There are many people who regard God’s love as meaning that there

is no judgement. God is love, therefore there is no hell. God is love,

therefore he does not judge. God is love, therefore he has no wrath.

Well, that’s a Lego God. A build-it-yourself God. Take the bits you

like and make God. It’s not the biblical God.

Indeed, for the New Testament, God’s love is revealed in the very

thing which reveals his wrath. You see the love of God most clearly

and fully in the very place where you see his judgement most

horribly. ‘This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us

and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins’ (1 John 4:10).

God’s love is holy love, not auntie love.

For God is holy, and his burning purity blazes out against all

wickedness, all evil. But what does God do with the burning purity

of his wrath against the monstrous evil of our sin?

He turns it upon himself! He takes the fire of his holy wrath and

turns it upon himself so that he is consumed by the fire of

judgement.

That is love. That is grace.

Allan Chapple, ‘The Price Is Paid’ in On Being,

Vol.19, No.11, December 1992, p.39

~~~

It is essential to keep together… two complementary ways of

looking at the cross. On the human level, Judas gave him up to the

priests, who gave him up to Pilate, who gave him up to the soldiers,

who crucified him. But on the divine level, the Father gave him up,

and he gave himself up, to die for us. As we face the cross, then,

we can say to ourselves both ‘I did it, my sins sent him there’ and

‘he did it, his love took him there’.

John Stott, The Cross of Christ, Leicester:Inter-

Varsity Press, 1986, p.61

~~~

An incident that took place several years ago in California

illuminates what Jesus did on the cross in order to solve the problem

God had in dealing with the sin of humanity. A young woman was

picked up for speeding. She was ticketed and taken before the judge.

The judge read off the citation and said, ‘Guilty or not guilty?’ The

woman replied, ‘Guilty.’ The judge brought down the gavel and

fined her $100 or 10 days. Then an amazing thing took place. The

judge stood up, took off his robe, walked down in front, took out

his wallet and paid the fine. What’s the explanation of this? The

judge was her father. He loved his daughter, yet he was a just

judge. His daughter had broken the law and he couldn’t simply say

to her, ‘Because I love you so much, I forgive you. You may

leave.’ If he had done that, he wouldn’t have been a righteous

judge. He wouldn’t have upheld the law. But he loved his daughter

so much that he was willing to take off his judicial robe and come

down in front and represent her as her father and pay the fine.

Josh McDowell, More Than A Carpenter,

Eastbourne,E.Sussex:Kingsway Publications,

1988, pp.111,112

~~~

The abiding significance of the cross is that it is the judgement of the

world, the judgement and the deliverance of man… The real

meaning of the cross is that it has created a new and permanent

situation in history. The preaching of the cross as the event of

redemption challenges all who hear it to appropriate this significance

for themselves, to be willing to be crucified with Christ…

Cross and resurrection form a single, indivisible cosmic event which

brings judgement to the world and opens up for men the possibility

of authentic life.

Rudolph Bultmann, Kerygma and Myth, Vol.1,

SCM Press, p.36-39

quoted in Colin Chapman, The Case for

Christianity, Tring, Herts:Lion Publishing, 1981,

p.272

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