God's Anger
The death of Jesus on the cross was to satisfy God's anger against our sin, as well as, for Jesus to shed His blood to pay for our sins as He died in our place. The anger of God against sin is very real and very fierce. We can see it around us every day. However, at the same time that God is angry, He is merciful so that He does not punish us as much as we might have been punished. In fact, God's anger and His judgment against sin is done out of love to get our attention and turn us back to Him for our good. That is what God did to Jerusalem and Judah in the days of King Zedekiah. He poured out terrible doom and destruction on His beloved people and His beloved city, because they had turned their backs on Him. (II Kings 24:20) It is the principle that we need to understand to really know why the cross was necessary for our salvation.
God wanted to forgive the sins of all people, so we could trust Him and enter a faith relationship with Him. However, God is holy, so He could not forgive all of those sins without exacting the right amount of justice and having someone receive all of His anger against those sins. If He forgave us without that, He would be unjust and no longer holy. I like to say it is like a murderer getting off with a sentence of one year of probation. His punishment would be too small for his crime. Therefore, God came to earth, Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Trinity. He became a man, while still being God, so He could shed His sinless blood for our sins. God picked the cross as the worst type of punishment, and He put all of our sins on Jesus for 3 hours of agony. At the end of that time, Jesus had taken our judgment of God's anger, and He had paid our sin debt. Then, God could righteously forgive all who trust in Jesus and still be perfectly holy. I pray we will never take this for granted and think the anger of God against sin is not very serious. It is dead serious as Jerusalem found out and as Jesus found out. I am so thankful for the boundless love of Jesus to do this for all of us. If any of us rejects that love and His sacrifice, we deserve to be separated from God for eternity. All we have to do is to turn from our sins, put our trust in Jesus's sacrifice for us, and surrender to Him as Lord. He has already done the hard part for us.
#NHBaptistdotorg
Tomorrow, I intend to read I Chronicles 2-4.
God wanted to forgive the sins of all people, so we could trust Him and enter a faith relationship with Him. However, God is holy, so He could not forgive all of those sins without exacting the right amount of justice and having someone receive all of His anger against those sins. If He forgave us without that, He would be unjust and no longer holy. I like to say it is like a murderer getting off with a sentence of one year of probation. His punishment would be too small for his crime. Therefore, God came to earth, Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Trinity. He became a man, while still being God, so He could shed His sinless blood for our sins. God picked the cross as the worst type of punishment, and He put all of our sins on Jesus for 3 hours of agony. At the end of that time, Jesus had taken our judgment of God's anger, and He had paid our sin debt. Then, God could righteously forgive all who trust in Jesus and still be perfectly holy. I pray we will never take this for granted and think the anger of God against sin is not very serious. It is dead serious as Jerusalem found out and as Jesus found out. I am so thankful for the boundless love of Jesus to do this for all of us. If any of us rejects that love and His sacrifice, we deserve to be separated from God for eternity. All we have to do is to turn from our sins, put our trust in Jesus's sacrifice for us, and surrender to Him as Lord. He has already done the hard part for us.
#NHBaptistdotorg
Tomorrow, I intend to read I Chronicles 2-4.