Bad News – Good News: Perfect Wrath, Perfect Mercy
Easter – Reflections on the passion and the purpose. As we come away from this joyful season of the celebration of Christ’s resurrection it behooves us to take a step back and examine once again the real purpose behind it all. For those reading this for the first time some of these thoughts and ideas may come as a complete surprise. Hopefully it will give you a fresh understanding of the matchless mercy and grace of our heavenly Father, while at the same time reveal his unquenchable anger towards the sin that robs so many of the life that He longs for us to experience in Him. St Augustine rightly stated that we were made for a relationship with God and we will remain restless until we find our rest in Him. The 5th chapter of Romans is for me one of the most exciting passages of Scripture. Here we see a revelation of God’s heart. How you can know how to get from your address to Heaven, no matter how messed up your life may be. This is a clear expression of how to find peace with God for eternity. As we attempt to unpack this we must recognize that there is an underlying Premise – We will find that God’s perfect Mercy is matched with, and presupposes God’s perfect wrath. Before we can understand anything of the magnitude of this great mercy we must be smitten in our hearts with some understanding of His perfect wrath. Some theologians refer to this as the “unfriendly side of God” There are some principles that will guide our understanding of this. Principle # 1. The wrath of God is against ALL sin. It would not be perfect if it were not. It would not be complete if it were not against all sins and if there were some sins that were acceptable to Him. His wrath is perfect because it means His is angry against all sins. You may say that is not how I understand God to be. I understand God only as a forgiving God full of mercy and love. The bible teaches otherwise. Yes, God is love, but God is also justice. He cannot look the other way, ignore sin, and still be a just and loving God. It can be argued that for most, the happiest, most hopeful story in the Bible is the Nativity. But apart from the message of Calvary, the story of His birth is meaningless. The greatest message by far of God’s grace is the message of the Old rugged Cross – but to encounter the message of the cross and recognize it ONLY as a message of God’s mercy and grace is to miss the point. The message of the bloody old cross is also a message about God’s wrath. If you can pass by the cross and with a sentimental curtsy acknowledge His expression of love alone, and miss the fact that this was a message declared in the blood of the only begotten son, the only pure man that ever lived, that God is just and He judges all sin then you have missed the point. The motivation for the Cross in the heart and mind of God was His perfect wrath and his hatred towards sin alongside His great love for you and me. This love is measured by the fact that He substituted immediate and permanent judgment against us by placing that judgment square upon the shoulders of His Son who became our sin, so that the requirement of a just God may be satisfied. Principle #2. Not only does God in His perfect wrath deal with all sin, but also he deals with all sinners. Ch 2 & 3 declare that God is Holy, hates all sins, and He is also the judge of all sinners. Religious sinners with their marked bibles that sit in a church pew Sunday after Sunday; Pagan, rebellious, unbelieving sinners that would never darken the door of the church. All are the same in God’s eyes. If rich sinners were excluded… If smart sinners were excluded…If certain classes or colors would be exempt…if certain good works based upon initiative, will and talent and understanding could exclude one, his wrath would be imperfect and his justice unjust. So Paul says Jew and Gentile are all alike in God’s eyes. Romans 3:9-20 The Message (MSG) We’re All in the Same Sinking Boat 9-20 So where does that put us? Do we Jews get a better break than the others? Not really. Basically, all of us, whether insiders or outsiders, start out in identical conditions, which is to say that we all start out as sinners. Scripture leaves no doubt about it: There’s nobody living right, not even one, nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God. They’ve all taken the wrong turn; they’ve all wandered down blind alleys. No one’s living right; I can’t find a single one. Their throats are gaping graves, their tongues slick as mudslides. Every word they speak is tinged with poison. They open their mouths and pollute the air. They race for the honor of sinner-of-the-year, litter the land with heartbreak and ruin, Don’t know the first thing about living with others. They never give God the time of day. This makes it clear, doesn’t it, that whatever is written in these Scriptures is not what God says about others but to us to whom these Scriptures were addressed in the first place! And it’s clear enough, isn’t it, that we’re sinners, every one of us, in the same sinking boat with everybody else? Our involvement with God’s revelation doesn’t put us right with God. What it does is force us to face our complicity in everyone else’s sin. “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Rom 3:23 NASB) All sin, all sinners, and thirdly, Principle # 3 For all eternity. Luke 16:19 God’s wrath includes all eternity. He does not change his mind in the middle. There is no purgatory.
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