One pastor-friend wrote:

So what happens to the wrath of God?

Nathan replied:

What happens to your wrath when you are justifiably outraged by something done to you, but in the love and grace you have learnd from Christ you forgive without seeking some form of retribution? Take your answer, multiply it by perfection, and perhaps we have the answer to what happens to the wrath of God. I'm not seeking to discount the wrath of God at all, but how on earth could God ask us to forgive without seeking to make someone pay if he is incapable of doing it himself? Surely that would reduce God's power, grace and credibility?

Pastor-friend:

It seems to me that you describe the Cross as something done to Jesus Christ by people. Where is God the Father in it? What are we to make of the biblical material - including statements from Jesus himself - that speaks of the Cross as the outworking of the Father's will?

Nathan:

Presumably the alternative to the cross being something done to Jesus by people is that it is something done to Jesus by God the Father? Is that what you are suggesting?

Would you have respect for any other father whose anger was so out of control that the only way he could stop himself from killing everyone else was to kill his own child? If there was such a story in tomorrow's newspaper, would any of us preach it as a wonderful illustration of the nature of God? Surely not. How can we be expected to respect in God attributes which we would regard as psychotic and criminal in anyone else, and which God clearly asks us to repent of?

The cross was the outworking of the Father's will because it was the Trinity's will to perfectly incarnate the gratuitous love and freedom of God among us, even though they recognised that to do so would inevitably result in being rejected, cast out, victimised and killed by us. It is the outworking of God's will because God said , "We know that this is what it will cost us, but the mission is so important that it is a price we are willing to pay."

Where is the Father at the crucifixion? Siding with the corrupt judges and victimisers in order to satisfy his own need to take out his rage on someone? Surely not! Where then? Entering into the hell of human helplessness and grief as he watches his own son tortured to death at the hands of the people he created and loves and would willingly die for. If it is true that in seeing Jesus we have seen the Father, then surely that sounds a lot more likely.

And what do we see at the resurrection? Do we see a God with blood still dripping from his teeth who can tolerate our presence only because he has been sufficiently sated with the blood of an innocent man? Or do we see God the despised victim who rises in triumph, and greets us, his betrayers and victimisers, utterly devoid of resentment and overflowing with gratuitous forgiveness? Surely only one of those images is worthy of worship? And surely only one of those images is consistent with the God who has most definitively revealed his nature to us in Jesus?

Peace and hope,

Nathan