There’s a looming brouhaha in the theological world over the nature of Christ’s atonement for our sins by His death on the cross. Perhaps this has been going on for a long, long time, but it seems I’m hearing a lot about it on the blogosphere all of a sudden.

From what I’ve read, the general objection to the concept of “penal substitution” (i. e., Jesus took the penalty, or the punishment, that we rightly deserve because of our sin and rebellion against our just Creator) revolves around a reluctance to give forceful weight to that dreaded “w” word (dare I say it?) — wrath. Oh, we love to talk about a God of Love, of Grace, of Mercy, of Hope, of Blessing; but when it comes to a God of Wrath and Justice, we get pretty nervous and squeamish, don’t we?

I don’t know about you, but I’m a human of wrath and justice. When I hear about innocent children being exploited by monsters because of human trafficking and the sex trade, I’m filled with hot wrath at the injustice and horror of such evil. When I hear about men who beat their wives, when I hear about women who betray their husbands and family to go have an affair, when I hear about a government official who lied and cheated to get ahead, when I hear about a beautiful, pristine landscape mutilated by crass development gone too far, when I hear about millions of people who don’t have access to clean water because their leaders have failed them, when I look at the sin and shame of my own actions…

I am filled with wrath and want to see justice done. How can I possibly worship a God, the Creator of the universe, the Lord over all, and not expect His quality of wrath and His sense of justice to be infinitely more profound, more heart-wrenching, more terrifying, than anything I could ever fathom?

Yet because God is love, and because God is merciful, He has provided a way for us to escape the condemnation and shame of our sin and the wrath of his justice. There is such glory and blessing in the Gospel of the Kingdom, but the reason we have access to the Kingdom of Heaven is because we are no longer estranged from our Father in Heaven. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is what provides this union for all who believe. Jesus is our Way to the Father.

Psalm 103:8 sums up this awesome and magnificent image of God perfectly:

The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

God isn’t just some kind of strange mixture of anger and love — He is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love! In other words, at the end of the day, at the end of the age, at the end of all time, God isn’t angry. He is in love!

LOVE WINS!