For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

-John 3:16-18

God’s wrath is not lost temper, rather His wrath is holiness released judicially against evil.

It is a shallow idea that forgiving is natural for God.

-Herman Bavinck

Where forgiveness is obtained, it is something to be regarded with awe and wonder.

And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, ‘The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.’

-Exodus 34:6-7

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. But whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.

-John 3:36

  

Modern people struggle with the idea of a wrathful God who condemns.

  

The Bible never sees God’s love and anger as being opposed to each other. Instead, they are meaningless apart from each other. God is both love and fury.

Most religions teach that any inequality in this life is due to “thoughts, words, and deeds we have entertained, uttered and committed in a previous life.”

  

The concept of a loving God came from one place—the Bible!

• Human society could understand a God who was mainly a God of wrath, who demanded deference, or He would simply smite people.
• But it could not really understand a loving, merciful, God who makes all of us in his image and then forgives people who have done wrong.

  

The wrath of God is an expression of a loving God rightfully demanding love from human beings toward one another and toward Him.

  

  

I feel fury when I am with them. I want to say, ‘Can’t you see? Don’t you know what you are doing to yourself? You become less and less yourself every time I see you.’ Real love stands against deception, the lie, the sin that destroys. Anger and love are inseparably bound in the human experience. And if I, a flawed, narcissistic and sinful woman can feel this much pain and anger over someone’s condition, how much more a morally perfect God who made them? Anger isn’t the opposite of love. Hate is—and the final form of hate is indifference.

-Rebecca Manley Pippert, “Hope Has Its Reasons”

  

The Bible does not reveal a God simply of fury or simply a God of love but a God of love and fury, because this is a holy God.

  

  

How can God remain true to His Love and His Holiness?

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

-Romans 3:21-26

For God to punish us for any sin would be to exact two payments for the same debt.

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

  

There are two ways to pursue justice:

• Out of vengeance.
• Out of love.

  

Christians seeking justice must be guided by the cross.

  

On the one side, we see how supremely concerned God is to uphold Justice.

On the other side, the doctrine of justification also reminds us that we have done wrong, that we are perpetrators of injustice whom God has forgiven.

  

I did want to forgive Larry, but I didn’t want my forgiveness to be used as an excuse to act as if something terrible wasn’t really that bad. Prominent Christian teachers had implied, ‘You haven’t really forgiven and trusted until you can be thankful for the evil done to you.’ Is that really what forgiveness means? It wasn’t right, but I’d heard it from authority figures so often that I felt alone in my grief.

-Rachael Denhollander, “What Is A Girl Worth?”

Every other religion…outside of Christianity, relied on some form of doing enough good things to outweigh the bad, as if life were just a balancing scale, and the damage from evil would go away if someone did enough charity work, said the right prayers, or took pilgrimages. But that’s not justice. I knew Larry had helped create an autism foundation, which was great, but that good deed did not stop my nightmares. The evil he did was there. The damage was done. Nothing could make that disappear.

-Rachael Denhollander

  

How did Rachael harmonize Justice and Forgiveness?

  

First: A victim’s sense of injustice and desire for vindication is upheld at the cross.

It makes many people queasy nowadays to talk about the wrath of God, but there can be no turning away from this prominent biblical theme. Oppressed peoples around the world would have been empowered by the scriptural principle of a God who is angered by injustice and unrighteousness.

-Fleming Rutledge

On the cross, we see not merely the love of God but the justice of God as well.

  

Second: the cross shows that God is committed to both Justice and Forgiveness; there is no pitting one against the other.

  

But how is the cross equally committed to both?

The Father would be abusing the Son on the cross if Christ were a third party, beyond God who was wronged and humanity who wronged God. But he isn’t. In Christ, wrote the Apostle Paul, ‘God was reconciling the world to Himself (2 Cor. 5:19).’ Not: Christ was reconciling an angry God to a sinful world. Not: Christ was reconciling a sinful world to a loving God. Rather: God in Christ was ‘reconciling the world to Himself.’

-Miroslav Volf

  

What does all this truly mean?

  

The only possibility of healed relationships is if both justice and forgiveness are pursued concomitantly, using the model of the cross:

• The cross shows the victim his/her own need for forgiveness. That makes it easier to extend to others.
• The cross helps Christians in refraining from viewing criminals and abusers as other or fundamentally different from ourselves—for evil lies in our hearts as well.

The temporal nature of human justice serves as a picture of God’s final justice. It presents the abuser the opportunity to come face to face with the reality and severity of his sin. It is a call to the abuser to repent; to side with both God and their victim and condemn the evil they have perpetrated. It is only in this scenario that the possibility of reconstructing a relationship is possible….Truly repentant abusers who have come to side with God and their victims do not use their repentance as an excuse to escape human justice or make demands of their victims; true repentance involves acknowledging the harm they have done and the rightness of punishment.

-Miroslav Volf

This is the Biblical Theology Rachael Denhollander put to work in the courtroom when she looked at Larry Nassar and said,

I pray you experience the soul-crushing weight of guilt so that you may someday experience true repentance and true forgiveness from God, which you need far more than forgiveness from me, though I extend that to you as well.

-Rachael Denhollander

  

When a Christian stands in court and addresses the abuser, two things happen simultaneously:

  

1. Embrace Forgiveness.

  

2. Seek Justice.

  

You are no less a Christian when you expect Justice under authority.

  

What is the conclusion of all of this?

  

1. You are a sinner, and justice demands that you be held accountable. It is no laughing matter.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

-John 3:16-18

For God to punish us for any sin would be to exact two payments for the same debt.

  

2. When Justice comes, God’s motivation is love and repentance.

  

3. Because you have been forgiven, you too can forgive while Justice runs its course.

  

  

  

  

What were your main takeaways from this sermon?

Make a Decision Hope Has Its Reasons by R.M. Pippert What is a Girl Worth? by R. Denhollander