As we come up to Passover, we traditionally pay closer attention
the significance of our calling, our commitment to and relationship
with God, and to the way of life He has called us to. Such questions
brings into sharp focus the disparity between our nature and that
of the Father, between our will and His, and how far we have to
go for our will to be consistent with His.
Many religious words are used to describe the process where God
cleanses us as we submit to His will. Words like forgiveness,
justification, reconciliation, redemption,
atonement, and deliverance come to mind. Today,
I want to spend a short time reviewing one word the Bible uses
that expresses a critical feature of our relationship with God.
But before we do
Notice in the book of Ephesians:
Nahum 1:6 Who can stand before His indignation? Who can
endure the burning of His anger? His wrath is poured out like
fire And the rocks are broken up by Him.
Rom 2:8-10 but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do
not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation.
9 There will be tribulation and distress for every
soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek,
10 but glory and honor and peace to everyone who
does good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
Yet we sin. We all sin.
In response to this dilemma, traditional Christianity tries to
nullify the wrath of God. Certain theologians (for instance,
C.H. Dodd) dismiss God's wrath as being a distant, external phenomenon,
a description of broad and external calamity. Like a distant
catastrophe that has little to do with a person's transgressions,
they seek to play down the fact that God is deeply disturbed by
our personal actions against Him. Thus their view of God rejects
the idea that God could be angry at their actions. It is as
though the wrath of God implies an unsavoury idea about God.
Yet the men of the Old Testament held no such allusions:
God did not save us from nothing at all. He saved us from real
peril. The sentence of judgment had been passed over us. The
wrath of God had hung over us - and still can. Therefore Christ's
saving work must include saving us from His wrath. That is the
meaning that the word 'propitiation' incorporates. To
translate 'hilaskomai' as 'expiation' or 'atonement
removes this meaning.
Psa 85:5 Will You be angry with us forever? Will You prolong
Your anger to all generations?
Eph 3:14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,
These beautiful verses express the Love of God as it can exist
in each of us. This is what God wants for us. Because God is
Good, He hates evil. And He knows what evil is.
Eph 3:15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth
derives its name,
Eph 3:16 that He would grant you, according to the riches
of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit
in the inner man,
Eph 3:17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through
faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
Eph 3:18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints
what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
Eph 3:19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses
knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
Gen 3:5 "For God knows that in the day you eat from
it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing
good and evil."
God is also implacably opposed to evil. How different this
is to the wicked man:
Psa 36:4 He plans wickedness upon his bed; He sets himself
on a path that is not good; He does not despise evil.
Yet for God:
Psa 5:4 For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness;
No evil dwells with You.
So while God is a God of Love, one of the expressions of
that love is to hate evil. He will be also be angry when His people
act against His will - not just through some self-centered, petulant
need to be obeyed, but because our transformation brings wonderful
blessings that our sin destroys. The anger God expresses when
we commit sin is referred to as 'wrath' and also 'indignation',
by the scriptures. Here are some of these scriptures:
Ezek 22:30 "I searched for a man among them who would
build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land,
so that I would not destroy it; but I found no one."
These scriptures and many, many others clearly indicate that the
God who loves us also experiences "wrath" with our actions
against Him. Is God, however, a God of uncontrollable passions?
Is He capricious - like the Greek gods where people could only
guess at what had made them angry or what it was that had annoyed
them? We should know that there is one thing, and one thing
alone that arouses God's anger, and that is sin.
Ezek 22:31 "Thus I have poured out My indignation
on them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; their
way I have brought upon their heads," declares the Lord GOD.
Psa 7:11(God judgeth the righteous, and)
God is angry with the wicked every day.
How can we know that God is personally angry at our actions?
Because there is a word that describes the necessity to turn
God's anger away, and that word is 'propitiation'.
It is not used often in the New Testament, and indeed is
not used at all in some translations, having been replaced by
such words as 'expiation' or 'to expiate' (which again
is more impersonal and external) or 'atonement' (which
refers to a related but not identical aspect of the process).
Let's see this:
Rom 3:21 But now apart from the Law the righteousness
of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the
Prophets,
The Greek word from which propitiation is translated is
'Hilaskomai', which means 'the turning away of anger
by the offering of a gift.'
Rom 3:22 even the righteousness of God through faith in
Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction;
Rom 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory
of God,
Rom 3:24 being justified as a gift by His grace through
the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;
Rom 3:25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation
in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness,
because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously
committed;
Rom 3:26 for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness
at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier
of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Heb 2:17 Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren
in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful
high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation
for the sins of the people.
Also:
1 John 2:1 My little children, I am writing these things
to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an
Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous (We need
an advocate because our position is indeed a dangerous one);
And finally:
1 John 2:2 and He Himself is the propitiation for
our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole
world.
1 John 4:10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but
that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sins.
God's judgment against our sins is real. Yes, God is slow to
anger (Num 14:18). The fact that He is, is something wonderful,
awe-inspiring and totally unexpected. But the averting of God's
anger is not something that people can bring about. It is God
Himself who turns His anger away:
Psa 85:2 You forgave the iniquity of Your people; You
covered all their sin.
His slowness to anger should though not be seen as a license to
sin. God is a God of Love, but He will not forgive with a flippant
wave of the hand. His wrath will be reckoned with.
Psa 85:3 You withdrew all Your fury; You turned away from
Your burning anger.
Psa 85:6 Will You not Yourself revive us again, That Your
people may rejoice in You?
Psa 85:7 Show us Your lovingkindness, O LORD, And grant
us Your salvation.
Psa 85:8 I will hear what God the LORD will say; For He
will speak peace to His people, to His godly ones; But let them
not turn back to folly.