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Why Did Jesus Christ Die on the Cross?
RO32-01© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1977)
Please open your Bibles once more to Romans 3 as we come to the 13th segment on "Justification by Faith."
We have seen that the sinless God-Man Jesus Christ died on the cross as the Lamb of God who was sacrificed in payment for the sins of the world. This
payment, we have demonstrated, has included the shedding of His literal blood. Wounds from the beatings and from the crucifixion itself shed the
literal blood of Christ, and that literal blood was the fulfillment of the sacrificial animal system of the Old Testament. In fulfilling that picture,
Jesus Christ had to shed His literal blood for the redemption which He provided for us.
This payment included His spiritual death. On the cross, He was separated from the Father and from the Holy Spirit in those hours when the sins of
the world were poured out upon Him from high noon to 3:00 in the afternoon. This payment included His physical death – the separation of His
soul and spirit from His human body. The deity of Christ controlled the pace of His physical death. His physical death, in all likelihood, was
brought about by the shock from the extreme loss of His literal blood. And at the right time, the deity permitted the final loss and the final shock
to move in, and Christ gave His life in behalf of the sins of the world.
Salvation by Faith
The apostle Paul has declared that God has made available to sinful men the absolute righteousness of God. We learned this in Romans 3:21-23, the
immediate context of the passage we're looking at. This provision of a loving God is available by faith in Jesus Christ as Savior, and this provision
is apart from any human good works. Without this absolute righteousness, nobody can enter heaven. Since every human being is a sinner, everyone needs
this no-human merit righteousness if he is to go to heaven.
Salvation is a Gift
The salvation which is provided by God the Father is a grace provision. It's a gift. No one deserves it, and no one can earn it. It's a free gift
which is received by faith by believing God. That's what faith is. Those who believe in Christ as Savior are given this gift of absolute
righteousness, and they are, therefore, declared by God to be justified. When God says, "You're justified," it means that when He looks at you, He
sees you in possession of the absolute righteousness of Jesus Christ. Thus you are qualified and fully equipped to enter His heaven forever.
So, we've been studying justification by faith as a free gift of God to undeserving sinners. God's justification of a sinner, we have seen, is based
upon the redemption provided by Jesus Christ for all mankind. God does not just say that you are justified and that you are righteous, as if it were
some figment of His imagination, but it's an actual fact. And this fact is based upon a provision which Jesus Christ has made. He cannot just say,
"You're justified," if it is not a reality. But this is a reality. It is based on the redemption of Jesus Christ.
This means payment for the divine penalty for sin which frees believers from the slavery to sin. And the divine payment for sin is, of course, death.
The Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death. This death is both spiritual and physical, as we see in Matthew 20:28. Because the penalty for sin
has been paid for the sinner, God is free to impute the absolute righteousness of Jesus Christ to whoever is ready to receive it, and to pronounce
that person justified. The sinners guilt, in other words, is imputed to Jesus Christ, and the absolute righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed to
the believing sinner (2 Corinthians 5:21).
I hope all of that relationship is very clear in your mind.
Jesus Christ is presented as having satisfied the penalty for sin which is demanded by the justice of God. So, we read that Jesus Christ is the
propitiation, or the One who has appeased the wrath of God against the sin of mankind. God's justice has been met, or satisfied, in the death of
Jesus Christ. So, we call Him a propitiatory sacrifice. He was a sacrifice that satisfied what God demanded against sin.
This appeasing of divine wrath has been achieved specifically through the shedding of the literal blood of Jesus Christ and his consequent physical
death to be a propitiation in His blood. Remember that in verse 25, the word order should be: "Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation in His
blood through faith." Reverse the order of the words from your King James translation. It should say, "A propitiation in His blood through faith.
And, of course, the context, as always, indicates that it is faith in Jesus Christ. But propitiation goes within His blood. That is the basis that
satisfies the righteousness of God. There are many verses, which we've already covered, that indicate how essential that literal blood was
(Romans 5:9, Ephesians 2:13, Hebrews 9:12, Hebrews 9:14, 1 Peter 1:19, 1 John 1:7, Revelation 1:5).
Why did Jesus Christ Die on the Cross?
At this point, having said all this, Paul's explanation has been leading up to a very specific purpose. All of this explanation of what God has done
(the human problem and the divine solution) has been in order to explain the reasons (the motives) of God behind salvation. Thousands and thousands
of books have been written to explain to people why Jesus Christ died on the cross. The overwhelming majority of those books put the emphasis on a
secondary thing. The emphasis in most of those books is placed upon the idea that Jesus Christ died on the cross so that people could be saved and
go to heaven. And they present that as the main reason (the primary motivation and the driving force) behind what God was doing.
Well, the apostle Paul has presented this build-up. Don't forget. I remind you again that Romans 3:24-26 is, as somebody has said, the Acropolis to
Bible doctrine. It is the epitome. It is the highest point in Scripture. This is Mount Everest of the Word of God. From here, everything else goes
down. With this, you've got the whole picture. If you understand these three verses, you've got the firm understanding of what God is out to do, and
what He has done. And Paul, in this high point of Scripture, wants to make it clear that there is a very specific reason why God sent Christ to be a
propitiatory sacrifice – a sacrifice which satisfied the justice of God.
Abraham and Sarah
The reason for this (to set up some background) is that, for centuries, God was doing a very strange thing in the Old Testament relative to sinners.
God had a strange reaction toward sinners. For example, let's look at Abraham. We find in Scripture that on two occasions Abraham acted with cowardly
dishonor in hazarding the life of his wife Sarah in order to save himself. You can read about this in Genesis 12:10-20 and in Genesis 20:1-18. On
both these occasions, Abraham found himself in alien territory, and he presented his wife Sarah as his sister so that the ruling king would not kill
him in order to take Sarah into his harem as his wife.
Sarah was a very lovely woman. She was a very beautiful woman and a very attractive woman. So, Abraham played one of those sneaky deals like your
kids sometimes play. They tell you the facts, but they don't give you the truth. The fact of the matter was that Sarah was Abraham's half-sister.
So, Abraham, when he went into the new territory (which he shouldn't have been in to begin with), told the ruling monarch, "This is my sister."
Well, she was his half-sister. He gave the facts, but he wasn't telling the truth. The truth was that she was his wife. Well, on both these
occasions, God rebuked him. On both occasions, God preserved the ruling monarchs from violating a moral code by taking Sarah into the harem. That's
exactly what both of them proceeded to do on both occasions.
Abraham acted with cowardly dishonor, deceitfulness, and lying in hazarding his wife's life. As a matter of fact, Abraham championed the preservation
of Sodom and Gomorrah from divine judgment. Sodom and Gomorrah were under divine judgment because they were the headquarters and the hotbed of
homosexuality.
Jimmy Carter's sister, a charismatic, very piously said (when asked what she thought about this homosexual ordinance in Florida that Anita Bryant
and her forces had defeated so handsomely) that she didn't agree with the way Anita Bryant went about it, she just didn't like it. She just thought
she had a bad attitude. She just thought she was judgmental. They tell you the facts, that they don't give you the truth. That's the word of people
who don't like what the Bible says. If they want to cut somebody down, they say, "You're judgmental." That's all God is. He's a judge. He says,
"This is right, and this is wrong."
Mrs. Stapleton said, "But I didn't agree with the homosexual force either. I think they were wrong in their attitude." Well, she apparently comes
from a political family. I mean, how can you lose that way? She has you on both sides. She's a middle-of-the-roader. That means that you're not
against the things you oppose, and you're not in favor of the things you stand for. That makes it very effective that way. And some people have a
great ability to talk that way.
Well, strangely enough, Abraham goes to God and he says, "Hey, hey, I don't think you ought to destroy these cities." And I mean that they were
known in the ancient world for their perversion of homosexuality. It was rampant through the cities. I won't review the stories in the Bible of what
these men tried to do. You know, what they did on the occasion when Lot had some visitors. And Lot had become so contaminated by that perverted moral
climate that when the mob stormed outside of his house in order to try to take these men (who were guests of Lot) to use them in homosexual practices
(and these jokers out here not knowing that they were angelic beings), Lott himself came out and said, "Gentlemen, please don't treat my guests like
this. If you want to fool around, take my daughters." Now, that was being a gracious host. That's how far Lot had lost his orientation. And you wonder
how much of the bad influence along that line he might have picked up from Abraham himself, who was the head of the family.
In any case, you have this record in Genesis 18:20ff about championing these homosexual cities. But lo and behold, you get to 2 Chronicles 20:7 and
Isaiah 41:8, and then these quoted in James 2:23. And there you have Abraham referred to by Almighty God as his friend. Abraham receives the noble
title of "the friend of God," which connotes a person who stands in very great favor with the Almighty.
Now you look at Abraham, and the kind of an evil man he was on occasion, and God says, "You're My friend. You stand in special favor with Me." And it
is no secret the great blessings which God had promised to Abraham, and which He delivered over the centuries.
So, God, who is supposed to be absolutely righteous, is willing to befriend and to bless stupendously a man of considerable evil. Something is funny
there. Something is wrong. This was a problem. People began looking at this, and began looking at God, and saying, "That doesn't fit."
Jacob
Think about Jacob. Jacob cheated his brother out of his birthright (Genesis 27). It was a downright, dirty, low-dog trick if there ever was one.
His eldest son had the right to receive the inheritance of the family and to receive the line of the promise given to Abraham. And his brother, with
the help of his mother (the two of them conniving together), cheated his brother out of the birthright. Then, in order to pull the thing off, he lied
to his father. When the Father asked him to identify himself, he pretended to be his brother Esau. He outright lied to his father, who, because of
his poor eyesight, couldn't tell the difference (Genesis 27:18-19). And in Genesis 27:20, you have Jacob attributing success of his deception to God.
He has been successful in deception, and he says, "God, I certainly thank you for helping me to pull this off."
Now, this is a really a fine man – Jacob, the deceiver, the sneak, and the conniver. Yet, lo and behold, we find in Genesis 28:10-15 that God
promises terrific, mighty blessings to Jacob. And you find in Genesis 32:28 that God says, "Jacob, I think so much of you. I'm going to change your
name from Jacob, the deceiver. You are now Israel, prince of God." Again people said, "Is this a God of absolute righteousness, and he takes a skunk
like Jacob, and He calls him a prince of God? What kind of a God is this, who would have a prince out of a character like this?" And people wondered.
Moses
Think about Moses. In Exodus 2:11-15, we find that when God appeared to Moses in that burning bush, and called Moses into His service as His
representative to the tremendous, powerful Egyptian empire, that at that time, Moses was both a murderer and a fugitive from justice. And yet God
selects this man as his representative to Pharaoh (Exodus 3:1-10). And he is furthermore used as the channel to deliver God's great, definitive moral
code, the Ten Commandments, that we read of in Exodus 20, which were delivered on Mt. Sinai through this man Moses – the murderer, and the
fugitive from justice. A God of absolute righteousness, demanding moral standards through the code of Law which He presented, which the agent
delivering that code himself was not living up to. Now, that's hypocrisy. And people looked at this and said, "God brings judgment upon others for
evil, but he does not upon Moses?"
Korah
As a matter of fact, in Numbers 16, you have Korah and his friends who opposed Moses and his leadership over Israel, and God brought such judgment
upon them that God opened up the earth and not only dropped Korah and his associates, but all their children and their families (the whole bunch of
them) right down into the crack, and closed the earth upon them. And you say, "This is a God of absolute righteousness? He uses a man like Moses as
His personal representative, and He brings great judgment on people who oppose Moses. What kind of righteousness is this?"
David
Think about David. He's a good one. David was guilty of blatant adultery, and murder of the husband to cover the sin, and evil use of governmental
authority. It was not the first time it happened; it's not the last time it happened; and, it's not the last time it's going to happen – that
men in authority abuse their power. There is always this mistake that men who are in government (who are elected to public office) make. Until you
come to public office, you're viewed as a poor, simple American who doesn't really know too much about how to solve the problems of society, or
really what's too good for yourself. The elected officials of this nation have a strange way of assuming that the moment they're elected, they
aren't like the rest of us anymore, with old sin natures and limitations. The moment they become elected, they now become men of great wisdom;
statesmen; and, men of great insights. The same dumbbell that was walking up and down the street asking for his vote now becomes a paragon of
insight and discernment. How is that?
Well, it's the wonderful system of the American society. If you're stupid, just get elected to public office, and you now blossom out with smarts.
Well, the truth of the matter is that just because you go to the seat of government, you are just as old-sin-nature oriented as you were before. And
if you had poor discernment when you were elected, you still have poor discernment when you get to Congress, or you get to the Senate, or you get to
someplace else. And that is amply demonstrated in this country. It is people like that who, because they are not oriented to the divine institution
of government, who abuse the authority of government, and who are incapable of recognizing who they are; what they are; what they came from; and, how
they can serve in public office only if they are oriented to God's thinking, and they have God's hand directing and guiding them.
Most of the time, David knew this, and most of the time this is how David governed the nation. When David's hand moved, it was because God was
behind Him moving that hand. But here's one occasion where he used his authority in government and prostituted that authority to an evil end.
On another occasion, David willfully ignored God's directive that he was not to conduct a census of the nation. It was not God's purpose as the
nation of Israel became very, very large, and as its potential military force grew very, very strong, and its standing army expanded considerably,
that the nation of Israel should be dependent upon their numerical strength or upon their military strength. But, as always, when they were a simple
and humble and weak people, their confidence should have been in the living God. Therefore, He forbad taking of a census. David would not be
dissuaded. His counselor said, "David, the Lord says, 'Don't do this.'" David went ahead and did it. So, you read about this in 2 Samuel 24 and
1 Chronicles 21. David willfully ignored the directive of God and again abused his governmental authority as king.
Yet, lo and behold, a God of supposed absolute righteousness says that David's heart was perfect in 1 King 11:4. And worse than that, this God of
supposed absolute righteousness says that David was a man after his own heart (1 Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22). And again people wondered about this God
whose essence supposedly included absolute righteousness. The God who prescribed the death penalty for murder-one and for adultery did not execute
that upon David when he was guilty of both.
Saul
Well, what's happened to the supposed absolute righteousness of the God of Israel? It was obvious that, as the centuries rolled by, in the minds of
many people, there was a serious stain upon the character of God. All these Old Testament evil men, when they died, went to heaven. And as if these
weren't bad enough (most of the time these were pretty good men), just think about Saul. At the end of his life, Saul really went downhill. Saul was
strictly rotten through and through. He had been selected as the first king of Israel. He stood physically head and shoulders above everybody else.
And though his reign began with great promise, the time came when he could not handle the authority, and he could not handle his own spiritual life.
He went down.
At the very end, you have the pathetic picture of the king of Israel, which was now a substantial, strong nation, sneaking into the hut of the medium
of Endor in order to consult with her about how the battle with the Philistines was going to come out the next day. In that séance, he calls upon
Samuel, who was now dead, and who was the only one that could ever guide Saul, and who gave him good advice, and Saul knew it. He said, "Bring Samuel
from the dead" (necromancy). Well, nobody can ever be brought from the dead. Only demon spirits speak in behalf of dead people, and imitate them by
their ventriloquist ability. But on this occasion, God did send the spirit of Samuel back. It scared the wits out of the medium of Endor. She
screamed. That drove Saul up the wall because it scared the life out of him. ... The medium of Endor was expecting that she'd gone through this
before, running the séance, saying, "Oh, speak to me from beyond, Samuel. Oh, great Samuel. Speak to us." Meanwhile, the demon is standing there,
waiting to get his part. At the right time, he's going to get on the mike and say, "Hello, there. This is Samuel speaking here from the other world
to all you folks here, ready to give you consultations and information."
And about the time the demon gets there, Samuel appears, and the witch screamed, because, lo and behold, here is the real item. But the terrible
thing about that was that Samuel rebuked Saul and said, "God will not speak to you through the normal processes of communications: the Urim and the
Thummim; the visions; the voices; the dreams; and, the prophets. But you called me from the grave to speak to when God will not speak to you? I'll
give you a message, Saul. Tomorrow at this time, you will be where I am." Right there in the degrading conditions of a séance, Saul is told he's going
to be in heaven, because that's where Samuel was. He's told he's going to be in the presence of God: "Tomorrow at this time, you and your sons will
be where I am."
People said: "This is a god of absolute righteousness, and He announces to a king who's prostituting his governmental authority to even break his
own rule," because Saul had made the rule that anybody in Israel who consulted with a medium would be executed, because that was the rule of the Word
of God. And instead, he breaks his own rule, and violates the laws of his own reign. And God says to him: "You're going to be in heaven. You're going
to be in the presence of God 24 hours hence. People said, "What kind of a God of absolute righteousness is that?" There was a stain upon the
character of God such that all these evil men end up in His presence.
Absolute Righteousness
So, how can God claim to be absolute righteousness and not punish the sins of these men? How can that be? The Old Testament very clearly says that
God will not clear the guilty, but He'll punish their sin. Exodus 34:6-7 and Numbers 14:18 very definitively declare that God will not hold the evil
person guiltless, but that God will hold him accountable for his guilt. Yet all these men obviously are not being held accountable for their evil.
Unbelievers, therefore, as they have read the Old Testament, have scoffed at the claims of the Old Testament God as being a God of absolute
righteousness. The character of God is suspect. God has for centuries, before Christ's incarnation, been taking sinners into His presence whose sins
had not been paid for. That was the point. There's no use pretending this was not so. God, for centuries, had been taking sinners into His presence
(we would say "in heaven") whose sins had not been paid for. Now, an absolutely righteous God cannot do that. A God whose integrity of justice is
maintained cannot do that, because the justice of God demands death for sin.
So, when Jesus Christ arrived on this earth as the God-Man, enough time had gone by that the absolute righteousness of God was under serious doubt.
There were stains upon the character of God in the minds of many people. And the apostle Paul takes up that very problem in order to show us that
when it came to Christ being a propitiatory sacrifice, God had a vested interest Himself first, before you and I as sinners had a vested interest.
Why Jesus Christ Died
So, get it straight. Here is the first reason that Jesus Christ came to die for the sins of the world. Here is the first reason (the most important
reason) in God's frame of reference. It begins in the middle of Romans 3:25: "To declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past."
The words "to declare" are two Greek words. First the word "eis" plus the word "indeixis." This "eis" is a preposition. This little word indicates
purpose. We would translate it with the idea of "aiming at this end" or "for this purpose" or "to this end." This word "indeixis" means "a pointing
out: or "a showing forth." It is a strong word which is used to connote proof by appeal to the fact. It's a phrase which connotes that God is very
clearly demonstrating something that God wants no one to misunderstand. This is something that God feels needs to be cleared up. And now God has come
to the point in history where He's going to clear up this issue.
Is God a Sinner?
Is God a sinner? Is God unrighteous in having taken the kind of men we spoke of (and many, many more like them) into His presence. Here is the first
motive of God in providing Jesus Christ as a propitiation for the sins of the world through His blood. Thousands of books are written. They stress,
first of all, salvation for sinners as being the purpose of the work of Christ. That is not so. The first reason is something that God Himself is
involved in, and that is to remove a scandal from the name of God that had accumulated over the centuries because men of evil were taken into His
presence when they died.
So, it says, "To make clear: aiming at the end of showing forth, or demonstrating, His righteousness." "His" is, of course, "God's," and the word
"righteousness" is "dikaiosune." This word refers not to something that God does, but here it refers to something that God is. This refers
to the quality of absolute righteousness in the essence of God. Remember that God is sovereign. He is absolute king of the universe. He is this
righteousness that we're talking about. He is absolute (or plus) beyond-measure righteousness. He is also justice; that is, God is absolutely fair.
He is eternal life. He is life without beginning and without end. He is the God of love. He is omnipotent. He is omniscient. He is omnipresent. He
is veracity; that is, He is truth. And He is immutability.
Paul is talking here about this particular factor of the essence of God – this absolute righteousness factor. This is what he is speaking of
when he uses this word "dikaiosune." This is God's characteristic of righteousness. And God's character is the standard of what is right in the
universe. The issue that has been raised here is God's own attitude toward sin in the world which He created. Sin violates the quality of God's
righteousness. Well, what's God's attitude toward that? The question has been raised, for centuries now, as to God's own consistency with what He
claims to be.
The opponents of Scripture (the opponents of God) love to bring out these stories about these Old Testament saints, and they dwell on them with all
the gruesome details. And they like to say, "Now, that is the God of the Old Testament that you're asking us to be loyal to, and that you're asking
us to look to, and that you are asking us to believe. This is the God who can't even be consistent with what He says He stands for. That's the
argument today, and that was the argument for centuries.
This righteousness refers to a specific thing which God has been doing relative to sin which looked like God was being unrighteous. The issue is the
justice of God and not punishing sinners with eternity in hell. God appeared to be acting as many human judges act. One of the problems of our
society today is that we have human judges who are excusing the evil of the criminal. They are justifying the crimes of the criminal as being
something that he's not responsible for, and as being beyond him. So, instead of bringing justice, and applying the proper penalties for the crime,
the criminal is being indulged. Permissiveness is the attitude of the judge on the bench, and justice is not really being executed.
That's what it appeared that God was doing. The divine attribute of justice, in other words, appeared to be violated. So, it was whispered among
people that the God of the Old Testament was really an unrighteous God, no matter what He said, because people said, "How clean a place can heaven
be if you have men in it like Abraham and Jacob and Moses and David and Saul? How clean a place can that heaven be?" That was a legitimate question.
God appeared indeed to have monumentally failed to live up to what He claimed to be.
"For this reason: to declare His character of righteousness (to demonstrate it) for the remission of sins." The word for here is the word "dia," and
it means "because of." It introduces specifically what God for centuries had been doing which had appeared to be unrighteous: "because of the
remission of sins." And here you have a very bad translation. The Greek word is "paresis." This is what we call grammatically a "hapax legomena."
That means it's only used once in the New Testament. This is the only place this word is used.
Passing Over
Now, there is a different word which is used in the New Testament: "aphesis." And that does mean "remission." The word "remission" means
"forgiveness," and it is used in Ephesians 1:7 and Hebrews 9:22. The Greek Bible has this word "aphesis" which does mean "forgiveness" or "remission."
But "paresis" does not mean "remission." It does not mean "forgiveness." It is a very definite word, and it is one of those used-once-only words by
God the Holy Spirit, because He's making a very special declaration. So, he takes a word and uses it once, and it's a very special use. What this
word means is (and you want to get this) "passing over." It connotes a suspension of divine judgment against sin. It is a withholding of punishment
against sin. It does not connote an ignoring of the punishment which is deserved. God was not just forgetting sin, but He was passing over what He
calls "hamartema." "Hamartema" means "a sinful deed" or "an act of sin." It refers specifically to the act of disobedience to God's standards,
however expressed: moral codes; moral violations; and, so on. "Hamartema" is a specific violation of those standards.
He speaks here of God passing over – not forgiving, but passing over the violations of the standards of God that are "past." And the word is
"proginomai." "Proginomai" means to happen before. So, in other words, God had been passing over sins that happened before. What is this referring
to? Well, it's referring to all the sins from the time of Adam to the death of Christ on the cross. It was before the propitiatory work of Jesus
Christ on the cross. God was passing over the sins of people. It refers specifically to that act where God was not taking action, and was not
delivering to Abraham; to Jacob; to Moses; to David; and, to Saul that which His justice rightfully demanded against them.
This verb is in the perfect tense. So, it refers to sins which were done in the past, and the fact of guilt continues to the present. It's active
voice, which means that these were done by choice of the sinner (his sins in the past). It is a participle, which indicates a principle is being
stated here.
"The sins of the past through." "Through" introduces what God was doing with the sin guilt of people before: "in the forbearance of God." That's the
word "anoche." "Anoche" mans "holding back." It connotes bearing with something. It refers to the demands of God's justice against sin, and it is the
holding back of God. In other words, God should have taken a thunderbolt and zapped these people immediately. The moment they died, He should have
taken their souls and cast them into the torments part of Hades. Instead, He lets them come over to the paradise part of Hades. Abraham was obviously
such a leading figure in the paradise part of Hades (which was the condition before the resurrection of Christ), that that place was referred to by
the Jews as "Abraham's Bosom." It was also called by the Persian word "paradise." It was a place of blessing and joy. And here, all these sinners are
over in the paradise part. How can that be? Because God was passing over their sins.
Now, the divine holding back in satisfying the demands of His own divine justice was based upon a plan that God had for the future. While it looked,
perhaps, as if God Himself were being unjust, and that God was acting as a sinner, God had a reason for holding back. We have this principle of God
passing over sin and holding back judgment against sin. And passing over does not mean He forgave it. That's the mistake that people make – that
passing over meant that God was forgiving. A judge may say, "I am not going to sentence you today. You will be sentenced one week from today." That
does not mean that he has forgiven the criminal his crime. It only means that he is delaying the punishment. And what God was doing for the sins of
these people that we have referred to was delaying the punishment for their sins. God was not violating His own justice and His own righteousness.
We have this same principle in Acts 14:16, where Luke says, "Who, in times past, allowed all nations to walk in their own ways." Paul here is making
a speech, and he refers to the fact that in times past (those Old Testament times), God let people walk in their own ways, and He did not execute
what justice would have demanded against them. Acts 17:30 refers to the same thing: "And the times of this ignorance God overlooked, but now commands
all men everywhere to repent." In times past, God overlooked sin – before the cross. But once the payment had been made, and once propitiation
was there, and the justice of God against sin was satisfied, then God said, "Now I cannot overlook. Now you must act. Now you must receive Christ, or
you're doomed to the lake of fire."
In the ages before the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, God did not deal with sinners with a wrath commensurate to their sins, which would have been to
cast them immediately into Torments. God is not acting unjustly by this forbearance in the past. His absolute righteousness was not compromised. It
was the fact that He was a God of love that led Him to this kind of gracious mercy, such that He could come to Abraham and say, "Abraham, if you'll
trust Me, I'm going to have your sins paid for. Your sins are not paid for now. But I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'll give you salvation on
credit. All these people in the Old Testament were saved on credit. It was one of the greatest bargains of the Old Testament (of the ancient) world
– salvation on credit. These people went to heaven, indeed, into the presence of God, even though their sins had not been paid for.
While people whispered about the so-called righteousness and the justice of God, they didn't know what they were talking about. For God was, in His
wisdom, simply delaying His judgment, because He had a plan that would meet the payment for that sin. When He promised eternal life to Abraham; to
Jacob; to Moses; to David; and, to Saul, He knew he could deliver. He knew that He Himself, as God, would not be guilty of sin by permitting these
people to enter His presence before their sins had been paid for. It was suspension of judgment. That's not the same thing as forgiveness or
ignoring of sins. It was a delayed sentence.
However, people are prone to view God's wrath with indifference. They look at these Old Testament characters, and they say, "Boy, look what people
got away with. I don't know that this God is such a God of wrath." That would be a very grave mistake for you to make. It's a grave mistake for you
to make – to think that God's wrath is not going to be exercised simply because it has been delayed in the past. But this Scripture stresses
to us that the first reason for the propitiation (for the sacrifice) of Jesus Christ was to vindicate the character of God, and to prove that the
holiness of God was unimpuned. God had to demonstrate this fact of the justice in His dealing with sin. Jesus Christ made this possible by paying for
the sins of all the ages past, and all the ages to come, so that what God had temporarily passed over in judgment was now paid for. And what was
given on credit to Abraham and the saints of the Old Testament could now be given to them in reality. Eternal life was theirs on the proper ground of
the fact that sin had been paid for. That's the only way you can have eternal life. The demands of God's justice are fully met against sin, and the
ground is established for salvation which was previously given on a temporary basis.
So today, do not make the mistake of not appreciating the wrath of God just because God is so gracious. He is indeed a God of love, but He is a God
of intense wrath, and while He restrains the exercise of that wrath, today there is a ground for eternal life. Today, anybody can be saved. The death
of Christ has made all this possible. God's justice is no longer a problem. His absolute righteousness can immediately be met by imputing the
righteousness of Christ to the believer. The issue is your acceptance or your rejection of what He has provided. But if you reject it, then His wrath
will be exercised someday toward you.
Today, God is passing over your sins (in a way) still, as He did in the Old Testament. He's passing it over until the day you breathe your last
breath, and then comes His judgment.
So, if you're counting on the fact that you're as good as the next person, or if you're counting on the fact that God obviously seems to have been
very gracious to a lot of people in history past, relative to their sins, He was only gracious because He had a ground for that graciousness. And if
you do not accept Christ as Savior, then you cut the ground out from under God, and He cannot be gracious to you. Then His wrath is the only thing
you will face.
If you're not a Christian today, we can highly commend to you that you receive this Savior, because His provision has made it possible for God's
wrath to simply be deflected from you completely. If you reject the provision, then the book of Hebrews tells us that in the Old Testament, a man
would die for such a simple thing as picking up sticks on the Sabbath day under the testimony of two or three witnesses. Then it says, "What do you
think you're going to suffer at the hands of a God of absolute righteousness and justice when you reject the kind of provision that Christ has made
to pay for your sins forever?" Your sins are paid for, and yet you refuse to accept it. If under the Law of Moses, such severe penalties were handed
out without the beating of an eyelash, what do you think you're going to receive if you reject so great a salvation? Think it over. It's a question
that you're going to answer sooner or later.
Dr. John E. Danish, 1977
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