PCUSA uncomfortable with phrase "Till on that cross as Jesus died / the wrath of God was satisfied."

PCA or PCUSA? Big difference between the title of the article and the link.

[Shaynus]

PCA or PCUSA? Big difference between the title of the article and the link.

Corrected …. sorry

And, actually, it was 9 (out of 15) members of the Presbyterian Committee on Congregational Song (PCOCS) not the denomination as a whole that rejected the song. The song is sung in some PCUSA churches as per this May 2013 article.

I smell a liberal theological rat here in someone’s hymnology. Without the imputation of God’s wrath there is no imputation of our sin. Without the imputation of sin - we can’t have the righteousness of Jesus. Oh my word!

Straight Ahead!

jt

[Joel Tetreau]

I smell a liberal theological rat here in someone’s hymnology. Without the imputation of God’s wrath there is no imputation of our sin. Without the imputation of sin - we can’t have the righteousness of Jesus. Oh my word!

Straight Ahead!

jt

Are you sure? How do you know that you are not injecting your theology into Scripture. The Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world was not the object of God’s wrath on the cross. Jesus stated, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one I claim to be and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him” (John 8:28-29). Jesus, God the Son in the flesh, always pleased his Father. It is inconceivable that God would pour out his wrath on the One who always pleases him. Jesus died on the cross for our sins. The Scriptures do not state that Jesus died on the cross to appease God’s wrath or to bear his wrath. It just isn’t in the Bible.

Jesus also stated, “But a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me” (John 16:32). God and the Father are one. Jesus freely laid down his life for us as God’s gift. He was and is the Lamb. And he was never the recipient of God’s wrath. The offering of Jesus was a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God as he gave himself up for us (Ephesians 5:1-2). God loves the Son. Period.

Jesus affirmed God’s love for him when he quoted Psalms 22:1 and the last word of Psalm 22:31 (asa’ - it is finished). This psalm clearly teaches that Jesus was not forsaken by God. It teaches that God “has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help” (v. 24).

Somehow, when a person believes in Jesus Christ and his sacrifice on the cross for his or her sins, that person receives the righteousness of Christ. But it isn’t explained in Scripture how that takes place. Importing a 14th or 15th century theory of the atonement into the Scriptures is extremely dangerous. The early church did just fine without the reformers theory of atonement.

Now to all my friends on this board, if you can show me a verse from Scripture that states that God poured out his wrath on Jesus when he died on the cross, I will believe it.

Blessings!

Hi Don, would you agree that Christ’s death was substitutionary? Was it expiatory?

The hymn would be much more scriptural if it said, “the love of God was satisfied.”

There are numerous verses in the Bible that teach us that Jesus died on the cross to satisfy the love of God.

John 3:16

Romans 5:8

1 John 4:10

The God who is love wants to forgive sin. But since animal sacrifices cannot take away sin (Hebrews 10:4, 11), God passed over the sins committed beforehand (Romans 3:25). But in order for God to be just, a perfect divine/human sacrifice must be offered so that God in his love can forgive those who believe in Jesus’ name (Hebrews 10:12, Romans 3:26).

The atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ satisfies God’s love and makes it right for God to forgive those who believe in Jesus. John affirms this when he states, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Paul affirmed the same thing in Romans 3:26.

The fact remains, “that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ” (2 Cor. 5:19). When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. This is why Paul can implore us to “be reconciled to God” (v. 20). He then explains that God made Jesus who had no sin to be a sin offering for us, “so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (v. 21).

Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God, was our sin offering. God provided the Lamb. He gave his Son. And his Son gave himself up for us as a fragrant and beautiful sacrifice to God. And where was God in all of this? In Christ.

Maybe the Greek gods were angry and needed to be appeased by a sacrifice. But the Bible reveals a God who is vastly different from the Greek gods. The God of the Bible is a God who is love, who is filled with loving kindness toward humanity, and who provides his own Son to be an atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world. Not to appease his anger and wrath, but to satisfy his love.

You can read about it in the Scriptures!

Blessings.

Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.

~Isaiah 53

21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

~I Cor. 5

[Shaynus]

Hi Don, would you agree that Christ’s death was substitutionary? Was it expiatory?

Yes, Jesus’ death was substitutionary. Jesus died for us.

Romans 5:8

2 Corinthians 5:15

1 Thess. 5:10

He died for our sins and takes our sins away. So his death is expiatory.

1 Corinthians 15:3.

Hebrews 10:11-12

1 Peter 3:18

John 1:29

[DavidO]

Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.

~Isaiah 53

21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

~I Cor. 5

The word for “punishment” in Isaiah 53:5 is moo/sar, and it means discipline in this context. The LXX translated this Hebrew word as paidea, which means training or discipline.

The discipline that brings us peace is nothing less than the obedience of Jesus Christ to the Father’s will to die for us, to carry our sins upon his body. Hebrews 5:7-9 and Philippians 2:8 reveal that Jesus learned obedience from what he suffered. He was made perfect in the sense that he willingly and obediently submitted to the Father’s will (Luke 22:42). He was obedient to death - even death on a cross (Phil. 2:8)!

It was this discipline that resulted in obedience to death that brought us peace. Punishment was not upon him but discipline - the discipline to subject himself to the Father’s will and become obedient to death.

Blessings.

Don, yes God is love. But he is also a just God. A god who hates iniquity and punishes the evil doer.

Just do a word search in the Bible for ‘wrath’ and ‘vengeance’.

God loves his chosen people, and hates others.

[christian cerna]

Don, yes God is love. But he is also a just God. A god who hates iniquity and punishes the evil doer.

Just do a word search in the Bible for ‘wrath’ and ‘vengeance’.

God loves his chosen people, and hates others.

I agree with you that God is love, that God is just, and that God hates iniquity and punishes the evil doer.

But Jesus was not an evil doer. He was an innocent, perfect, sinless sacrifice given to us by God’s love and Jesus’ obedience to the Father’s will.

Blessings!

Do you have a verse that teaches that God poured out his wrath on Jesus?

Don, Jesus Christ took on himself the punishment that we deserved. He died among criminals, hanged on a cross. He died for us, though he was innocent and sinless before God.

But regardless of one’s theological view, the song doesn’t even say that the wrath of God was against Christ. It merely says that when Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied. It could refer to the wrath of God that we deserved, when we were once children of wrath. Jesus’s death satisfied the justice of God.

Ephesians 2:3
“…among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

Don,

“My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” was quoted by Jesus at the cross. If he was seen by God as only innocent, why would God forsake Him (and do the rest of the imagery in PS 22)? It’s not impossible for God to see Jesus both as sinless and as bearing the sin of the world. Just like the doctrine of the trinity, our categories for what is possible or impossible break down in the light of the cross. Why can’t it be that God can pour his wrath out on Jesus who is made sin for us, and that the same Jesus be perfectly sinless. I see no contradiction. In addition to Is. 53, what about Psalm 22?

[Don Sailer] The discipline that brings us peace is nothing less than the obedience of Jesus Christ to the Father’s will to die for us, to carry our sins upon his body. Hebrews 5:7-9 and Philippians 2:8 reveal that Jesus learned obedience from what he suffered. He was made perfect in the sense that he willingly and obediently submitted to the Father’s will (Luke 22:42). He was obedient to death - even death on a cross (Phil. 2:8)!

It was this discipline that resulted in obedience to death that brought us peace. Punishment was not upon him but discipline - the discipline to subject himself to the Father’s will and become obedient to death.

Bolding mine, of course. Those two statements say two things that seem not be consistent with one another. Would Jesus have obeyed without being disciplined?

Don, you say Jesus died for our sins. What do you mean by for? Because of? On behalf of? In service of? For can mean a lot of things. Protestants have traditionally believed that “for” in that context means in punishment of.

Do you believe a sinner is declared righteous when converted? How can a just God declare a sinner righteous if his sins have not been punished?

How does the ‘satisfying love’ view of the atonement explain this from Galatians 3?

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us - for it is written, ‘Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree.