“He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” —1 JOHN 2:2

When many people think of God, they think of love, compassion, kindness, goodness, mercy, righteousness, and, of course, all that is true of Him. To many He has even become that ‘big pal in the sky’, and any notion of God getting angry is foreign to them.

But the truth is God does get angry, and the wrath of His anger had to be addressed. Before a God of love, He is first and foremost a ‘just’ God. Were He not, there would have been no need for the cross. The brutality of the cross is an expression of the anger of God, and we will not understand the Cross of Christ until we know something about God’s wrath.

In the first instance, Christ did not die for us. He died for His Father. We are not the ones who demand the cross. We would be perfectly content with an arrangement that let us confess our sin to God and be forgiven on the grounds of His mercy, without any necessity for the cross.

It is God who demands the cross. It is the justice and moral integrity of God that requires the shedding of blood. He declared that the wages of sin is death. We were born in a state of spiritual death, the consequence of inherited sin. We either stay in our condition of spiritual death or need a substitute to step into our place and take the wrath of God upon Himself. This is the great transaction of the cross: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

We must acknowledge our sin, but we are not forgiven because we repent of it. We are forgiven because Christ on the cross satisfied the just wrath of God. Paul says in Romans 3:25, “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice…” A wink and a nod from heaven to forgive our sin would completely undermine the justice of God. When we come in repentance, we are forgiven on the basis of the Cross of Christ alone, which satisfied the wrath of a just and righteous God.

PRAYER: Dear Heavenly Father, I am so grateful that You are a ‘just’ God, as that makes me aware of my sin and how much I need You. Thank You for sending your Son, so that I may be forgiven and reconciled to You.

TO REFLECT UPON: When I look at the corrupt state of this world and my own sin, am I appreciative of why the cross of Christ was needed?