Featured Did Christ Experience the Wrath of God?

Yes, it is so very humbling as we see Christ suffering for the wrath which we deserved yet of ourselves could never propitiate.

It is normal however IMO for the soul to shrink back from so awful a sentence
"My God my God why hast thou forsaken me" from Jesus lips.

But the scripture often transcends what we consider the normal which the church of Rome attempts to negate. Not only negates but finds a way (usually through sacramentalism) to keep souls in bondage to their dogma.

HankD

 

Brother Internet Theologian,

I agree that there are those outside the camp of Catholicism that argue that Christ did not suffer the anger or wrath of God. One such poster on this forum who I believe teaches such a doctrine is pastor DHK. Perhaps you can message him so he can debate his point of view regarding the matter on this thread you created to discuss those points.

 

Though the Father “smote,” “wounded,” and “bruised” the Son, he felt no emotional anger toward the person of the Son. The emotional wrath of God is revealed only against personal unrighteousness, and Christ was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. The Father smote his “beloved Son, in whom he was well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). At the very instant when the Father forsook the Son, he loved him emotionally and personally with the same infinite affection with which he had loved him “before the world was.”
When it is said that Christ experienced the “wrath of God,” the meaning is that he experienced a judicial suffering caused by God. The “wrath” of God in this instance is not a divine emotion, but a divine act by which God the Father caused pain in Jesus Christ for a particular purpose. This purpose is judicial and penal, and therefore the act may be called an act of wrath. “The wrath of God is his will to punish” (Anselm, Why the God-Man? 1.6).
In Rom. 13:4 the infliction of suffering by the magistrate upon the criminal is denominated an act of “wrath”: “He is the minister of wrath.” But the magistrate has no emotional anger toward the criminal. God the Father could love the Son, therefore, at the very instant when he visited him with this punitive act. His emotion might be love, while his act was wrath. Nay, his love might be drawn forth by this very willingness of the Son to suffer vicariously for the salvation of man. “We do not admit,” says Calvin (2.16.11), “that God was ever hostile or [emotionally] angry with him. For how could he be angry with his beloved Son in whom his soul delighted? or how could Christ by his intercession appease the Father for others, if the Father were incensed against him? But we affirm that he sustained the weight of divine severity; since being smitten and afflicted of God, he experienced from God all the tokens of wrath and vengeance.”

William G.T. Shedd, (1894). Dogmatic Theology. (A. W. Gomes, Ed.) (3rd ed., pp. 718–719). Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Pub.

 

Yes, you are correct he was a former Catholic.

 

Heb 2:9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.​

Which death was it? It was a death that no believer shall see.

John 8:51 Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.
​

It is a painful death.

Psalm 116:3 The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow.​

Act 2:24 Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.​

 

My whole family was Catholic until my dad read the book of Romans and realized the church's teachings on salvation were in error and pulled us all out of the church. I was only a toddler at the time, but when I was grown I found a baptismal certificate from the church from when I was a baby and baptized. It read something to the effect, "By this act you are now a child of God"! My what power they have! (sarcasm, lol). Now if we would only baptize all the babies into the church nobody would go to hell.

 

I agree, both are trusting in something the individual has done, rather than Christ has done, and amount to nothing more than a works system.

 

Getting back to the topic on the wrath of God.

God placed His wrath upon His Son - the Scriptures have already be given for that.

However, do not confuse the modern media presentation of wrath as someone angry and without love.

That is not the presentation of the wrath of God poured out upon His Son.

Rather, it is the matter of judgment, of justice, of righteous indignation that is assigned to Christ.

For example: Throughout the OT there are untold number of sacrifices. The priests has no emotional connection to the sacrifices such as God had to His only begotten Son.

It pleased God to appoint the Cross - it was not a matter of anger or lack of love.

It pleased God to allow the suffering of the Cross - it was not a matter of seeing revenge upon the Son's sin.

It pleased God to demonstrate his love in a manner that none on earth could; as such, that, while we were all dead in trespasses and sin, He brought forth an eternal Lamb that would be sacrificed.

So the wrath in context of the Cross cannot in any manner be taken as that filled with anger, hate, vengeful, smiting of God as common to human thinking (Isaiah), rather that of expressing the greatest love that humankind cannot begin to comprehend, but are urged to attain (Peter).

 

Brother agedman,

God was angry at the Son because as before mentioned He was made literally "a curse" by God. Deuteronomy 29:27 very clearly states God is angry at anyone that is He curses, this is why we read, "And the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book". Further, we read Christ was also made to be "sin". God is holy and just according to his attributes, therefore he must hate sin and as Jesus was sin at that time, not just a sinner, the Father hated him for that time. "The Lord trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth" (Psalm 11:5). A wicked person is a sinful person, thus one who "is literally sin" (though He lived a Holy life until sin of His people was imputed to Him), when he became sin God hated Him as he did other sinners mentioned in Psalm 11:5. This must be true if God is Holy and just. To say otherwise would be to conclude such things as God loves the sinners who perish in Hell. Nonsense! He forsook the Son this proves He did not love Him at this time as one does not forsake someone they love (unless they are a frail human sinner like us and do it for selfish evil reasons) in a loving manner, however He did it to fulfill His plan of redemption and His purpose of having redeeming a people and because he is Holy and just by nature, thus he cannot be charged for sin in so doing no more than one can charge the Father with sin for sentencing a reprobate to hell.

 

You are taking this passage away from its intent and applying it to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is never to be taken as such.
Rather, the passage is dealing with a people:

1) Who purposed to stray - at no point did Christ stray from the Father's will
2) They "forsook the covenant" - at no point did Christ forsake the Father's covenant with Him.
3) They "served other Gods - He was tested on that specific point, yet never wavered.​

Posting the Deuteronomy passage doesn't fit the evidence given of the character and nature of the life and living given in the Gospels.

You answer your own debate statement. What is it that the Psalm specifies as what is hated? "...the wicked and him that loveth violence..."

Taking on sin did not "wicked" make the Lord Jesus Christ any more than all blood sacrifice of the OT took on the wicked. Had He become wicked, then if follows immediately the blood sacrifice would no longer have been pure, righteous, without spot, stain or mar as required. Remember, He had to present himself as the perfect sacrifice before His Father so much so that no earthly would be allowed to even touch Him until that was accomplished. He is worthy to unroll the mighty scroll(s) because He is the pure Lamb, not some wicked that was sacrificed.

As shown above the statement does not conform to Scriptures. Look at the Hebrew statement:

For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. For the Law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, made perfect forever.​

There is only one "making of the Son" that happened at His birth.

Does not the Scriptures state that "While WE were yet sinners..." and again, "... He first loved us..."

Therefore your statement of God not loving His only begotten Son even at the Cross is wrong because:

1) As the Scriptures shown above declare, God does love sinners.
2) That some make their way to hell is not a lack of love on his part.
3) The statement "why have You forsaken Me" is not a statement of the wrath, rather the demand of distance, of separation from the imputed sin, the very reason why He had to appear before the Father, and authority to take the Scroll. The statement was earthly evidence of the depth of the deed, and the appeasement provided.
4) The wrath of God is never unjust, and never revenge. Rather it is holy, and brings Him glory and honor.
5) God's love did not forsake His son, for God cannot forsake Himself. The trinity has never been separated nor unloving to each person of that trinity.​

There are other statements that can be made, but this is enough for now.

 

The Lord Jesus was not made a sinner- He was never that- but He was made the very epitome of sin. All the sin of the world* was laid upon Him (Isaiah 53:5-6; John 1:29), and the Father's wrath against sin was poured out upon the sinless, spotless Son of God, the Father's beloved One, and the Father, whose eyes are too pure to look upon evil, turned His gaze away until propitiation was made, provoking the cry of Matt. 27:46.

This is what Luther called the 'Great Exchange.' There on the cross, all our sins were heaped upon His sinless shoulders and His perfect obedience credited those for whom He died (Rom. 8:1). So,

When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upwards I look and see His face
Who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless Saviour died,
My guilty soul is counted free;
For God the Just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me.'

*All the sin of the world. The sin of all those the Father had given Him (John 6:38-40): men and women, Jews and Gentiles, black and white, rich and poor, wise and foolish etc.

 

The passage that He was "made a curse" was "cursed is everyone that hangeth upon a tree" which is originally from the Old Testament books of Moses, ,so I quoted from a book of Moses regarding God's attitude toward those who are cursed, thus I believe it was a fair comparison. He is angry with those who are cursed as proven by the verse I gave you.

Brother Agedman,

I believe you presented enough scriptural argument in your argument above for me to reconsider my statement that by becoming "sin" God somehow made Jesus wicked for that time and also that during the time of the cross the Father hated him. I was in error on those two points. Thank you for your response. I do not agree with your one point that God sending sinners to hell is not a lack of love on his part toward such people, but that is a discussion for a different thread and a different day.

 

This is true.

I may contend on another thread with the limit some may place upon "world." I don't think John's writing and manner of expression throughout his writings support a limit some would desire. But, again, that is for another thread.

Some of Selah's music is well worth learning and using. Thanks for the post.

 

Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: Gal 3:13

 

I have asked this before but will ask again. What is the righteousness of God?

Is it not. The soul that sins it shall die. No one can die for another for all have sinned therefore their death can only be for themselves. Jesus the Son of God born of a virgin woman was to the moment he said, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me," without sin. The sin of the world was then placed on him by his Father. He is without sin yet he is being paid the price, death, for our sins. He does not deserve death, the soul that sins, it shall die. He has not sinned, yet for three days and three nights his soul was in Hades, Sheol, dead, separated from his Father, undeservedly so, he the only one born of woman of which that could be said.

What is the righteousness of God? Is it relative to the wrath of God and to the appeasement of God?

For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.