Monday, October 31, 2005

Anger and love are not mutually exclusive

Currently reading this at the moment, getting fairly raged up about the school of thought that denies the cross is about penal substitution.

If the Cross of Jesus Christ is not about penal substitution, at least in part, then it seems to follow that God is not angry with us, neither on a corporate nor personal level.
It would seem then to follow, that God is not bothered by sin, let alone angry with it. He can tolarate it, He doesn't mind it. He will indulge our lustful worldly passions. How can you worship a God like this? A God that doesn't mind the fall, a God that is happy to watch the rebellion and consequent misery of the ones He created and loved. If God doesn't mind sin, why did He remove Adam and Eve from Eden? If God doesn't mind sin then why punish His Son at all?
In Heaven we believe there will be no more misery or death, for me at least, this is based on His charecter, that fact that in heaven we will have a perfect fellowship with Him, and that this will involve no death or misery, only pure and perfect joy. But, all that falls apart if you start to believe that God doesn't mind our sin, that He's not perfectly angry with us. That His holiness doesn't burn within Him when we sin.

Yes, God is love. Yes He loves us completly. Thats WHY the Cross is about Penal Substutution. Thats why Christ is a propitionary sacrifice. If He didn't love us He wouldn't give us a way out of Hell, He wouldn't die to provide life for us. God loves us, God is angry with us. God's love + God's anger = Jesus dieing on the Cross for our sins.

If God just wanted to tell us He loved us, he would not needed to have His son executed. God needed to punish sin. Our sin. This is what the cross is about. Punishment for sins, because of God's anger, not inspite of it. I'm not going to pretend that this is anything like a perfect piece of prose on the subject, or even that i've got everything right. But for me, penal substitution says 'i am angry but i love you'...not just one or the other.

1 comment:

Welshie said...

Amen brother