The Love and Wrath of God

Yesterday was our first look at Isaiah 53:4-6 we saw the gospel truth that Paul affirms in Romans, we have all sinned. Today, let’s look at the second point, sin must be punished. You and I have strayed from God—we were made to delight in God and we were made to desire Him above all other things, but sin turns our eyes off of God and onto self. We were made in the image of God, but that image was marred when Adam and Eve fell—it was so marred that Paul said, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

We make light of sin—we change the words to make it look better, but God never makes light of sin. When Adam and Eve committed sin against Him—He removed them from the Garden. The people of Noah’s day grew so wicked that when the LORD looked upon them he found that “The wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” He sent a flood to wipe them all from the face of the earth. When Sodom’s wickedness grew God sent fire from heaven. When Israel continued in wickedness God sent Babylon and when they continued in sin even after He brought them back, He sent the Romans to utterly destroy their city and their temple. God hates sin and the Bible says the wages of sin is death. It must be punished—there is no greater evidence of the fact that sin must be punished than in the reality of a place called hell and in the fulfillment of this passage—the Cross of Jesus Christ. If you want to see the love of God—look to the Cross. If you want to see the wrath of God—look to the Cross.

God is holy and His holiness demands that we be holy. The moment He ignores sin, the moment He allows sin to just wash under the throne of Judgment is the moment God would cease to be holy and thereby He would cease to be God. No, His holiness demands that He punish sin because it is Cosmic Treason.

A while back I heard an Anglican Bishop say, “The first step on the road to heaven is to know that we by nature are on the road to hell.”If you know that you are a sinner there is hope because that means God has revealed that to you.If you know that you are on the road to hell there is hope because that means that, by God’s grace, you might be given eyes to see the solution to your dilemma. What is the solution? How can a sinful person be justified? I’ll share that tomorrow.