The Wrath and the Blood, part 1

Today is Good Friday. It seems to be an occasion that is barely noticed anymore. I admit myself that Easter weekend snuck up on me and I have not had the time I usually do each year to concentrate more fully on the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This event that stands at the pinnacle of history is something we believers need to be thinking about on a daily basis, not just during the time that we call Easter, but I think it is good that we have this designated time of the year that focuses our hearts and minds on the event the originated and defines our faith.

I have lately been thinking about God’s wrath (anger) against sin and sinners. It is not something that we Christians like to talk about. We prefer to talk about God’s unconditional love and His rescue of us, which is all true and good, but it is not the full story. In our zeal to proclaim God’s love shown in Christ to the world, we forget to tell the whole story, to describe the full nature of God as He has revealed in His Word. Before people can truly appreciate what Jesus Christ did on the cross, they have to see their need for His work. They have to see their need for a Savior and, in order for us to see our need for a Savior, we have to know what we need saving from. Yes, we need saving from our sins. Yes, we need saving from hell. Yes, we need saving from ourselves. But, most of all, we need to be saved from God. Now, I know that fact alarms people. We tend to depict God as this lovey-dovey teddy bear that winks at the wrong by His tolerant, “unconditional” love. God is love, yes. God is good, yes. God longs for all people to know Him, yes. But God is also completely holy and just. While He is a very personal God, He is completely other than us. He is perfect; we are not. Already we have a problem. His purity cannot look on our impurity (Psalm 5:4). He is the standard of perfection (Deuteronomy 32:4). He makes the rules, but we break them…every single day. We all know we’re not perfect. It’s even become a part of our everyday lingo, “Look. Nobody’s perfect.” Nobody, that is, except for God. And Perfection cannot dwell with imperfection. And the bad news is there is nothing we can do about it. Once you’re not perfect, you can never become perfect. Once you’ve made one mistake, it’s over. 

That’s bad news, but it gets worse. Not only does our imperfection, our sins, our breaking of God’s law, separate us from God (Isaiah 59:2), but they kindle His holy anger against us (2 Kings 22:13). We are constantly breaking God’s law (the ones written in His Word and the one written on our consciences) and what does law-breaking require? Punishment. God is infinite in being and we have infinitely offended Him; therefore, we deserve infinite punishment. God is not only love, but He is just. Someone has to pay the price for the wrongs that we commit. We cannot outdo the bad things we have done by trying to do enough good things. God declares that our righteousness deeds are as filth to Him (Isaiah 64:6). If you look at the other religions of the world, they are trying to do exactly like – earn their salvation by keeping “the rules” and doing as much good as they can in this lifetime. Christianity is different. There is no cosmic scale because, the truth is, we could never earn our way into God’s favor. We don’t deserve His forgiveness and He would be right to annihilate us because we offend Him every single day (Psalm 7:11). We are storing up wrath for ourselves (Romans 2:5). His anger burns hot against us (Exodus 32:10; Jonah 3:9). The power of His wrath against us all apart from Christ (Ezra 8:22), yet, we do not consider this (Psalm 90:11). Even though God’s wrath has been revealed to us, we suppress the truth (Romans 1:18). We do not want Him or His ways (John 1:10-11).

God’s wrath in the Bible is described as a cup, one that is full to the brim with His anger (Isaiah 51:17, 22; Matthew 26:39; Revelation 14:10). It’s a cup that must be drunk in order for God’s justice to be satisfied, but it’s a cup we cannot endure. It’s a cup that means our destruction. BUT there is a remedy. Blood.

Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Hebrews 9:22

The news hasn’t got much better has it? I mean, this sounds a little messy. Whose blood? Well, it has to be perfect (that rules us out). This passage in the Book of Hebrews is talking about the sacrificial system described in the Old Testament part of the Bible. You know, those books that most people like to skip through that has all the detailed rules and sacrificial how-to’s and temple blueprints and many things we find dreadfully boring to read and non-applicable to us. Well the truth is those passages are very applicable to us. Every Word of God is profitable (2 Timothy 3:16-17). These passages are telling us something – something about God, about ourselves and about our relationship with Him. God told His people they had to make sacrifices every single day on behalf of every single person; and then on top of that at a special time once a week; and then on top of that at a special time once a month; and then on top of that at a special time once a year. That’s a lot of sacrificing. That’s a lot of animals. That’s a lot of blood.

 The once a year time was called the Day of Atonement and on that day, the man appointed as the high priest would go into the Most Holy Place, symbolizing God’s presence, and offer a sacrifice for all the sins of all the people (including his own). This was to stay God’s wrath for another year. And the day after the Day of Atonement, the daily sacrifices continued because “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin” (Hebrews 10:4).

"What do you think the sovereign God of the universe, the Judge of all was doing when He ordered this system? He was making the children of Israel stare at an animal about to have its life extinguished. He was making them smell it and see it and hear it. He was making them watch its throat cut and its blood spurt out and to watch the blood being caught in a vessel while the animals eyes started to glaze over. The children of Israel had to watch an animal twitch until it stopped twitching and then they saw the priest go into the Most Holy Place and “without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin.” Why in the world did God choose this mechanism? It’s known only to His own sovereign determination, but its crudeness seems to be the very central part of it. God is making sinful humanity, even the sinners who are part of His covenant people, stare at this thing and see it and smell it and hear it and know that its crudeness is just a hint of the infinite horror of the offense of sin." Dr. Mohler, “The God Who Saves,” 2011 Expositors Conference

But this sacrificial system does not satisfy God’s wrath, it just abates it for a season. There is a better remedy, a permanent one. God’s saw that we could not save ourselves, so He accomplished our salvation. He provided a way to satisfy His own wrath. It’s still bloody. It still requires a sacrifice. But this time the blood is His own. (Acts 20:28). More on that in the next post.