with that doctrine.

But the Bible teaches it and therefore there must be a place in my theology for it. Why is he angry? Well, he's angry because of sin. He's angry because those who have been made in his own image have marred his image, have misrepresented him, have defiled and broken his law. With whom is he angry? With whom is God angry? Well, he's angry with all evildoers. He's angry with all unrepentant sinners. God is angry, the Bible says, with the wicked every day. Fourteen times in the first fifty Psalms alone we are told that God hates the sinner, that his wrath is on the liar and so forth. So, in the Bible the wrath of God rests both on the sin and on the sinner. It simply will not do to hold to the popular cliche that God hates the sin but he loves the sinner. You've heard that, right?

Oh yeah, I hear it all the time. Now, there is a small element of truth in those words. Let me explain. God has nothing but hate for the sin. But it would be wrong to conclude that God has nothing but hate for the sinner. So, there is a distinction that we must hold to and let me try and explain that distinction. The difference must be maintained between God's view of sin and his view of the sinner. We know that God is often angry with those who are the objects of his everlasting love. You say, well, help me.

Well, I will. Listen to Romans chapter 5 and verse 10. For if when we were enemies, and if we were enemies we were under the wrath of God, right? If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Before salvation, even the elect of God were enemies of God. Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2, as he's describing the condition of lost men, doomed, disobedient, deceived. He says, we were by nature children of wrath just as the others.

Why is this important? Well, it's important to demonstrate to you this distinction, but it's also important to understand these verses because it refutes, drives a nail through the coffin of anybody who believes in eternal justification. That is that God in eternity past justified us. He's always seen as justified.

No. You're under the wrath of God. You're an enemy of God until you exercise faith and believe. That's an important biblical reality. God genuinely and sincerely loves those who are the objects of his wrath. Now, it's not satisfactory to attempt to resolve the difficult question here about divine love by concluding that God actually withholds his loving kindness and his compassion and his mercy from all but the elect. See, that's how someone resolved this apparent contradiction. Well, when the Bible talks about the love of God, it's reserved only for the elective God.

There's no love for the non-elect. Well, you're going to have a hard time proving that from the Bible. I had a man ask me one time to preach and he gave me the topic. And the topic was, will you preach on the heresy of common grace? I said, the heresy of common grace? He said, yes, the heresy of common grace. Grace is reserved for salvation.

It is a salvific term. You only use grace for the elective God and it's only directed to the people of God. Grace is a category that is foreign to unbelievers. So, in his mind, and he wasn't alone in that, there's people that believe strongly about that. So, in my naativity, I said to him, I said, well, brother, I'm not real sure where you're going with the topic because the last time I checked, the sun was coming up over everybody's house in my neighborhood.

And if I'd have been a little more mature, I probably wouldn't have been so cheeky with my response. But that's the way I understand common grace. That's a manifestation of the goodness of God, the love of God.

God allows the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike, the sun to rise on the just and the unjust alike. So, there's got to be a place in our theology for common grace. But I think that whole subject comes down to terminology, words. When you get down to it, the concepts, it's irrefutable, the doctrine of common grace. If you want to call it something else, okay. But the concept is, in my opinion, irrefutable.

One more question. How is God's anger, how is God's wrath satisfied? Well, our text, 1 John 4, verse 10, and this is love. Not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. The Bible teaches us that God loves us. And why does He love us? Because He chooses to love. Because it's His nature to love.

He is love. God is love, John says in this passage. God loves us not because He's under some obligation to love us. Nothing but God's own sovereign good pleasure compels Him to love sinners. Because God is righteous, He must punish sin. He can't do anything other than that to be God. He can't simply absolve guilt.

He can't leave justice unsatisfied. And it is the death of Christ that totally satisfies God's justice, satisfies His righteousness, and satisfies His holy hatred of sin. Sinners for whom Christ died were worthy of nothing but God's wrath. And God's remedy in the gospel is that His Son became the substitute.

He stood in our place. He bore God's wrath upon us for our sins. That's what the Bible teaches. At the cross, God's love is shown to undeserving sinners.

And His wrath is poured out on His beloved Son who had done nothing worthy of any kind of punishment like that. What will our focus be tonight? What has been our focus tonight? What will we rejoice in at the table tonight? Well, Chris Anderson's hymn, His Robes for Mine, puts an exclamation point on this subject tonight when he writes, His Robes for Mine, O Wonderful Exchange, Clothed in My Sin.

Can you get your mind around that? The perfect Son of God who knew no sin, the hymn writer says, Clothed in my sin. And because He was clothed in my sin, your sin, in the sin of every believing person, Christ suffered neath God's rage. God's wrath, God's rage was poured out upon His Son because Christ took our sins upon Himself. Stanza 3, His Robes for Mine, God's justice is appeased. Jesus is crushed and thus the Father's pleased. Christ drank God's wrath on sin. Folks, that's why we need the table.

That's why we need these reminders. To worship our Savior, to thank Him around the elements for doing for us what He did. Christ drank God's wrath on sin, then cried, "'Tis done. Sin's wage is paid, propitiation won." The last stanza, His Robes for Mine, such anguish none can know. Christ, God's beloved, condemned as though His foe.

He, as though I, accursed and left alone. What I deserved, what you deserved, I, as though He, embraced and welcomed home. That's the doctrine of substitution that highlights the satisfaction of God's wrath towards sin and the reconciliation of God towards sinners. And that's what we rejoice in as Christians.

That's what's on our hearts and minds as we come around the table. The table is conspicuously focused on the person and work of Jesus Christ. What He did for sinners like us, what He did in not compromising His godhood, not compromising His deity, not compromising His holiness, not compromising His justice, but satisfying all of that and at the same time requiring payment for sin. Jesus paid it all, folks. All to Him we owe. Let us pray. Father, how we thank you tonight for your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the one you gave to redeem us from sin and its curse. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you willingly endured the just wrath of Almighty God in order that we might be forgiven. We worship you tonight. We remember you the way you told us to remember you in this Lord's table service. Amen.