In “Christianeese” it is common to hear people speak of being saved. People are told to come forward at alter calls if they want a “saving” relationship with Christ. I have heard it said that we must be saved from our sins. To me this implies some change on our part. But is this a true representation of what God says we are saved from?
First we need to explore why Jesus came to earth in human form. And who better to hear that from than from Jesus. “”Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” – (Matthew 5:17 ESV) But why would Jesus need to fulfill the Law? The Law shows us who God is and what he created us to be. But Adam broke the law and brought sin into the world. “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned–” – (Romans 5:12 ESV)
Sin- all sin- not just big sin, deserves the death penalty. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – (Romans 6:23 ESV) Because of Adam’s sin, death entered the world. The penalty for Adam’s sin should have been his immediate death, but God was merciful, and promised a Savior who would pay our death penalty.
We like this merciful God. He fits our image of a loving, benevolent, patient, father. We probably are not as comfortable with God as described Psalm 7: “God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day. If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow; he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts.” – (Psalm 7:11-13 ESV) Note that this begins with the fact that God is righteous and a judge. What do we associate judges with, but ruling over a Court of Law. God is the ultimate judge, who rules on violation of the laws that he set into place as he created the world.
Listen to what the prophet Nahum says: “The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. … The LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him. But with an overflowing flood he will make a complete end of the adversaries, and will pursue his enemies into darkness.” – (Nahum 1:2-3, 7-8 ESV) God keeps wrath and takes vengeance, but in a wholly just manner, because he is perfect. He is right, and good to punish sin.
Every human has a sense of justice. Think of the outcries of indignation when someone we, with our imperfect knowledge, think is guilty is found innocent. We don’t think the guilty party should be allowed to “get away” with their crime, meaning we think they deserve to be punished. This sense of justice comes from being made in the image of God.
So, as Jesus said, he did not come to do away with God’s Law and perfect righteousness, but to fulfill it. As a man, Jesus obeyed the law perfectly, so that he might be the perfect sacrifice to pay the death penalty for our sin. He bore the wrath of God for us. “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it– the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.” – (Romans 3:21-25 ESV) According to Webster’s 1828 dictionary, propitiation means “The act of appeasing wrath and conciliating the favor of an offended person.” Jesus died to appease God’s wrath at our sin.
When Jesus returns, it will not be as a helpless babe, but as a powerful judge, to execute justice. In Revelation 14, we see Jesus returning to reap the harvest of the grapes of the wicked, and press them in a winepress of wrath. “So the angel swung his sickle across the earth and gathered the grape harvest of the earth and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress, as high as a horse’s bridle, for 1,600 stadia.” – (Revelation 14:19-20 ESV) (Do you hear inspiration for The Battle Hymn of the Republic here?) God’s wrath is terrible, crushing, and bloody. It occurs outside of the walls of His Holy City, which must be kept undefiled.
This wrath is what Christ saved us from. This is good news indeed! And it is all of God’s mercy. We do nothing to earn it, and yet we are called blessed because of it. “Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!”” – (Revelation 14:12-13 ESV)
So next time someone speaks of being “saved”, ask them what they are saved from….and share the good news of salvation from God’s wrath!
soli deo gloria,
Diane