The character of God would not allow him to forgive human evildoing simply out of mercy.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is a unique photograph of God, enabling us better to understand God and his ways. We began looking last week at what the gospel reveals about the wrath of God. Since to a great extent the gospel pivots on this, let’s explore his wrath more deeply. The gospel teaches us four crucial truths about God’s wrath.
1. God’s wrath must be satisfied
In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus pleaded with the Father three times asking, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26:39 ESV). Because of who God is, it was not possible, and Jesus went to the cross. Despite the infinite, eternal love of God for his Son, it was not possible to change God’s plan. The wrath of God against evil must be satisfied.
God wanted to save fallen humanity from eternal judgment, for he is not willing that any should perish (2 Peter 3:9) and wants all people to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4). Nevertheless, the character of God would not allow him simply to overlook human evildoing, to forgive it only because he is merciful and loving (which is what most people and non-Christian religions wrongly think God is willing to do). If that were possible, God would not have denied his beloved Son’s request and sent him to suffer the unspeakable horrors of the Cross to save humans.
No one could force God to send his Son to suffer at the cross; God chose to do it because of who he is. He did it for his own sake. He is a God of perfect justice and holiness whose fierce wrath against evil must be satisfied.
God’s wrath does not dissipate over time. He doesn’t get over it. It doesn’t come and go like a bad mood, bad weather, or a bad economy. Like a financial debt that must be paid, his wrath must be satisfied.
Human guilt for evildoing is real, not imaginary. Human guilt is real to God, the holy judge of mankind. In his perfect knowledge of what is right, guilt must be judged.
2. God’s wrath must be satisfied by a death
Scripture says, “It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!’ And having said this he breathed his last” (Luke 23:44–46).
“When [Pilate] learned from the centurion that [Jesus] was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph. And Joseph bought a linen shroud, and taking him down, wrapped him in the linen shroud and laid him in a tomb that had been cut out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb” (Mark 15:45–46).
For God’s wrath to be satisfied, it was not enough that Jesus only suffer, by scourging, whipped by a strong Roman soldier again and again nearly to death by a Roman lash with pieces of bone and metal tied into the end of the leather thongs. Suffer by hanging on a cross with spikes pounded through his feet and hands. Suffer from the mocking, shame, and spitting of his enemies. The point of all this was not just suffering—it was death. Jesus had to die to satisfy God’s wrath against human evil.
The need for a death to satisfy God’s wrath was established from the beginning. When God put Adam in the Garden of Eden, he commanded, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 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” (Genesis 2:16–17).
The need for a death to satisfy God’s wrath came into enduring focus in one element: blood. Today we view bloody, animal sacrifices as the epitome of primitive thinking and superstition. Nevertheless, in the Bible, blood and sacrifice dominate the narrative from beginning to end as central themes of God’s relations with mankind. Blood is vitally important to God.
There is something deeply spiritual about blood. God told Moses, “The life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life” (Leviticus 17:11).
The life is in the blood. Therefore when God redeemed Israel out of Egypt, he instituted the sacrificial system for the regular shedding of blood, death repeated again and again, for the atonement of evildoing. Over and over again in the temple the animal sacrifices reminded people that the only way to satisfy God’s wrath was by a death.
The Gospel accounts stress that Jesus had to die.
3. God’s wrath can be satisfied by the death of a substitute
If the truth about God’s wrath ended with the first two points—God’s wrath must be satisfied and must be satisfied by death—we would all be doomed. But the gospel reveals that the story does not end there. The necessary death that your evildoing demands does not have to be your death. God’s wrath can be satisfied by the death of a substitute.
When Jesus first began his ministry, John the Baptist, his forerunner sent to prepare the way for him, saw Jesus and told his disciples, “Behold, the Lamb of God” (John 1:36).
In the Old Covenant, lambs were sacrificed to atone for sin and turn the wrath of God to the favor of God. The life of the lamb was in the blood, and the shedding of blood could substitute for the death of the person who had sinned. The blood sacrifices of the Old Covenant taught mankind that God would accept a substitute to die in place of the evildoer.
But Jesus was the true Lamb of God. The only reason the blood of animals could substitute for human evildoing under the Old Covenant is that it was a temporary proxy for the blood of Jesus. Talking about Old Covenant sacrifices, Scripture says, “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4).
The gospel teaches that only the death of the man Jesus could truly substitute for the sins of mankind and satisfy God’s wrath. It could not be animal for man; it must be man for man.
4. God’s wrath could only be satisfied by the death of God himself
Though Jesus was truly a man, fully man, he was also fully God.
“In the beginning was the Word [Jesus], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father” (John 1:1, 14).
Through Jesus’ union with humanity, God died on the cross. In Jesus Christ, the second member of the Trinity, God himself died to satisfy his own wrath. Because Jesus was fully God and fully man, his death on the cross was both man for man and God for man. Because Jesus was and is fully God, his infinite worth, unquenchable life, and perfect righteousness could satisfy God’s wrath against any number of people. Only the infinite holiness of the Son of God could satisfy God’s infinite justice. God’s death was big enough to satisfy God’s wrath against many.
This is why the only way to have a relationship with God is through faith in Jesus Christ. No other religion, no other “God,” no other efforts to be good on one’s own can satisfy God’s wrath.
Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)