BLOG 4/7/14. A WORD YOU’RE NOT LIKELY TO HEAR DURING HOLY WEEK
Our traditional Holy Week services have a tendency to become a bit sentimentalized, and to do re-runs of the events of those days leading up to and then consummating in the awesome event of the cross … without ever probing into the depths of why such as a necessity. But even more, you will probably not hear in many churches even the mention of the Biblical word: propitiation even though it is an essential component of what took place on Calvary’s cross.
Why? Because the fact that Christ was set forth as “a propitiation by his blood …” (Romans 3:25 in loc.), … and propitiation refers to averting or delivering us from the wrath of God, and few preachers want to get too close to even dealing forthrightly and honestly with the God’s wrath. There is, of course, a common caricature abroad of a God who gets angry, and so is derided by rebels against the Christian faith as some kind of a wrathful, vengeful deity, etc. But look closer.
God’s anger is not vengeful at all, or destructive or petty anger. God’s anger is broken-hearted anger. God’s anger is anger that is the result of his love for his creation that deals with the consequences of our human quest after autonomy, our sin. In our human scene it is more akin to the anger of a loving parent at a cherished child making stupid and destructive choices. Consider that the Creator-God brought into being all of this awesome creation, and that he created it an expression of his own divine nature, what with beauty, harmony, intimacy with Himself, purpose, meaning, love, and so much more. Total shalom. And, note, He created men and angels in his own likeness, and to be able to communicate and be intimate with their Creator. He gave them life. But God also gave them the capacity for moral and intellectual decisions, i.e. a will that could choose between alternatives.
It is here that we encounter the origin of the problem of evil, which is far too complex for a brief blog. But the Biblical record communicates that there was a rebellion that took place among angelic beings, and which then enlisted those first parents with the tragic fallacy that they really didn’t need to knuckle under to God, but that they could be their own ‘god’ and make their own rules. The whole beautiful and harmonious creation was violated, and into the place of shalom came disharmony—‘thorns infest the ground,’ and the whole tragedy, which we encapsulate in the term: sin. God was rejected as God. And with that rejection were unwittingly rejected life’s meaning, its hope, its love, its divine beauty—all were tragically distorted and scarred.
Was God angry? No question. Were there consequences for such a cosmic rebellion? Without a doubt. Was God’s love violated? Absolutely. But … did God’s anger cause him to forsake that which he created and loved? No, a thousand times, no! Right away a promise of hope in the “seed of a woman.” Right away began to unfold his love for the world that would bring salvation, which would include propitiation. Paul speaks of this as the “mystery hidden from the ages, but now made known in Christ.” What unfolds is that God himself came into his creation in Christ, providing the propitiation for our sins, and reconciling the world to himself through the blood of the cross. God offered himself in Christ, and in love, as the one delivering us from the circumstances of our sin, from the wrath of God. We need to deal honestly with this reality.
We need to explore God’s wrath, God’s holy wrath. We need to confess that we are deserving of his anger. And we must flee to the cross. But, alas! propitiation, the deliverance from God’s just wrath, as one of the purposes of Christ’s death that will not be a theme that heard often enough in the days before us, … and yet it is a thrilling, liberating, joyous, necessary dimension of the gospel of Christ.
“’Tis mystery all! The immortal dies: Who can explore His strange design?” (C. Wesley)
