THE PUNISHMENT OF GOD
But he endured the suffering that should have been ours, the pain that we should have borne. All the while we thought that his suffering was punishment sent by God. Isa. 53:4, T.E.V.
There Jesus was, hanging uncerimoniously upon an instrument of shame and torture, mocked by Roman guards. Worse still, He had "entered his own realm, and his own would not receive him" (John 1:11, N.E.B.). Then, to underscore His poverty of spirit, He cried out loudly, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46, N.I.V.).
As our text today states, "He endured the suffering that should have been ours, the pain that we should have borne." However, we need not draw the wrong conclusions as to what this means. We need not think that "his suffering was punishment sent by God." We have the privilege of understanding that it was because of our sins" that "he was wounded" (Isa. 53:5, T.E.V.). In simple language, we can know that He died because He took upon Himself the result of our being separated from our only source of life, God.
Friends, we need not allow the concept of a punishing deity to dominate our thinking. Christ came to portray God as a loving Father. And though it is true that a loving father will at times punish his children, he does this for the express purpose of teaching them reality. The irrevocable death of the wicked is not instruction; it is the reality. On the cross Jesus demonstrated the consequences of eternal separation from God. To see it as punishment is to see God as actively taking the lives of unbelievers, rather than their perishing because they have rejected their Life Source.
It is a tremendously vital issue! It has to do with the quality of our relationship with our heavenly Father. No matter how you cut it, if you think that God will eventually kill you for not believing in Him, your posture toward Him is tainted with fear. Remember, He is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). The final destruction of the wicked is God's "strange act" because it is so against His will to allow any of us to reap the eternal consequences of separation from Him.
The cross is a statement of reality--of the sure outcome of sin and of God's desire that we never experience it! May we all accept such costly evidence, and live.
But he endured the suffering that should have been ours, the pain that we should have borne. All the while we thought that his suffering was punishment sent by God. Isa. 53:4, T.E.V.
There Jesus was, hanging uncerimoniously upon an instrument of shame and torture, mocked by Roman guards. Worse still, He had "entered his own realm, and his own would not receive him" (John 1:11, N.E.B.). Then, to underscore His poverty of spirit, He cried out loudly, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46, N.I.V.).
As our text today states, "He endured the suffering that should have been ours, the pain that we should have borne." However, we need not draw the wrong conclusions as to what this means. We need not think that "his suffering was punishment sent by God." We have the privilege of understanding that it was because of our sins" that "he was wounded" (Isa. 53:5, T.E.V.). In simple language, we can know that He died because He took upon Himself the result of our being separated from our only source of life, God.
Friends, we need not allow the concept of a punishing deity to dominate our thinking. Christ came to portray God as a loving Father. And though it is true that a loving father will at times punish his children, he does this for the express purpose of teaching them reality. The irrevocable death of the wicked is not instruction; it is the reality. On the cross Jesus demonstrated the consequences of eternal separation from God. To see it as punishment is to see God as actively taking the lives of unbelievers, rather than their perishing because they have rejected their Life Source.
It is a tremendously vital issue! It has to do with the quality of our relationship with our heavenly Father. No matter how you cut it, if you think that God will eventually kill you for not believing in Him, your posture toward Him is tainted with fear. Remember, He is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9). The final destruction of the wicked is God's "strange act" because it is so against His will to allow any of us to reap the eternal consequences of separation from Him.
The cross is a statement of reality--of the sure outcome of sin and of God's desire that we never experience it! May we all accept such costly evidence, and live.
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