Sermon on Lord’s Day 15⤒🔗

37. Q. What do you confess when you say that He suffered?
A. During all the time He lived on earth, but especially at the end, Christ bore in body and soul the wrath of God against the sin of the whole human race.[1] Thus, by His suffering, as the only atoning sacrifice,[2] He has redeemed our body and soul from everlasting damnation,[3] and obtained for us the grace of God, righteousness, and eternal life.[4]
[1] Is. 53; I Tim. 2:6; I Pet. 2:24; 3:18. [2] Rom. 3:25; I Cor. 5:7; Eph. 5:2; Heb. 10:14; I John 2:2; 4:10. [3] Rom. 8:1-4; Gal. 3:13; Col. 1:13; Heb. 9:12; I Pet 1:18, 19. [4] John 3:16; Rom. 3:24-26; II Cor. 5:21; Heb. 9:15.

38. Q. Why did He suffer under Pontius Pilate as judge?
A. Though innocent, Christ was condemned by an earthly judge,[1] and so He freed us from the severe judgment of God that was to fall on us.[2] [1] Luke 23:13-24; John 19:4, 12-16. [2] Is. 53:4, 5; II Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13.

39. Q. Does it have a special meaning that Christ was crucified and did not die in a different way?
A. Yes. Thereby I am assured that He took upon Himself the curse which lay on me, for a crucified one was cursed by God.[1]
[1] Deut. 21:23; Gal. 3:13.

Scripture Reading: Romans 2:5-11; Romans 3:21-26

Singing: (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Psalm 116:9,10
Psalm 18:1
Hymn 22:1
Psalm 16:3,5
Hymn 52:1,3

Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ!

With Lord’s Day 15 we give our attention to the cross of Calvary. Concerning this cross I want today to ask you a question. We’re well aware that the work of Jesus Christ on the cross stands central to the Christian faith. But can you tell me why the cross is so significant? What is this cross really all about?

Evangelical Christians of the world today give two different answers to that question. The one answer says that at the heart of the cross of Christ is the notion that the wrath of God had to be satisfied. The other answer disagrees; it says that at the heart of the cross is the notion that God wished to display His love. There’s my question for you: which of these two do you think best captures what the cross of Jesus Christ was really all about? Is it satisfaction of God’s wrath against sinners or demonstration of God’s love for sinners?

Before we proceed to answering this question, I should draw a picture of why this question is asked – and answered as it is. You see, for generations and centuries the church has answered this question as Lord’s Day 15 does. That is, Christ’s sufferings on the cross were the result of God’s heavy wrath being poured out on His Son-become-man.

But that answer doesn’t satisfy today’s thinking. Western culture has become very me-centered. This me-centeredness brings with it a refusal to see the self as evil; it brings instead a love for self – and so seeing the self in positive terms. So we learn to tell ourselves that we’re OK, parents tell their children that they’re OK, counselors tells their clients to think of themselves in positive terms, etc. That focus on self, and so evaluating the self in positive terms, simply makes the traditional understanding of the cross of Christ offensive. To see the cross of Christ in terms of payment for sin, in terms of satisfying the wrath of God against sin, implies that people are sinners, are evil, are abhorrent, not OK. So there’s numerous in our day who are honest enough to state in so many words that they find the cross of Christ offensive and they’ve turned away from the Christian faith altogether. But Satan is subtle. There are also those who continue to speak in glowing terms about the cross of Christ, but who have in the meantime altered the meaning of Christ’s work on the cross. Instead of seeing the cross as satisfaction for God’s wrath against sin, the cross is seen as a display of God’s love. That is, God loves me, thinks that I’m such a decent chap that I should be His child, and so sent His only Son to earth to take my sin away so that I could be His….

We live and grow up in this culture that teaches us to think in positive terms about the self. The consequence of thinking in such terms of the self is that we lose sight of the depths of Christ’s work on the cross. Today, then, I want to set forth for you what the cross of Christ was really all about. I want to show you from Scripture that Lord’s Day 15 is so correct when it describes the sufferings of Christ on the cross in terms of His satisfying the severe wrath of God. That will give us a very unfavorable picture of ourselves, but so be it; it’s exactly when we see our sins and misery for what it is that the riches of the gospel of the cross come in to clear focus.

I summarize the sermon with this theme:

Calvary’s cross is about Christ satisfying God’s wrath against our sins

1. The cross displays what I deserve
2. The cross proclaims what I receive

 The cross displays what I deserve←⤒🔗

God’s wrath against sins is very real. In Rom 1 Paul lists certain patterns of behavior among men that result from God pouring out His wrath on unrepentant sinners. I read concerning these unrepentant people that

God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful… Rom 1:28ff

These evils generate so very much suffering – and it’s not only in society around us. How many in the church suffer as a result of whispering or backbiting, suffer because children are disobedient to parents, suffer because they sense around them untrustworthy spirits, unloving attitudes, unmerciful conduct. Suffering characterizes life outside the Garden of Eden, and we get so tired of this suffering. Rightly do we recognize that this suffering is the result of our fall into sin….

That is why, my brothers and sisters, we need to keep in mind that before God sent the human race out of the garden, out of His presence, out into a world of thorns and thistles and suffering, He spoke to them a word of gospel. The Seed of the woman, He said, would crush the seed of the serpent. Then He gave to Adam and Eve a gift, gave them "tunics of skin" (Gen 3:21). Why He did that? Why He replaced the coverings of fig leaves Adam and Eve had earlier made for themselves? Before the fall God had told Adam and Eve that if they would eat they would die (Gen 2:17). But God is pleased to spare them, and here is the first indication of how God would spare them, would satisfy His wrath against their sins. From our position today we look back through the sacrificial laws of the Old Testament and see here already the outlines of the doctrine of substitution; an animal was put to death in their place.

The gospel comes into clearer focus when Abraham sacrifices his son Isaac on Mt Moriah. After God stopped Abraham from carrying out the final act, "Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns. So Abraham went and took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son" (Gen 22:13). It’s especially the last four words of that text that are important for us today. Abraham offered up the ram "instead of his son." That’s to say that Isaac should have died (and he deserved it; he was sinful as we all are, and God had said that "the soul that sins shall die"), but the ram died in place of Isaac, died in his stead.

The matter becomes clearer still in the laws given to Israel at Mt Sinai. It pleased the Lord to come and dwell in the midst of His people. A tabernacle had to be built in which God would dwell, but every morning and every evening an animal had to be sacrificed on the altar just outside that tabernacle. That is, between the people and their God there had to be blood. Why? The Lord gives the answer in Lev 17. Says God to His people:

…I have given [blood] to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul vs 11

The point? Such is God’s wrath against the sins of man that every man should perish. Particularly now, given that God comes to live among His people-by-covenant, each of these persons should fall dead in the face of God’s anger. But the people don’t fall dead, they don’t perish, because God is pleased to ordain that the blood of an animal should flow instead of the blood of the sinner. You see, the animal stands in place of the sinner, and so the sinner is not consumed by the wrath of offended God.

Certainly, we see gospel in that, and rightly so, for the sinner is spared. But focus for a moment, beloved, on the price this sparing cost. For the tabernacle in Israel was awash with blood. The place was slippery with blood, the place stank of decay and of burning flesh, the place was alive with flies, and what did the blood and the stink and the flies spell out? God’s mercy? No, beloved, this is the smell of sin! All that blood and that odor and those flies spelled out how much God hated sin! He couldn’t stomach sin, and would put up with this in order to get rid of sin! The apostle to the Hebrews sums up what happened day by day in the Old Testament temple: "without shedding of blood there is no remission" of sin (9:22), he writes.

But did it help? Did all those sacrifices of the Old Testament, all that blood, actually get rid of sin? The author of Hebrews continues:

But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins 10:3f

Did it help? Did the blood and the smell take the sins away? No, brothers and sisters, it didn’t! "It is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins." Instead, all those sacrifices simply pointed up how real sin was, how evil sin was, how revolting sin was to God.

That is why in turn these sacrifices had to come to an end; they could not go on indefinitely. For the wrath of God remained unsatisfied. Animal sacrifices in the Old Testament were no more than a foreshadowing that one day that infinite wrath of God would explode out of its boundaries and destroy all upon whom this wrath fell. And woe then to him upon whom this wrath would descend!

There came the day when John the Baptist was doing his work by the Jordan River. A man walked toward him. "Behold," John cried out, "The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (Jn 1:29). What John was saying here? Moved by the Holy Spirit, brothers and sisters, he identified Jesus as "the lamb of God." That is, John understood that Jesus had the function of the thousands of sheep slaughtered in the Old Testament tabernacle over the centuries. Such is God’s wrath upon sin that sinners must perish. God had ordained that the blood of animals should make atonement for the soul, yet that blood of countless sheep could not finally take sins away. In the face of that futility God Himself supplied the Lamb who could take away sin. "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!"

Three years later this Lamb was slaughtered. Yet the means of slaughter was not the familiar pattern of the Old Testament sacrificial system. By God’s ordinance, this Lamb had to be crucified. That is, He had to undergo the most extreme suffering that people knew about – crucifixion. More, this Lamb of God had to be hung on a cross because God had decreed in the book of Deuteronomy already that His curse lay upon all who were hanged (21:23). In a word, on the cursed cross of Calvary the Lamb of God tasted the wrath of God in its most potent form.

And why? Why the curse of God on this Lamb? Why this Lamb had to suffer the worst suffering possible on this earth? That, congregation, is because sin was transferred onto this Lamb. God from heaven on high saw the Lamb of God hanging on the cursed cross and He saw sin. Noah’s drunkenness and Abram’s lies, Jacob’s deceit and his sons hatred of their brother Joseph, Israel’s idolatry in Egypt and complaints in the desert, David’s adultery and Elijah’s despair, and whatever other sin there was among the people of God in the Old Testament were placed squarely on the shoulders of the Lamb of God on the cross. More, the sins involved in Augustine’s loose living and Calvin’s bad temper, the sins involved in Kuyper’s errors and Schilder’s sharp pen, the sins of today’s saints – be they sins of thought or word or deed, your sins or mine- were piled onto this Lamb. Now finally the cup of God’s wrath was allowed to overflow, to explode onto Jesus Christ. The Son of God who had enjoyed glory with the Father in heaven from all eternity was now rejected by the very God whose glory had been His delight. It baffles the imagination, and the human tongue scarcely dares to say it, but on the cross of Calvary the Son of God was rejected by His Father! Such was the intensity of the wrath of God against sin that the Son who had enjoyed glory with the Father from eternity now had to cry out His despair, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?!"

It’s all so well known to us. But please, my beloved, when you consider the cross see what was really going on there. The place stank literally to high heaven with the reek of sin, and that is why the place attracted the wrath of God so severely. But think: whose sin attracted such suffering for the Christ? Shall I say it was Israel’s sins that attracted such suffering for Christ, or the sins of the folk of Africa or of the people of Amsterdam? God forbid that I should do that! My sin, my sin drew upon the Son of God on Calvary’s cross the eternal wrath of God! Here’s no room for looking at how evil the sins of others are; here’s room only for the awful realization that my sins drove the Christ to such indescribable suffering.

What then is the cross of Calvary? Here is displayed what God thinks of me! I ought to die because I have sinned. More, I ought to die a prolonged, painful death, I ought to suffer, suffer so intensely on account of my sins. I, I should hang on that cursed cross! That’s what I deserve – according to the righteous ordinance of God.

What is the cross of Calvary and the suffering of Christ on that cross? It is, congregation, a demonstration of the wrath of God on our sins. That cross leaves no room for me to think that I’m pretty good, leaves no room for me to think that God is happy enough with me to go out of His way to make me His child. The cross, and the suffering of Christ on it, spells out how God sees me, spells out what I really deserve, spells out what I’m really like. It’s all so humbling….

But in the midst of wrath, the prophet says, God remembers mercy. And that is true in connection with the sufferings of Christ on the cross also. That’s our second point:

The cross proclaims what I receive←⤒🔗

What, brothers and sisters, was the purpose of Christ suffering so severely on the cross? In Lord’s Day 15 we say that Christ’s suffering is an "atoning sacrifice," yes, "the only atoning sacrifice." This notion of "atoning sacrifice" puts into English a difficult word found in Rom 3:25, the word "propitiation". "Propitiation" describes the idea of turning away the wrath of God by means of a sacrifice. That single word, then, captures the Old Testament teaching of an animal dying in place of the sinner so that the sinner might go free. When Paul says in Romans 3 that God sent His Son as "a propitiation by His blood", Paul is saying that Christ died in place of the sinner so that the sinner might go free. That is, through Christ’s suffering God’s wrath against sin is turned away from sinners – with as glorious result that there is no wrath from God left for the people of God!

It’s a point, congregation, that we overlook to our peril. Those of you who still have the RSV with you in the pew will notice that in your translation Rom 3:25 does not use the word ‘propitiation’ but the word ‘expiation’. Why? That’s because the RSV translation was prepared under the influence of the thought that God’s not that angry with sinners. Behind those two words, propitiation and expiation, there’s a drawn out theological debate about whether God indeed is wrathful on account of the sins of man (and that His wrath has to be satisfied) or whether it’s sufficient that sin is simply wiped out. With the word ‘expiation’ the RSV sought to leave in the reader’s mind the conclusion that God’s anger is not a factor; it’s sufficient that sin be wiped out. The NKJV, on the other hand, realizes that much more is at stake, and so translates with the word ‘propitiation’.

And rightly so. For, as the quote I mentioned earlier from Rom 1 shows, God’s wrath is in fact today proceeding from heaven and active upon earth. So real is that wrath of God today that Paul in Rom 2 reminds his readers of "the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each one according to his deeds…, to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth… – indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish" (vs 5f, 8f). In chap 3 Paul continues his argument to show that every person, Jew or Greek, are all "under sin", and so are exposed to the wrath of God in this life and the life to come. Make no mistake, congregation, the controlling reality of every man’s life, as long as he stays in his sins, is the wrath of God – whether the person is aware of it or not.

Precisely there is the good news of the word propitiation. This term wants to say that this wrath is gone! People who were enemies of God are now made children of God. People upon whom rested the wrath of God may now know themselves loved by God. How come? Propitiation: through His work on the cross of Calvary Christ has satisfied the wrath of God against sin on our behalf.

Here, finally, beloved, is where the love of God enters the picture. For, yes, the cross of Christ certainly displays God’s love. But how? Listen to the apostle John:

In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins I John 4;10

Notice that John uses the word ‘propitiation’, and with that John brings in all the material of the first point of this sermon. The cross: it’s a display of God’s wrath; through the cross that wrath must be satisfied. Yet what, says John, prompted God to display that wrath and have it satisfied through the suffering of His Son? That, says John, is because of the love of God. Such was the Father’s love that He sent His Son to satisfy God’s wrath.

May we then ignore that wrath and focus simply on the Father’s love? Not so, brothers and sisters, not so. His love and His wrath need to stand side by side, and that is possible only if you see God’s love not as a love for sinners for sinners’ sake but a love for sinners for His own sake. And that message is so offensive to people wrapped up with themselves. We want God to love us for our own sakes, because we’re respectable creatures, likeable. But the Lord says categorically that it is not so; so great is our depravity that our sins stink to high heaven and provoke His fearsome wrath. Yet He loves sinners, for reasons found within Himself. And to ransom the sinners mercifully chose to love, He put His only Son on the cross to satisfy His wrath against those sinners.

O God, how marvelous are Your works! That I, who deserve to hang on Calvary’s cross on account of my sins, that I should be spared – how awesome, how wonderful, how delightful the news!

Now we go home. What’s at home? The joys of this life, and the griefs! Home, daily work: there’s so much suffering in it, and I get so tired of it. But the gospel of Christ’s suffering in my place puts the suffering of this life into perspective. For Christ’s work means that my Father in Jesus Christ is not angry with me on account of my sins anymore! Christ "obtained for us the grace of God, righteousness, and eternal life." So my faithful Father will carry me through the sufferings of this life until I receive the crown of glory. Amen.