Reason #1 – To Absorb the Wrath of God
If God were not just, there would be no demand for his Son to suffer and die. And if God were not loving, there would be no willingness for his Son to suffer and die. But God is both just and loving. Therefore His love is willing to meet the demands of his justice. (p. 20)
We don’t often think of wrath and love having any relation to one another. But Piper makes it clear right out of the gate that the Love of God and the Wrath of God are interwoven more than we can ever imagine.
Not only can we not fully understand this great relationship between love and wrath, but we will never know the enormity of God’s love and wrath.
The wrath of God cannot be suppressed by human means. Not only on this earth, but as we see in Revelation 20:10, even eternity is not long enough for us to satisfy God’s wrath. Forever is not long enough to try and please God in our own means.
That’s also the beauty of God’s love. His love is so expansive that forever is not long enough for us to exceed receiving His love.
And that brings us back to the quiet night in a small hillside town over 2,000 years ago.
That first muffled cry in the night by a newborn baby born to a virgin mother was a clarion call of God’s love exploding through the centuries.
For you.
For me.
That cry came from the very son of God who came to absorb His wrath on our behalf.
Jonathan, so true. It’s a profound statement. This is how and why the cross revealed the absolute glory of God. If we think of glory as character. What is God like? We only have to look at the cross. God’s love is only as big as His wrath. His grace is only as wide as His judgement. At the cross they met.