Wrath and the Cross

The character of God is complex, multi-faceted, and multi-dimensional. Many have undertaken to write of his character exploring innumerable attributes of his being. In trying to explain our complex God, people have often wrestled with the way seemingly competing attributes coexist. For example, is God forgiving or just? Is God holy or willing to enter places permeated with evil and sin? Is God immanent or transcendent? Oftentimes the answer is not that God is simply one or the other, but he’s both. It poses a paradox of sorts. God is able to simultaneously enbody two seemingly contradictory characteristics at the same time. This is part of the paradox and mystery of the nature of the divine. 

It seems that the two attributes that seem to conflict most are God’s love and his wrath. Is God loving or wrathful? In so many ways, this goes to the very core of God’s nature. Some argue that God seems angry in the Old Testament, but that Jesus seems gentle and kind in the New Testament. However, the distinction is not as clean-cut as some would like to assume. We know for sure that God is love. John told us of this truth when he wrote,

8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:8)

John made an important point by positing that love is not only a characteristic God possesses, it’s central to his nature - love who he is. It’s also important to note what John does not say. He doesn’t say that God is only love. No, God has additional attributes as well. The fact that God is love means that while he is not only love, he is always love. There is never a time God has not been love, he can’t forsake who he is. To betray love would be to betray himself. 

God is love, but also know from scripture that God has wrath. While it may initially appear these two attributes conflict, upon further inspection I don’t think that’s the case. In fact, God’s anger toward and judgment of sin doesn’t conflict with his love, it actually reveals it. It is precisely because God is love that he also has wrath. Wrath and love are opposite sides of the same coin. It was Elie Wiesel who wrote, 

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.”

He’s right. And it’s precisely because God is love that he cannot be indifferent. Love demands active investment in the good of the other, and when that doesn’t happen there is a visceral and very real response. To say it another way, we want God to have wrath because we want God to care about his creation. Just like a mother or father who gets angry when one of their children is taken advantage of, so too God gets angry (wrathful) when people or things he loves are taken advantage of, mistreated, or destroyed. God gets angry when the shalom he designed us to live in is marred by sin. God’s wrath reveals his love, it doesn’t revoke his love. 

We know that because God is love, he gets angry when his creation is mistreated. But what does God DO with his anger? There are many times throughout Scripture we see God getting angry and responding in wrath. I’ve been reading through the Bible again this year. It’s clear that there are times God actively pours out his anger. We see this as early as the flood. (Genesis 6) We see it in the plagues that are visited on Egypt (Exodus 7-12). In that case, God was angry at the injustice being done to his people, and he was angry at the way the gods of the Egyptians were robbing them (both the Israelites and the Egyptians) of life. So, he sent the plagues. We see God’s anger at his people when he sends them into exile, though we also know that the reason he sent them into exile was ultimately so that they’d hear his voice and return to him. (Hosea 2:14-15) Nonetheless, God was angry and he acted out on his anger. 

This concept may be best captured by the Apostle Paul in Romans 2:6-8 when wrote,

6 He will render to each one according to his works: 7 to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; 8 but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. (Romans 2:8)

God’s response to sin is wrath and fury. That word “fury” is the Greek word “thumos” which could be best translated as an outburst of passion. This is not simply a God who is mad that people didn’t follow the rules he set up, it’s a God who has been betrayed and because of the betrayal the good creaton he designed is being unraveled. Like I said, God is passionate about his creation because he is love. 

Now, it’s worth noting that God’s anger at sin is not just directed toward an arbitrary, faceless foe, it’s directed toward sinners. “Those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth.” One of the points Paul makes in Romans 1-3 is that every single person deserves God’s wrath. Paul made that point in Romans 2:8. We have all been self-seeking, we have all disobeyed, we have all operated in unrighteousness. In fact, Paul reached a climactic conclusion when he stated, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”(Romans 3:23) Every single one of us is in the position of deserving wrath because of our sin and because of God’s love for his creation. 

Here’s where we find ourselves: God could not be relationally invested in his creation if he didn’t have wrath against sin and he could not be faithful to his covenant if he didn’t punish sin. Every single person, other than Jesus, has sinned and is therefore under God’s wrath precisely because God is a God of love. 

So what do we do about this cosmic treason? How does this massive problem get resolved? For centuries, Jessu followers have affirmed that it’s through the cross that God saves us from the power and punishment of sin. However, it’s often been unclear as to what the punishment for sin includes. We know that “the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) Certainly, from the beginning of the story, the scriptures have affirmed that reality. Listen to the way Genesis 2:15-17 makes this clear,

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

The punishment for sin is death. This is affirmed time and time again throughout the biblical narrative. (For another example see James 1:13-15)

One might be wondering how God’s wrath fits into this idea of punishment? Asking it another way, do we need to be saved from God’s wrath or does being saved remove us from the wrath of God? I think this is a fair question. In John 3:36 Jesus said,

36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Jesus claims that through belief, the wrath of God no longer remains on us, but he doesn’t say how that happens. There are two ways that could happen, either by the appeasing of God’s wrath, or by the removal of the person from the outflow of that wrath. Let me include one more passage that makes the same point. It’s found further in Paul’s argument in Romans,

9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. (Romans 5:9)

I’ve italicized “God” because the word is not in the original manuscripts, but I do think it’s the correct interpretation of the context. But notice again, justification (which happens through belief, an important connection to John 3:36) saves us from wrath. Now, one interesting note is that Romans 5:9 suggests that the wrath we are saved from through justification is a future wrath - a wrath that is still forthcoming. 

It’s the fact that this wrath is still forthcoming that stirs up questions about what the cross accomplished in regards to wrath. Did the cross “satisfy” the wrath of God as the famous song suggests? If so, why does wrath remain? Some would suggest that the remaining wrath is what God has toward unrepentant sinners; however, the saving Paul talked about in Romans 5:9 is future tense also. It was through the cross (that happened in the past) that we have been justified by his blood (also in the past), and because of our justification how “much more” (meaning it’s something different) will we be saved from God’s wrath. I would suggest that Paul is not saying that God’s wrath is completely satisfied by the cross (we know he has wrath after the cross, just read through Revelation), but that by faith our peace with God is restored and our relationship is righted (Romans 5:1-2). Therefore God does not have wrath toward those who are his children. 

But what happened to the wrath God had against redeemed sinners? Against me. That’s what I’ll try to unpack next. Stick with me. 

In my past studies of wrath and the cross, I focused primarily on the precision of the scriptures. Meaning, I was looking for a place that explicitly stated that God’s wrath was appeased on the cross. One of the main places people look for an explicit verse that makes this point is Romans 3:21-26. There Paul wrote,

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

As I looked at the word “propitiation” which is the english translation of the Greek word “hilasterion” in Romans 3:25, my main study was based on the way the word was used in the Old Testament; specifically how it was used in the Day of Atonement as described in detail in Leviticus 16. At the Day of Atonement, “hilasterion” was the Mercy Seat. It's the same way the word is used in Hebrews 9:5. It was the covering of the Ark where the blood of the “sin offering” was sprinkled. The blood sprinkled on the “hilasterion” was not explicitly stated to have appeased or removed wrath. In fact, wrath isn’t explicitly mentioned in the entire Day of Atonement description. “Hilasterion” and the accompanying sacrifice for sin was seen as making clean space for humans to meet with God. I wrote about that on Good Friday, you can find it here if you’re interested. However, I don’t think I pushed far enough in my questioning to ask: what happened to the wrath that God had toward sin? 

If we know that God has wrath towards sin because he’s a God of love, and if taking care of wrath wasn’t part of the Day of Atonement, what happened to God’s wrath? 

Admittedly, we need to read between the lines a bit and do some systematic theology to find the answer to what happened - because it's not explicitly given in the scriptures. That doesn’t mean it’s any less true, it just means we need to do a little bit more digging. That pursuit has stirred up a debate about the way we should translate the word “hilasterion.” Some suggest that we should translate it as “expiation” which means the removal of sin (the RSV translates the word in that way). Others suggest it should be translated “propitiation” (ESV) which means the appeasement of wrath. Still other translations stick to a more literal rendering of the original idea behind the word “hilasterion” and translate it as “sacrifice of atonement” (NIV). 

So which is it? Did Jesus remove sin from the sinner? Did he appease the wrath of God? Did he make a sacrifice for atonement? Is God the acting subject or is he the object? Is he the one removing guilt or is the one being appeased? I think we’d be remiss to fall into the trap of thinking that God could only do one of those things on the cross. David Wells stated it so well when he wrote,

“In Pauline thought, man is alienated from God by sin and God is alienated from man by wrath. It is in the substitutionary death of Christ that sin is overcome and wrath averted, so that God can look on man without displeasure and man can look on God without fear. Sin is expiated and God is propitiated.” 

It seems as though this is what it means when Paul writes, in direct reference to what God did through the work of the cross, “so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”(Romans 3:26)  God acts in justice through the cross - and Paul has already told us that God, in his justice, is right in having wrath against sin (Romans 3:5-6). But we also see that God is the justifier. He’s the one who makes us clean and removes our sin from us. Sin is expiated and God is propitiated through Jesus’ sacrifice of atonement. It’s both.

Here's where a new revelation about the cross and wrath emerge for me: dealing with wrath is a subset of forgiveness. John Stott helped me see that the appeasing of God’s wrath is not something that had to happen because of something outside of God, but rather it is a requirement for forgiveness; something that happened inside of God. I didn’t see it that way before. It’s the theme of forgiveness that I don’t think I saw in a nuanced and complete enough way. In the past I’ve stated that you cannot both forgive and be recompensed for a wrong; it’s one or the other I’ve suggested, but it cannot be both. That’s why I’ve always struggled with cross dealing with the wrath of God - in its caricatures, it seems as though God is getting “paid off by blood” - which is a pagan idea and is not forgiveness. 

Now I see the scriptures teaching that forgiveness is what God offered to people through Jesus, but wrath is what God releases as he forgives. Canceling the wrong and letting go of the offense are both necessary aspects of forgiveness that leads to reconciliation. One is about the guilty party, the other is about the one who is wronged, but both are required for reconciliation (2 Cor 5:18-21). Because God is no longer angry with us because of our sin, we can run into his arms. I think I made the mistake of thinking that “satisfying God's wrath” was something in addition to forgiveness, but now I see it as distinctly part of forgiveness. I believe this is why we don’t see appeasing of wrath mentioned during the Day of Atonement - it’s implied within the atonement for sin because atonement has to do with forgiveness. 

I think this helps make sense of the biblical revelation that Jesus is our advocate. Listen to the way John described this role of the risen and ascended Messiah,

2 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. (1 John 2:1)

Why would we need an advocate before the throne? It seems to me, the reason we need an advocate is because we’re sinners and God is angry with sin. Because God has wrath toward sin. Because we are wrong and God is holy and those two realities don’t mix. If God were not angry about sin, we would not need an advocate before the throne. We have an advocate because we need an advocate. Jesus stands before the Father on our behalf just like he stood in our place on the cross. Over and over we see God making a way for people to be right with him (expiation), and we see him making provision to never hold anything against us (propitiation). This is all a part of the forgiveness that he offers through the blood of Jesus. 

Now, the propitiation that’s made on the cross is quite different - both in type and function - from the way the pagans viewed propitiation. I’m indebted to John Stott for these three differences he unpacked in his excellent book, The Cross of Christ. 

First, the reason propitiation is necessary is that sin arounses the wrath of God. According to Stott, “the wrath of God is his steady, unrelenting, unremitting, uncompromising, antagonism to evil in all its forms and manifestations.” The pagans would never think of God as so good and true. Their propitiation was often offered to get God to do something they wanted him to do or to try to appease his outlandish and capricious anger. Stott is making the point here that God’s wrath is different from ours and that propitiation through the cross is entirely different from that of pagans. 

Second, Stott pointed out that in a pagan context it was the people who made propitiation, but in a Christian narrative it is God himself who makes propitiation. It is sheer grace and mercy, we cannot do it on our own through ritual, sacrifice, nor by any other means. As one reads through the Old Testament sacrificial system, even that was seen as a divine gift. God’s love is not only the motivation for propitiation, he was also the source of it.

Third, the type of sacrifice is different in a Christian context. It was not an animal or food, it was God himself. God himself took our place and freed us from divine anger and judgment. In a pagan context, it was something outside of God that did the work or propitiation, but through the cross he is “both the just and the justifier.” Stott’s point was that even though different religions use the same word, they have different things in mind as they say it. 

My conclusion is that the cross is about offering forgiveness through the shed blood of Jesus, but in order for sin to be forgiven and relationship restored, both propitiation and expiation are necessary. The clear motive for all of this is love. After all, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) 

The comments are open, let me know what you think and where you fall on this important topic.