The Wrath of God Poured Out

In the light of my post #53,I need to be careful in insisting that I have never used a word. However, I try never to use the words 'heresy' or 'heretic' because it conjures up visions of stakes and faggots. I do however believe that the Doctrine of Penal Substitution is very important to the orthodoxy of the churches and that is why I spend so much time arguing for it.

Your error is not in that which you include, but in that which you omit. You wrote something like this before, and I pointed out that the word 'wrath' appeared nowhere in it. At the time you said that you did accept the wrath of God, but here again (unless I have missed it) there is no mention of it whatsoever. This is particularly important in a thread called 'The Wrath of God poured out.' Read the O.P again, please.

God's wrath 'is revealed [present continuous tense] from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men' (Romans 1:18). 'Ungodliness' suggests a lack of reverence towards God; 'unrighteousness,' a lack of reverence to His ordinances, His holy law. Romans 3:9, 19 reveals that this wrath is directed towards all men. '.....We all.....by nature were objects of wrath' (Ephesians 2:3). 'Wrath' here may be defined as the righteous anger of God against sin and those who commit it. God's wrath is not a sudden outbreak of spleen; rather it is the settled fury of a holy God against wickedness. 'God is a just judge; God is angry [with sinners] every day' (Psalms 7:11). Unless we 'get' God's wrath, we are never going to understand propitiation, because whatever is to be done about saving sinners has to take into account God's righteousness, holiness and hatred of sin (c.f. Psalms 5:5-6).

So when we read about 'Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come' (1 Thessalonians 1:10), we know that in order to rescue us from that wrath, the Lord Jesus must satisfy the justice of God, because God 'cannot deny Himself' (2 Timothy 2:13). The reason that I have kept asking you 'why' and 'how' as you have tried to explain your theory, is that you do not deal with God's justice or God's wrath. You write, correctly, that 'God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself' (2 Corinthians 5:19), but you do not say how He has done it. How is the world reconciled to God through Christ? Fear not! I will explain. But not right now because we have guests coming presently to celebrate the New Year with us.

 

I don't have a problem with you using the term, but I prefer not to because I don't find it in Scripture. However, I know what you mean by it, so don't stop on my account.

 

Guests still haven't arrived.

In a word, no. I hope to explain why not tomorrow.
Also, I do not accept your view as "Classic." I do not accept, most importantly, that it is the Biblical one, nor do I accept that it is of any greater origin extra-biblically than Penal Substitution.

I don't think we have to agree in order to have a wonderful discussion. In fact, I think it would make it more difficult.

 

This is a post following on from my post #65.
I want now to look at some attributes of God:

First, His aseity. This means that He is of Himself and owes nothing to anyone (e.g. Romans 11:33-36). We as creatures naturally depend on one another to a greater or lesser extent; God is dependent on no one. In Isaiah 40:18, God asks, ‘To whom then will you like Me, or to whom shall I be equal?’ (repeated in 46:5). In Isaiah 40:26-31, God’s sovereignty, eternity and understanding are contrasted with human weakness. God’s ultimate designs cannot be thwarted (Daniel 4:37).

Next, consider God’s simplicity. We are complex beings, made up of various parts; God, on the other hand is simple and spiritual. He is not the sum total of His attributes, but is all that He is all the time. However, each of His attributes identifies a different aspect of His existence and character that cannot be reduced to the other, but nor can one attribute be ranked above another for He is all of them all the time. He is love, even when He judges, and holy and righteous even when He is saving sinners (e.g. 1 John 1:9); He is eternal even when He acts in time. This means that in all of God’s activity, He is self-consistent: ‘He cannot deny Himself’ (2 Timothy 2:13). As we shall see, God’s simplicity does not make Him static or inert, however. On the contrary, He is constantly active (John 5:17), but always consistently, whether we perceive his consistency or not.

Thirdly, there is His immutability. God cannot change His mind because either He would be changing it from worse to better or from better to worse. Change in Him can only reveal imperfections. God has no potential that is not fully realized; there is literally nothing for Him to become. ‘….With whom there is no variation or shadow of turning’ (James 1:17). ‘And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor relent. For He is not a man that He should relent’ (1 Samuel 15:29). The salvation of sinners was not a change of plan after the Fall; it was a decision made in eternity (Titus 1:2). Nothing catches God by surprise.

Yet what are we to make of texts like 1 Samuel 15:11, where God says that He ‘greatly regrets’ having made Saul king, and other similar passages? We need to understand that one passage of the Bible cannot contradict another, and that therefore it is a fact that both verse 10 & 29 of 1 Samuel 15 are true. The answer is that God’s revealed plans change, but His secret eternal counsels may remain hidden to us (Deuteronomy 29:29). He acts in time, doing one thing now, another later on, but His plans remain unchanged and cannot be thwarted. It is like looking at the workings of an old-fashioned clockwork watch; one cog moves one way, one another, and the fly-wheel is constantly changing direction. But when we look at the face of the watch the hands are moving forward steadily and accurately.

So when we look at the Atonement, and the coming Of Christ in salvation, we must understand that it was decreed in eternity past (Micah 5:2, KJV, NKJV; Titus 1:2). God knew that mankind would fall into sin and had laid His plan of redemption accordingly. Also, God’s mercy cannot override His justice (or vice versa), nor His goodness, His wrath; His simplicity (see above) prevents it. God’s decree, ‘The wages of sin is death’ (Romans 6:23) cannot be set aside because of His immutability, and so we read, ‘Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned’ (Romans 5:12). Death seems so normal and inevitable to us today that we forget that it is actually God’s righteous punishment for disobedience (Genesis 2:17).

In 2 Samuel 14:14, a ‘wise woman’ declares to King David, ‘God….devises means so that His banished ones are not expelled from Him.’ This is true, but the means that David devised to reconcile himself to Absalom did not involve justice, righteousness or God’s moral law and so led to disaster. The means that God uses to restore His sinful people to Himself must satisfy His holiness and justice. The sentence of death upon sinners, the curse upon disobedience (Deuteronomy 27:26) and God’s wrath against unrighteousness and ungodliness (Romans 1:18) must all be satisfied.

On the cross they are. God has given Himself, in the Person of His Son, to suffer instead of us the death, curse and punishment due to fallen humanity as the penalty for sin. His mercy and justice are exalted in the suffering, death and resurrection of the Saviour, so that the Psalmist can declare (Psalms 89:14). ‘Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; mercy and truth go before Your face,’ and God can be ‘just and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus’ (Romans 3:26).

Now two men called Paul Fiddes and Joel Green have written books insisting that the idea of the Son propitiating the wrath of the Father is to divide the Trinity. I wonder if this is the problem that @JonC has. If so, it is entirely wrong. The Bible declares explicitly that one Person of the Trinity can be the subject of an action of which another is the object. For example, the Father loves the Son (John 3:35 etc.); the Father sent the Son (John 6:39) and gave Him to redeem a sinful world (John 3:16; Romans 8:32). The Father raised the Son from the dead (Galatians 1:1 etc.). The Son loves, obeys and glorifies the Father (John 14:31; 17:1). Father and Son send the Spirit (John 3:34; 14:16; 15:26; Acts 1:4 etc.); the Spirit drives the Son into the desert (Mark 1:12) and also glorifies Him (John 16:14).

The Trinitarian principle of inseparable operation requires that Father, Son and Spirit share a unity of will and purpose. Penal Substitution does not in any way contradict that. The Father loved the world so that He gave the Son to redeem it (John 3:16; Ephesians 1:3-6); the Son willingly gave Himself (John 10:18; 17:19), and the Spirit has willingly sealed the elect for the day of redemption (Ephesians 1:13-14).

The problem with posts like these is that they grow like Topsy. I have written more than I intended to, and yet am conscious of much more that could be said. However, I am now going to follow my New Year's resolution and spend considerably less time on this board as I concentrate on other matters.