We have seen that the bible includes specific example after example that defines God’s wrath as handing over His children to THE CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR FOOLISH CHOICE. Yet despite all of this, we still have a hard time viewing sin as the destroyer and punisher, God as the protector and healer. Certainly, many Christians view God as the destroyer and punisher in the final events of human history. Let us look to the Cross of Christ because it provides the clearest answer.
We often say thing such as “Jesus took the punishment that should have been ours.” “Jesus took our sins upon Himself.” “Jesus suffered the wrath of God so that I don’t have to.” If these words reveal some aspect of reality, shouldn’t THE DEATH OF JESUS PROVIDE us with the clearest evidence about how God is involved in the final death of sin and sinners? What really happened at the Cross and how was the Father involved in Jesus’ death?
The prophet Isaiah describes THAT SIN PUNISHED JESUS, NOT THE FATHER:
“Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. HE WAS DESPISED AND REJECTED BY MANKIND, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely, HE TOOK UP OUR PAIN AND BORE OUR SUFFERING, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced FOR OUR transgressions, he was crushed FOR OUR iniquities; the punishment THAT BROUGHT US PEACE was on him, and by his wounds WE ARE healed.” (Isaiah 53:1-5)
“We thought that his suffering was punishment from God.” Many have understood that the Father punished His Son on the Cross, just as He will punish those in the end who will not listen to His voice. THE REALITY IS THAT SIN IS WHAT PUNISHED JESUS, NOT GOD. Sin, by its very nature, causes separation between us and God – not because God leaves, but because we leave.
Sin, which is a rebellious and distrustful attitude toward God, SEPARATES US FROM HIS LOVING AND PROTECTING ARMS and is extremely destructive. Sin pays the wage, not God. The anguish and sorrow of Jesus, which began really in the garden of Gethsemane, culminated with the words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)
These are the very same words we have associated again and again with the separation of God from his rebellious children. The Father did not kill his Son at the Cross. At the cross we see the full result of separation that sin causes between us and our God. It’s true that the wages of sin is death – BUT SIN IS WHAT PAYS THE WAGE. THE CROSS PROVES THIS TO BE TRUE. Jesus Christ, who lived every moment in loving harmony with His Father, experienced the sense of withdrawal from His Father’s love, acceptance and protection. Evil humans and satanic forces cause severe and extensive damage to the Son of God. “Jesus was handed over TO DIE FOR OUR SINS. He was raised to life in order to make us right with God.” (Romans 4:25)
The One on the Cross was God in human form showing us the horrifying nature of the sin problem. The Cross should make us afraid of sin, not God…
FOR AT CROSS WE NOT ONLY SEE THE GOODNESS OF OUR GOD, WE ALSO SEE THE CANCER THAT IS SIN.
Thank you Jesus for taking our sin upon you…Bill Stockham