LIVING WITH A GOD OF APPROVAL OR ANGER?

Bob Bonner
Romans 3:25-31
November 27, 1994

For many children, they have been raised by parents who have used the "fear of God" as some sort of club to hold over their children's head to get them to behave. One mother, when disciplining her son would say things like, "You shouldn't do that because God wouldn't like it." Or, "You better not do that because if you do, God will be angry." Or "You do that, and God will get you for it."

Usually, these reminders were sufficient to keep the little guy from getting out of hand. But one evening at supper, the youngster rebelled. He refused to eat the prunes his mother had provided for desert. He would yield neither to persuasion or warnings. Finally, he was sent to bed with the reminder that, "God will be angry with you."

Soon after the child had gone to bed, a violent thunderstorm arose and the mother went to her son's room to quiet him, expecting that he would be in terror at God's anger. But to her surprise, she found him at the window, looking out on the terrible storm. When he noticed his mother come in the room, he said to her, "Man, God sure is making a big fuss about a few prunes!"

Christians and non-Christians alike have misunderstood God's anger and God's punishment. As a result, many Christians live in fear of God's punishment or they live underneath a load of guilt that God never intended for us live under. Furthermore, as a result of not correctly understanding God's anger toward sin, we act wrongly not only toward ourselves, but also toward those around us.

For instance: It is not uncommon for many of us to think that God was going to punish us by causing us to lose all that we have either because we'd done something wrong or failed to do something we should have. Nor is it unusual to run into parents who look back at their lives and wrong choices they made when they were younger and then believe that it was because of those wrong choices or some wrong behavior on their part that God is punishing their children by causing them to be born retarded, or with out an arm or with some physical disorder. 

There is confusion in many minds that the traumatic events that befall all of us are all due to God's punishment or judgment or wrath. Furthermore, some people misconstrue God's punishment for the natural consequences of living with the results of wrong choices. 

For instance: Some would say that God is punishing a girl for being involved in illicit sex by allowing her to get pregnant. Getting pregnant is not a punishment. Getting pregnant is the expected result of sexual intercourse without taking any precautions. Getting aids as a homosexual is not a punishment from God for a sinful lifestyle. Getting aids is a consequence of performing a physical act that the human body was never intended to be involved in, in the first place.

So, how are we to view God's anger as it relates to us as Christians and our sin? What part, if any, does God's punishment play in the Christians life? That's what we started to look at last time we were together. 

One thing we noticed last time, is that we all have the tendency to believe that God responds to us on the basis of how we perform. If we perform well, then He approves of us. On the other hand, if we fail to perform well, God is angry with us. We have believed that our value and worth before God is based on our performance. And when one believes that, it causes one to live in fear of failing. Because if I fail, God might get real angry and punish me.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

We learned from Romans 3:25, that because of Jesus Christ's death and resurrection, God's anger was once and for all appeased. We saw that now, our value and worth before God is not based upon our performance, but rather Christ's performance on our behalf. God will not punish out of anger any believer because of their wrong doing. He may discipline us out of love, but never because He is angry with us.

The key word we looked at which explains this truth is the term that Paul used in verse 25, "propitiation". Because of Christ death on the cross, God's anger was fully "propitiated". We defined propitiation as "Propitiation = "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 [US] who wronged Him." In other words, because of Jesus' work, God will never be angry with the believer again. He may grieve over our sin, but He deeply loves us. We never have to fear His hand wompping on us for our sin or mistakes. His hostility toward the believer has permanently been soothed.

Now this raises an important question for the Christian. And that is, does God, our Holy God, overlook any sin committed by a Christian? The answer to that is no. 1 John 1:5, tells us, "that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all." In other words, God is righteous and holy. There is no darkness or evil in Him at all. He cannot simply overlook or pretend He does not see sin or judge it. If He did simply ignore sin and never judged it, He would compromise His holiness. For God to condone sin or to even overlook sin would defile His holiness. It would be like smearing a white satin wedding gown with black tar.

So, if He cannot overlook a believer's sin and all sin must be punished, then what is God's solution to the sin of a Christian? Isaiah the prophet, tells us what solution Jesus would provide, more than 500 years before His birth. He said, "Yet it was our grief he bore, our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, for his own sins! But he was wounded and bruised for OUR sins. He was chastised that we might have peace; he was lashed---and we were healed!" [Isaiah 53:3-6, LIVING PARAPHRASE]

There is a modern idea of "forgiveness" that I believe may be at the root of confusing people about God's anger needing to be appeased and our need of being freed from the fear of punishment. It is what I call the great eraser principle. It is the idea that if we offend God, He merely comes along with a larger eraser and wipes it off His heavenly black board without any thought of sin needing to be punished or God's anger appeased. However, that is not true. Because God is holy and can not over look sin, every sin still demands full payment, not erasure.

The good news is that as a result of Christ's work on the cross, God's need for vengeance against even the believer was once and for all satisfied two thousand years ago on the cross. Hence, even today when we choose to sin as believers, the blood of Christ is freshly applied each day to our sin and God's need for justice and propitiation is immediately taken care of---based upon Christ's work on the cross. Therefore, every time I sin, I can experience a new and be grateful each day for Christ's propitiating work. Christ's work on the cross is effectively working for me every day. He continues to prove His love for me daily, in that His propitiating work is ongoing toward me. It is only on what Christ did, that I can have free access to God and know that He is not angry with me.

But the question that we must ask ourselves and examine our own lives to see how we fare is this: Do we really understand or believe or accept this truth of Christ's ongoing propitiating work even after we have been told the truth? If we have, what would be some outward evidence that shows we have fully understood and believed this truth? It is one thing for us to hear it, and say "Right. Thanks a lot God for your mercy toward me." But it is quite another thing for us to have really grasped the truth about this so as it changes the way we live before God and others. 

To answer that question of what would be some outward evidence that we fully understand and have applied this truth of propitiation to our lives, I want us to leave momentarily Romans 3 and turn to Matthew 18:21. Here, Jesus will demonstrate an act of propitiation and forgiveness and he will show us the evidence of someone who does not fully grasp the truth or implications of what was done for us. "Then Peter came and said to Him, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. "For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a certain king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. "And when he had begun to settle {them,} there was brought to him one who owed him ten thousand talents. "But since he did not have {the means} to repay, his lord commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had, and repayment to be made."

Ten thousand talents was a lot of money in those days. One authority states that 10,000 talents back then was worth an equivalent $10,000,000 today. Just to put that into perspective, $10,000,000 back then was more than all of the annual taxes of the provinces of Idumea, Judea, Samaria, Galilee and Perea put together. Annually, all of Palestine paid to Rome what would be equivalent today of $800,000 dollars. Even if the master sold all of his slave's belongings and his family into slavery and forced the slave to work all of his life to pay off this debt, the slave could never come up with the full payment of the debt. He would have spent the rest of his life at hard labor with no hope of ever enjoying the soft cushy job that he had had as an administrator over his boss's estate.

Jesus point in using this exorbitant figure was to make the point that it was going to be impossible for any slave to come up with this amount of money and to repay the debt. Similarly, it is impossible apart from Jesus Christ, for us to remove the debt that our sin against God made. It is impossible for us to appease God for the injustices He has suffered at our hands. We could neither earn back our forgiveness nor could we do enough to appease a righteous God's anger toward us. We, apart from Christ, hopelessly stood before the punishing hand of God.

Jesus continues, "The slave therefore falling down, prostrated himself before him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will repay you everything.'" Now that was good and commendable of the slave. He recognized and admitted his wrong doing and was begging for mercy from his master. He knew that he was without hope of ever paying back his lord, but at least he would try to get back more of the losses if only his employer would allow him to stay at his present job and make more money for his master by better and wise controls over the masters estate. So, the master appreciates the slaves recognition of his error and he has mercy on the slave.

The plot thickens. Keep in mind what the slave asks for and what the master grants him. Jesus says, "And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the debt." The slave asked for time to repay a debt that he could never repay, but the King instead totally forgave the debt and presumably freed the man's family and himself of any obligation of paying off the impossible debt. The was going to be no punishment.

Did this man understand what the master had said and done? No. Somehow he believed that he must still repay or be punished. For Jesus continues with the illustration: "But that slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and he seized him and {began} to choke {him,} saying, 'Pay back what you owe.' "So his fellow slave fell down and {began} to entreat him, saying, 'Have patience with me and I will repay you.’”

Apparently, like many of us, this first slave did not understand that there was no more debt. It had been forgiven and taken care of. There was no more punishment or judgment left against this man. He had been relieved of all punishment. But somehow, just like us, always having to prove that we are good enough to be accepted by living up to some standard that we believe will prove us worthy, this slave tries to do the impossible. He tries to earn the approval that his master simply wants to give him. He heard the masters pronouncement but either he did not believe it, understand or accept it or he ignored it. The proof of it is seen in how he deals with himself and other people.

This other slave was asking for the same mercy that the first slave had already received. And since the first slave had been forgiven the debt, he should have forgiven the slave beneath him who had not paid him either. Why? Because there was no more need to pay the debt. But as we will see in a moment, the first slave had quickly forgotten the mercy and forgiveness he had received and goes on to punish those beneath him.

The illustration continues, "He [the first slave] was unwilling however, but went and threw him [the second slave beneath him] in prison until he should pay back what was owed. "So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened. "Then summoning him, his lord said to him, 'You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you entreated me. 'Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, even as I had mercy on you?' "And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. "So shall My heavenly Father also do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart."

This servant never fully understood that the debt had been paid and there was no need for punishment. If he had understood, he would never have treated his peers on a horizontal level the way he did. He would have forgiven them rather acted the way he did and threw them into prison. He had rejected his lord's forgiveness, failing to see his own error and treated others harshly. As a result, the Lord put him in prison.

Today, we hold grudges, act harshly and impatiently, find fault in others and demand perfection of them because we think that we must earn or have earned our approval from others. We believe that no matter what, if one does wrong, that person deserves to be punished. We do this because we do not realize what God has done for us. 

Now, there is a place of governmental discipline or the due process of law. There is a place for even capital punishment. Jesus' point is not to deny capital punishment. Nor is it our point this morning to go into that. The point is, that as we see ourselves vertically before God, the basis of our acceptance before Him, will reveal itself in the way we treat others around us.

Do you condemn others for every mistake or failure of their lives? Do you condemn yourself and call yourself names for every blooper you make? Or do you accept God's compassion, his gift of propitiation and allow yourself and others the freedom to fail? Do you continue to hold grudges against others? If so, then you do not understand to what incredible lengths God had to go to, to save you!

Our ability to be kind to others, forgiving is directly related to the degree that we have personally understood our own depravity and need for God's forgiveness and the removal of His rightful anger toward us. The degree to which we apply gentleness in our correction, sensitivity and long suffering toward others reveals the degree to which we understand what God has done for us. This is why Paul begs the Christians at Ephesus, who like all of us, wronged each other to "forgive each other just as God in Christ also has forgiven you."

What a difference this can have in the way we treat our spouses when they are being insensitive. What a difference this will make when our kids are irritating us and doing this that are wrong and we want to lash back at them. We won't punish others. And the root of punishment is the feeling of anger with a desire to destroy. Instead, we may bring about discipline, like God does toward us, which is not rooted in anger headed for destruction, but instead discipline is rooted in love with the purpose to restore and build up.

As we as parents become secure in our value and worth before God, we won't feel the need to berate our kids when they fail or don't perform well or live up to our expectations, because we think that their poor performance will reflect negatively upon how others see us. Instead, when they do fail, we will deal with them gently, as God, who is no longer angry at us, deals with us.

Quickly, let me give you four results in our lives as we daily more fully understand the truth of God's propitiating work in our lives.

A. Four results of understanding God's propitiating work:

1. Find increasing freedom from the fear of God’s punishment.

2. Find growth in patience, long suffering and kindness toward self and others.

3. Find it easier to more quickly apply forgiveness to self and others. The more we come to believe this truth, the more we will accept God's approval of ourselves and others. We will forgive, be kind patient with ourselves and others rather than angry or hard on ourselves and others. In turn, we will

4. Sense an ever increasing deeper love for Christ. Now as we turn back to Romans 3, we have understood how it is that God has made the believer righteous, fully approved, loved and will never be angry with us again. But up to this point, Paul hasn't really explained why it is that God has gone to all of this trouble to make us righteous, when He just as easily could have left us as we were, dead in our sins, rejected by Him, doomed to spend eternity separated from God? He answers part of that for us in the rest of verses 25-26. He says, "This [meaning the public execution of the innocent Jesus] was to demonstrate His [God's] righteousness,..." God wanted to demonstrate to us and all other heavenly creatures that He is truly righteous. Not only that, but in addition, He is the only one able to make others righteous.

So how does he do that? He says, "because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, {I say,} of His righteousness at the present time, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."

 Have you ever been bothered by the reality that there are a lot of people being treated unjustly by others? A seminary classmate of mine wrote this following poem:

How long, O God?

It was in all the papers.

In the pictures he was even

smiling. Claimed innocence.

They let him off.

Some savvy lawyer spotted a technicality.

How long, O God?

It's in the news every night.

They're strafing whole airports now.

Bombs in lockers.

Suicide missions.

They even claim You're on their side.

Don't You even care?

It tore my heart just yesterday.

The woman is paralyzed now.

And the maniac threatens that after

his sentence is over

he'll kill her.

Will You simply stand back

and let it happen?

Can't you do something---now! [A PLACE TO STAND, Mark Littleton, p. 129]

Have you ever wondered why a loving God would allow such things as this and other natural disasters to take place? How is it that God will allow John Courson's 16 year old daughter to be suddenly killed in an auto accident? verses 25-26, and others give us a partial explanation.

 The expression, in verse 25, "to pass over" means to be left unpunished. When we see people go unpunished or innocent people killed or hurt, these problems cause us to wrongly conclude that God doesn't take these things seriously. If He did, we think, He would stop it immediately. If He did, He would bring judgment down on these people immediately. But Paul is telling us that the reason that God holds off, and has been patient not to do so down through the centuries is so that the human race will see how unrighteous it is apart from Him. Furthermore, when God does finally, at the right time bring a savior to die for our sin, we will see how righteous and just God is, and how much we need the savior.

 You see, when God judges sin, not just the direct sin of murder, but also the indirect sin that came down through us through our parents, Adam and Eve, how did He demonstrate that he will finally judge all sin? He demonstrated it by pronouncing that mankind would die physically and spiritually. God's judgment against all sin is death. 

When was the last time we saw God's justice acted out against all mankind in this way? The Flood. It was through the flood that God said, "I do take sin seriously. I will punish it." And He did. Since the flood, there has never been another manifestation of God's justice to that degree, which has caused the question to arise in human hearts today, "Does God really care?"

 Paul tells us here, that God deliberately passes over these injustices only for a time. Meanwhile, Jesus death and resurrection demonstrates God's righteousness and authority to judge in the end, and that in fact judgment is coming.

 Elsewhere, in 2 Peter 3:9, God shows us two other reasons, why God has held off his judgment. Look at 2 Peter 3:9, "The Lord is not slow about His promise, [promise about judgment] as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up." 

The first reason Peter tells us that God delays immediate judgment by death is so that the human race will continue to exist. In other words, since the only way God can deal with the root problems and consequences of mankind's sin is to bring judgment against the entire human race by putting the unrighteous to death. He hasn't done that. Why? The second reason explains. It is so that while the race exists, more people can turn back to Christ and be saved.

 In the mean time, God wants us to remember that He is just and the justifier, and that judgment day will come. And the historical fact that He used to drive this truth home was to reveal Who the judge would be, Jesus Christ and what is the only way that mankind will escape His ultimate wrath.

In verses 27-37, Paul spells out for us, three implications of everything he has said in verses 21-24 about God's justification, redemption and propitiation through Jesus Christ.

He gives us the first in verses 27-28. He writes, "Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law."

First of all, there is nothing mankind can do to make himself righteous or to get ourselves saved. The rescuing work is solely God's doing. We were dead, helpless in our trespasses and sins. Hence, no one can boast in themselves as to having earned a right to be saved.

Secondly, in verses 29-30, Paul says, "Or is God {the God} of Jews only? Is He not {the God} of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since indeed God who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith is one."

Or, in a little more plain English, the manner of God's rescuing and transforming work is the only way and it includes everybody. 

And finally, verse 31 declares, "Do we then nullify [or cancel out] the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law." Some have come to the erroneous conclusion that since the Apostle Paul has argued twice thus far in Romans that salvation comes apart from the law, that salvation by grace has set God's Law aside and made it useless. On the contrary, Paul says that the good news he is teaching about God's rescuing work fulfills, upholds and satisfies the Law. It is through Christ's execution on the cross that, the what the Law required, punishment of sin is upheld, along with God's standard of us being made righteous.

And throughout this discussion, from verses 26-31, Paul again and again has told us what the key is to being saved and permanently made right, approved, loved and accepted by God, never to fear his rejection or punishment. The key term used 8 times is "faith". Faith in the work of Jesus Christ.  Believing that His work on the cross is the only thing that will make you spiritually alive and acceptable to God. 

Now you might be thinking, "Yes, but Bob, you don't understand. My faith is so weak." Sure it is. And so is your ability to love God and have hope and everything you possess is weak too. But, you standing justified before God, fully approved does not take strong faith. Just faith in a stronger God.

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