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As we have seen earlier in this series, the wounded heart of man seeks to discover worth, love, value in sources other than God. (Because of the fall we have come to believe as truth a number of lies.)
So, as we have seen over the past few weeks:
We are seeking to understand why we are like we are and where will our healing come from.
We struggle with a sense of the problem of guilt and blame and how these can be rectified.
We are painfully aware that we make mistakes and recognise the problem of justice.
Because we’re made in the image of a righteous God we know that wrong must be punished.
This leads us to the lie that...
"People who fail are unworthy of love and deserve to be punished"
Therefore, we feel that people who fail not only can’t be loved but have lost the potential to be loved - ie never be loved
FACETS OF THE LIE
Because of the fall there is an innate sense of retribution. It seems natural to expect that failure leads to punishment.
Retribution = punishment - doing something which sets right what has been done wrong.
cf capital punishment - the blame is set in order, justice has been done.
To the wounded heart the prospect of Grace seems less believable than the prospect of punishment. There is, therefore, a resistance to the depths of the promises of the gospel - it just doesn't sound quite right. So, to the wounded heart, the concept of grace seems almost unbelievable.
Where we perceive failure we try to assign blame. If possible we generally try to assign blame to others and in doing so we protect our own fragile sense of self worth. If we cannot blame others we will frequently blame ourselves, even if such an assignment of blame is not logical.
The law of retribution tells us that someone ought to pay. People should get what they deserve!
cf divorce - children blame themselves (eg Mum and Dad broke up because we made them fight!)
cf abuse victims - blame selves.
SYMPTOMS AND RESULTS
This is living out of the brokenness of the fall and being aware that someone has to be punished. Therefore, we are:
1. Delighting in the failures of others - I may perceive my relative position in life is improved when others fail and I don't.
2. Accepting blame for things I am not responsible for - often occurs when relating to authority figures; children frequently for example see themselves as responsible for parents divorce, abusiveness etc.
3. Failing to perceive the difference between weakness and wickedness.
4. Confusing our orientation to punishing as being godliness. Becoming judgemental looks like being godly or religious - but it isn’t.
5. Finding ways to punish people who are doing things we don't like - from silence and ignoring through to aggression and violence. Sadly we often do not communicate well about peoples' behaviour, giving them an opportunity to address the issue directly, rather we fail to communicate and punish instead.
In relationship, when things happen we don’t like, our tendency is to punish rather than discuss - we do this by various ways such as silence, withdrawal, attacking, putting down the other person, passing up responsibility to another person rather than taking personal responsibility, readily taking blame in order to gain sympathy etc.
6. Ascribing to God the credit for bad or difficult things that occur in our lives as if this were divine punishment for our badness and thereby re-inforcing attitudes to Father that are part of our problem.
Compare this with 2 Cor 1:3
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,
cf disciples and blind man - they asked Jesus ‘who sinned?’ In other words, they tried to find blame or throw blame to discover the reason for this mans blindness. More the truth is that we live in a fallen world - good AND bad things happen to everybody whether they be lovely and unlovely.
7. Punishing ourselves on the theory that if we are hard enough on ourselves God won't punish us. We think, maybe God will take pity on us and like us.
Some Christians equate feeling bad about themselves with being right with God and conversely think that if they feel good they are not holy and humble or aware of sin or whatever. But this is destructive and heretical thinking. We are called to obey God, not to punish ourselves.
You may be surprised to discover that the concept that those who fail including yourself are unworthy of love and deserve to be punished is not only a FALSE BELIEF but is at the root of our fear of punishment and our tendency to punish others.
So what is God’s answer?
GOD’S ANSWER - PROPITIATION
God is a judge and the suspicion we have that wrongs have to be punished is true, but it’s not the whole truth and that’s what we want to deal with here.
The word propitiation means: To bear the wrath.
What do you understand by ‘wrath’?
- angry eyes
- foaming mouth
- violent temper
- perhaps a father’s anger.
…but this is human wrath.
What is God’s wrath?
"The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness."
Punishment is due - wrath is due - it is not God losing His temper.
God’s wrath is His absolute opposition, His settled opposition and His total unwillingness to reconcile Himself to wickedness.
Propitiation means: ‘to bear that wrath and to carry it away’.
The teaching of the bible reveals the essence of propitiation to be threefold:
1. God has been offended by our behaviour.
2. There is an appropriate penalty which satisfies the offence.
3. God himself provides and pays that penalty.
The degree to which God is offended by our behaviour is beyond our ability to face or deal with.
Gen 1 "The day you eat the fruit of this tree you will die"
Romans - "The wages of sin is death"
We are all living testimonies of this death/separation issue. We all know we’re separated from God and know that it’s our fault. We all try to settle the account somehow. This is the origin of multiple religions.
Too often man creates religion to make us feel better and try to convince ourselves that there is a way other than death, eg service, sacrifice, penance, deprivation, abuse of self etc How absurd that wicked people could do anything to get right with a morally perfect God. We can’t possibly think we can make man made gods and hope that that pleases the Most High God. The only hope or solution is death!
Now, you may not want to believe in a God like that. You may want to invent your own God and have him/her not be so much a stickler to absolute truth.
OK - if you want to do that then it’s up to you - but this is NOT the God who created you - not the real god.
An example of when we were children is that we wanted our parents to be fair when dividing the lollies with our brothers and sisters, but not so fair when it comes to dealing with disobedience. We used to love it if our siblings received harsher punishment then we did. Is it any wonder that our kids coming running to us saying, "Johnny did this, this and this". All that sibling wants to see is punishment coming the way for poor old Johnny.
The God of the Bible is the God of absolutes - absolute love, absolute righteousness, and absolute justice.
You will not resolve this issue of punishment yourself because it is so great it can only be settled with the death penalty.
The Old Testament teaches us how God thinks. We need to learn to think as God thinks.
SOMEONE ELSE TAKES THE PUNISHMENT FOR US
Isaiah 53:4-6
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
5But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
6We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
God has provided a means for us to be restored from the selfishness of the world.
SOMEONE CAN STAND IN FOR US = SUBSTITUTION
GOD’S WRATH IS DEALT WITH = THE DEATH PENALTY IS HANDED DOWN -ON SOMEONE ELSE
JESUS BORE THE WRATH = PROPITIATION
Lets look at Rom 3:24-26 and Rom 5:6-11
Romans 5:6-11
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! 10For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Romans 3:24-26
…and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished-- 26he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
God set Christ forth to be the propitiation (wrath bearer). We receive this substitutory act by faith. Every wrong that will be punished, has been punished by Christ’s death. Christ has picked up the tab.
Jesus came to carry God’s offence away. So why would you and I want to pick it up and carry it any further?
God is not pretending you never sinned, but telling you that your sin has been paid for. You see, God doesn’t punish sins twice. If your sin has been punished in Christ - you need to accept God’s free gift.
This sounds too simple and not ‘fair’ BUT the fact is God’s love for you. Now there is peace for you. You can accept things that are wrong in your life without fear of God. You now know that your sin has been dealt with in the blood/death of Jesus
How do we appropriate this for ourselves?
- just good teaching? - NO!
- good works - CERTAINLY NOT!
We receive by faith the substitution of Christ for us. We love God and yield to Him.
We desire with all our heart to come back to Father God and live in harmony and fellowship with Him.
It is helpful to remember that Jesus Christ is my wrath bearer. When he cried out "it is finished" he meant what he said. For me the fear of punishment is finished.
MY HEALING DECLARATION
Because of Christ and His redemption, I am completely forgiven and fully pleasing to God. I am totally accepted by God. He has no desire to punish me - He has already punished Jesus in my place. It delights the Lord when I live free from fear of punishment since it lifts up the name of Jesus in my life.
Scripture references taken from the New International Version of the Bible.
