APPROVAL OR ANGER?

Bob Bonner
Romans 3:24-25
November 13, 1994
 

A shopper, living on a tight budget, is looking for every bargain he can find at the market to stretch his dollar for everything he can get. After choosing one brand over another, because he could save fifty cents on the bargain item, he continued his bargain shopping. After purchasing his goods, he returned home. While unloading his groceries he noticed that somehow he had ended up with the more expensive brand of sugar. He looked at the sales ticket to see if he had been charged the extra fifty cents, and he sure had. Somehow absent-mindedly, he had put the wrong bag of sugar in his cart. As a result he wasted fifty cents of his hard earned limited income. Mad at himself, he yelled at himself, “You stupid idiot! You knew better, but you blew it anyway. You just threw away fifty cents!”

Take another scenario: You are at a social function playing a party game called TABOO. The object of this game is to identify as many words that relate to a subject given on a card. Each team listens to one of their members clues and tries to guess the correct words. A member of one team calls out a wrong word that has nothing to do with the subject category that was chosen. Everyone in the room laughs at this person’s blunder, and you teasingly say, “Boy you have to be pretty retarded to come up with that answer!”, only to recall too late that the woman sitting next to you only weeks before had been informed that her only child has been proven to have mental retardation. Your two eyes meet, you apologize, but inside your head you are thinking, “What a cruel thing to say. I should be shot where I sit!”. Right there, if you could and not be considered insane, you feel like hitting yourself for being so insensitive. Instead, you sit there absorbed in the internal heat of full blown embarrassment. You are angry and maybe even hate yourself for doing such a dumb thing.

When you see a weakness or failure in you life, do you ever think or call yourself a name out loud? What are some of the things that you say to yourself at those times? What are some of the names you hear yourself call yourself?

When others make a mistake, your children, spouse, a friend or your pastor, do you ever think, “What an insensitive boor?”, or feel like telling them, “You are a real     .” (Fill in the blank: dummy, wimp, idiot, jerk, stubborn, insensitive, lazy, irresponsible, forgetful, ugly, social klutz, incompetent, chicken, etc.)

Why do we do that? Why do we hammer ourselves and others when we or they do something wrong? Why do we berate ourselves? I think I have the answer. Every human being, criminals as well as law-abiding citizens, have or have had at some point in time a very strong sense of justice. And along with the sense of justice, for many of us, has come the belief that people should be punished for doing wrong or at least pay for their mistakes. We don’t like to see others getting away with something that they should be punished for or perhaps that we with we could do ourselves, but we don’t because it is wrong. We don’t like it when others live irresponsible and seemingly get away with it. There is a deep seated belief that wrong doings deserve punishment. And that includes the feeling that as Christians, we deserve punishment when we do something wrong before God. Hence, if we are going to punish others for their failures, then we reason that if we are going to be consistent, we deserve to be punished for our own mistakes, so we call ourselves names or chew ourselves out for our own mistake 

In a twisted for of self-motivation of others, we may think that if we condemn ourselves enough for our errors or we condemn our children enough times for their mistakes, then perhaps we or others won’t fail again. However, this process won’t necessarily change behavior. Whether our wrong doing concerns God or others, many of us operate on the subtle theory that if we are hard enough on ourselves, if we punish ourselves enough, then maybe God or others won’t have to. Because when He punishes or when they punish, He or they carry a bigger stick.

It’s a warped idea, yet, we function under it. Doing penance neither changes one’s behavior nor does it make one more acceptable to others and least of all to God.

Furthermore, we are going to see how it is, that God is able to love us and how we are able to receive that love, even when we have wronged and angered Him.

Earlier I introduced to you what I call the “THE BIG LIE” and “THE BIGGER TRUTH”. Both of these deal with how we can determine our personal value and worth. The “BIG LIE” is this world’s way of determining your value. It states that your self worth is equal to your ability to perform up to a certain standard plus the opinion of others. If we believe this lie, it can lead one to living one’s life under the fear of failure and or the fear of rejection. There is another fear that believing this lie leads to and that is the fear of punishment. In other words, if I fail to live up to a standard, I fear that I will somehow suffer for it or be punished.

The “BIGGER TRUTH”, on the other hand, frees those who believe it, from the trap of living under the fear of what will happen if I fail to live up to a standard or if people don’t like me or reject me. The “BIGGER TRUTH” states that a Christian’s value and worth is based upon Christ’s performance on our behalf plus what God thinks of us, based upon what Christ has done for us.

In light of this “BIGGER TRUTH”, we looked at two key terms last week, found in the book of Romans 3:21-24, that support this “BIGGER TRUTH”. The first key term is “righteousness” which we said is a term that used in the book of Romans does not focus so much on what a righteous God or a righteous man does, but rather who a righteous God or a righteous man is. It is a term that refers to someone who is just and has his or her life together. It refers to someone who is fully accepted and approved and considered good.

The second term, which comes from the same root word from which we get this first term “righteous”, is the term “justification”. This term means not merely to, “declare someone to be righteous” but in fact, that person is made righteous. For instance: when God, with a word, declared that there would be a heavens and an earth, that word to declare is equal to having actually made the heavens and earth. It was a done deal. He declared it and it was!

Hence, when a person puts their trust in Jesus Christ, He declares and makes that person righteous, perfectly accepted, fully approved never able to displease God again. Furthermore, we were made spiritually alive or born again, when we trusted in Christ. Now, one’s character may take a while to catch up to one’s new identity. But the fact is that one is made righteous in one’s spirit. He is a new creation. According to 2 Peter 1:4, that which is new about the Christian is that his very nature, his very identity has been made “partaker of the divine nature” or “Christ in me, and I in Him”.

So, God’s solution to mankind’s spiritual deadness, their loss of sense of value and worth is found in Jesus Christ. When a person puts their trust in Jesus, they are deeply loved, fully pleasing, totally approved of by God.

But how did this take place? In other words, we took one hour last week to explain the truth about God’s solution to our problem, that when a person puts their complete trust in Jesus Christ their identity changes from sinner to saint. They become alive spiritually. They are made righteous and forever pleasing. But how? Well, let’s return to Romans 3:24 and pick up where we left off last week, looking more closely at how this was made possible.

According to verse 24, Paul states, “being justified as a gift by His grace...”. That term “gift” or in some translations “freely” carries with it a rich meaning. It refers to something good or bad that comes to a person “without a price”, so you can’t buy it or earn it, “without a cause” it has nothing to do with what you do or don’t do. Probably one of the most powerful verses in which this same term is used is John 15:25, where Jesus explains to and warns his disciples that mankind “hated Him without a cause”, and later that mankind would likewise hate them for following Him. They would “freely” or “without a cause” reject and put them to death.

Hence in Romans Paul’s strong point here is that when you put your trust in Jesus Christ as your savior and you were made righteous or justified, it was without a cause in you. You were not justified because of anything you did or did not do, but solely upon the performance of Christ on your behalf. There was absolutely nothing in us that could recommend us to God.

So the first thing we learn about the “how” of Christians having been justified or made righteous before God is that is had nothing to do with us, but everything to do with Christ.

The next term helps us better understand the mechanics of how it is that God can transform us sinners into saints. It is the term “redemption”. This term explains the actual legal transaction that made justification possible. Paul states, “being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus”. 

What does this term “redemption” mean? It was a commercial term whose basic idea referred to “loosing or untying or delivering or freeing something”. In New Testament times it was a term used in slave markets to describe people who had been in chains, and who were not free to act as they wanted to. These people were forced to obey their master’s demands. Then someone came along purchased them for a price and set them free from their previous master.

As it is used in the scriptures, the term “redemption” carries with it three very important ideas.

The first idea has to do with people being redeemed from something. Namely from the slavery of sin and from the power of the flesh or the power of sin to control our lives. Whether it be the sin of overeating, a sexual addiction, workaholism.... any sin that seems to control one’s life. In Revelation 1:5 it says that “Jesus Christ... released us from our sins by His blood”. In other words, in the center of our being, sin and the flesh, that propensity or push to do wrong, no longer has the same controlling power over us that we would do wrong. Satan would like us not to know that or to disbelieve that . But the fact of the matter is, this is true. We have been freed from the slavery of hateful actions and thoughts. I didn’t say that you are free from having hateful actions or thoughts, but free from those thoughts controlling your lives.

Different from the non-Christian, the Christian can experience true freedom from past bitterness toward a parent who may have sexually abused them. Freedom from food or drug addictions. Freedom from gambling addictions. Freedom from always having to be defensive about one’s ideas or actions.

But we can only experience that freedom, if we truly understand that we have it. And it is Satan’s goal to keep the Christian in the darkness of ignorance, keep the Christian from learning or believing that he is free from these things and no longer has to allow them to control his or her life. Sin is no longer the Christians owner or master or at the control center of their being. We are no longer held captive, trapped or enslaved by our addictions or our bitterness. We have been set free.

Neil Anderson, in his excellent book, “Living Free In Christ”, uses the following illustration of the reality of freedom and the forces of darkness’ attempt to keep the believer ignorant. On December 18, 1865 slavery was abolished in the U. S. Hence, on the 19th, in reality, there should have been no slaves. “Now suppose,” Anderson says, “several plantation owners were devastated by the Emancipation Proclamation ...[yet their chief spokesman slyly suggests]...Keep your slaves from learning the truth, and your control over them will not even be challenged.” One cotton farmer asked, “But what if the news spreads?” “Don’t panic. We have another barrel in our gun. We may not be able to keep them from hearing the news, but we can still keep them from understanding it. They don’t call me the “father of lies” for nothing. We still have the potential to deceive the whole world. Just tell them that they are going to be free, not that they are free already. The truth they heard is just positional truth, not actual truth. Someday they may receive the benefits, but now.”

“...Years later, many slaves had still not heard the wonderful news that they had been freed, so naturally they continued to live the way they had always lived, as slaves... Then one day, a former slave heard the good news and received it with great joy. He checked out the validity of the Proclamation and discovered that the highest of all authorities had originated the decree. Not only that, but it personally cost the authority a tremendous price so that slaves could be free. The slave’s life was transformed. He reasoned that it would be hypocritical to continue living as a slave, even though his feelings told him he still was. Determined to live by what he knew to be true, his experiences began to change dramatically. He realized that his old master had no authority over him and did not need to be obeyed. He gladly served the one who set him free.” [Living Free p. 56-58]

The reality is that each of us has been tempted to be controlled by sinful practices in our lives and old habit patterns we had developed before we came to Christ. But just as real as the old habit is the truth that where as before Christ we had no power to cease from practicing that which we know to be wrong, now that we have Christ, we do have the power to live as we ought and want to live. Through redemption, Christ has opened the door and freed us from the control of sinful patterns in our lives. He has given us a way out. No longer can we be controlled by evil influences, when we understand that we are free.

So the first basic idea of redemption is that we are freed from something, the controlling power of sin in our lives. The second basic idea of redemption is that people are redeemed by something; namely by the payment price of the blood of Christ.

Jesus said in Matthew 20:28, “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many”. Peter, 1 Peter 1:18-19, writes, “knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold... but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ”.

The blood here refers to the death of Christ. But to fully understand this statement, one must understand the parallel from the Old Testament that Peter is referring to. Around the time of the first Passover in Egypt, God said that the first born child of every household, the Egyptians and the Hebrews, would die. However, if they had sacrificed an unblemished lamb and applied its blood to the door posts of the house, the angel of death would pass by the house and the first born son would be spared. Now, the family may have had a cute little lamb scampering around the house of the Israelite. But this little lamb could not save the life of the first born son from the avenging angel of death if the lamb stayed alive. It had to be slain. In the same way, it is Jesus’ death, His blood paid the price that made it possible for justice to be paid and for us to be declared and made righteous.

One additional thought about the extent to which Christ’s death paid for our freedom: When Jesus was on the cross, His final words were “It is finished”. Like the term redemption, the term for finished is also a financial term used in secular business that refers to a debt being paid in full. Christ’s death paid it all. It’s finished. Nothing needs to be added. Everything that was needed to pay for our release from the penalty and control of sin in our lives was paid for.

The third concept that redemption includes is that we are redeemed to something; namely to a state of freedom under God. Revelation 5:9 says, “For Thou has redeemed us to God by Thy blood...” Not freedom to do whatever we please, but freedom to do what we were created for, to serve Him. We human beings were created to always serve someone, namely God. And it is only in serving Him as our master, that we find our wholeness, peace satisfaction and true freedom to be who we were created to be. 

Look at 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. I would like to challenge you to take this verse and look at it once a day for the next week. Think about its implications for your life. Paul writes, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you [that means all of you: your mind, emotions, will, body, soul, spirit, reputation, personal possessions, goals, dreams, business...all that pertains to you or your life] have been bought with a price: [by Whom? God. Who owns you them? He does!] therefore glorify God in your body.”, or in all that you do.

Look at 1 Corinthians 7:22. “For he who was called in the Lord while a slave, is the Lord’s freedman; likewise he who was called while free, is Christ’s slave. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men.”

But having said that Christ has paid the price so that we could be freed from the control and penalty of sin, we are still left with some unanswered questions. Such as, What happened to God’s wrath or anger against mankind and our sin for turning our backs upon God? Wasn’t God hurt, angered and grieved by our actions? Even though He has forgiven me, isn’t He still angry with me when I sin?

When mankind sins, God is always injured or unjustly treated. It is the nature of justice to always demand that wrong doing be punished. This principle is ingrained in all people, whether you are religious or not, living in a sophisticated, technologically advanced culture or in a backward third-world country. The principle of justice is resident in all of us.

Hence, a lot of us struggle with this idea of God’s anger and we don’t even realize we are struggling with it, until someone points it out to us. Many Christians wonder how God feels about them when they have blown it in their lives. Innately, many people know that God is angry at sin, and some how He needs to be appeased. That’s one reason many religious people in Mexico crawl upon their hands and knees for miles to the “Our Lady of Guadelupe” church, up a long series of stairs, causing them to damage their limbs and bleed. They are trying to show God how sorry they are for their sins and to earn His forgiveness and to turn away from themselves any anger they may think He feels toward them.

On a more everyday level for us: many of us operate on the theory that if we are hard enough on ourselves for our short comings and sins, by calling ourselves names or maybe hitting ourselves on the head, or mentally berating ourselves, or sacrificially giving up something we like, for a temporary basis, like for lent, then God or others won’t have to have to punish us or reject us because He or others are angry at us.

In verse 25, Paul answers how it is that Christ solves God’s anger toward us, once for all. He says in verse 25, “Jesus Christ whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.”

Now, what does “propitiation” mean? Let me demonstrate. The scene is a fast food restaurant. One day while at work, one of the other employees washed the tile floor, but didn’t tell anyone that it was wet. A second employee came around the corner, slipped on the floor, fell down, hitting his head hard on the edge of one of those preparation tables, knocking him out. When the employee came to, weeks later, he had suffered some brain damage and permanent partial paralyzation of his right arm. Because the fast food restaurant had not provided its employees with signs that read “caution wet floor”, the company is at fault. They were negligent in not providing safety equipment, thus endangering the lives of their employees. Therefore, the court awarded the injured employee a tremendous sum of money, to be paid by the company.

When the money is paid, the company had satisfied the demands of justice, according to the court. The company no longer has any responsibility toward this man. However, the court’s “justice” does not say anything about how the employee feels, now that he is partially paralyzed. He many be filled with resentment, bitterness or even hatred toward the company. 

The owner, on the other hand, as a result of this traumatic ordeal for this employee and himself, he decided that he never wanted to see anything like this happen again to one of his employees. He felt so badly, that even after the award of the money, the owner seeks out the injured employee, who is now essentially set “financially speaking” for life. The owner asks the employee if he would come back to work one the payroll to oversee all of his fast food restaurants simply to supervise safety controls so that no more terrible accidents like this one happen again. Furthermore, the owner know that simply sitting around for the rest of your life with no place to work can make a person feel useless, and he didn’t want that for his ex-employee. He wanted him to know that his life is still productive and he could produce a worthwhile service to a company like his.

At this point, the injured employee, although he can’t turn back the clock and change the fact that the accident happened, his anger subsides. His bitterness and hatred dissolve. He realizes that it was an accident and that the owner genuinely cares about him. As a result, he accepts the offer and goes on to develop some safety policies that protected and saved many future employees for unnecessary injury.

As a parallel to this story, Paul is saying that human sin has injured and angered God. Just as the employee was injured by the company’s negligence, our sin has hurt and injured God and made Him rightfully angry. We wronged our creator. Justice, therefore, demands that we be punished for that sin in some way.

In the death of Jesus, that punishment was accomplished. Our sin was paid for or atoned, and we were justified. We were made right. However, God’s anger was also satisfied by Christ’s death, so that God’s love, in turn was awakened and now He is able to release all of His love toward all who put their trust in Christ. For all who put their trust in Christ, He will never be angry with us again. That’s propitiation.

This “propitiation” means “to satisfy the anger of one [God] who has been unjustly wronged, and to release in him [God] the power to freely love the one who wronged him” God’s hostility has been soothed. His need for vengeance has been satisfied. All He wants to do with His saints (forgiven sinners) is pour out His love on them.

Look at 1 John 4:9-10. In this passage, see the concept of justice and love tied together with propitiation. It reads, “By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son {to be} the propitiation for our sins.”

This whole concept of “propitiation” was in Jesus mind when he told the story of the Pharisee and tax collector. Look with me at Luke 18:10 where Jesus says, “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, and the other a tax-gatherer. The Pharisee stood and was praying thus to himself, ‘God, I thank Thee that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax-gatherer. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax-gatherer, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying ‘God be merciful [propitiate] to me, the sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted.”

Jesus was saying that this man realized that he could not earn God’s approval. He knew that he had wronged God and that God rightfully was angry at him. He knew that he deserved to die and be separated from God forever. Because he humbled himself and called upon the Lord, the Lord not only forgave this sinner, but justified him. Made him righteous and was “merciful” or made sure that God’s anger was satisfied so that this broken man could receive the love of God.

As I said at the beginning, each of us know that wrong doing deserves to be punished. We have this inbred sense of justice. However, as Christian’s, we ought to know, that all of our error or wrong doing toward God, all of our sin has not only been punished through Christ’s death, but Christ’s death has also satisfied all of the anger of God.

Hence, if God’s anger is satisfied concerning our failures, then why are we continuing to get angry at ourselves for even our slightest mistakes? Answer: Because we have been deceived by the wicked one. We are trying to maintain our self worth on our ability to live up to a standard of perfection that leaves no room for error and the approval of others. And when we don’t measure up, we get angry with ourselves.

Friends, when we base our worth on the Bid Lie, we either live under the fear that when we make a mistake, God is going to reject us or get angry with us. That’s a lie. God does not want us to live that way. He sent Jesus Christ to us that we might be forgiven for our rebellion against God. Jesus came to die for us so that we might be redeemed, to be made righteous and removed from the anger of God and placed under his constant love.

Therefore, if you know Christ as your Savior and Lord, God is not angry with you, nor will He ever be. If you forget a step in calculating a math problem and end up with the wrong answer... so what? Don’t beat yourself up. God doesn’t measure your worth on how well you perform. He bases it on what Christ has done for you. Work hard at whatever you do out of a desire to honor the Lord, not to maintain his pleasure with you or to earn rewards. And when you blow it, admit it. God will take care of the rest. If He wants you to earn a sports scholarship or get a promotion, then you will get it. On the other hand, if He doesn’t want you to get it, something will prevent it from happening. If it happens to be a mistake on your part... don’t sweat it. Your value and worth was never based on a promotion, scholarship or family’s approval anyway. Your value and worth is based upon what the almighty God declares to be true about you. 

And depending upon the mistake, learn to laugh at your human frailty and move on knowing that you are secure in God’s love. He will never be angry at you for your imperfection. He deeply loves you.

Now we have only touched upon the subject of propitiation and its relationship to anger. In a few weeks we are going to look at it more in depth. In the meantime, will you please read and study Matthew 18:21-35. As you do, look for the relationship between our anger and God’s propitiating work. How does Christ’s work on our behalf further affect us and the way we relate to those around us?

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