Don't hear many (any?) songs about God's wrath...His fury, anger, and indignation at sin.
John R. W. Stott has a well-written reminder in a book that, if you've not read it, you should:
“Only he who knows the greatness of wrath will be mastered by the greatness of mercy. All inadequate doctrines of the atonement are due to inadequate doctrines of God and man. If we bring God down to our level and raise ourselves to His, then of course we see no need for a radical salvation, let alone for a radical atonement to secure it.
When, on the other hand, we have glimpsed the blinding glory of the holiness of God, and have been so convicted of our sin by the Holy Spirit that we tremble before God and acknowledge what we are, namely ‘hell-deserving sinners’, then and only then does the necessity of the cross appear so obvious that we are astonished we never saw it before.
The essential background to the cross, therefore, is a balanced understanding of the gravity of sin and the majesty of God. If we diminish either, we thereby diminish the cross.”
–John Stott
Side note: some readers are aware of the ongoing controversy regarding universalism ( all humans are "saved" according to this school of, ah, thought)..Stott is NOT a universalist, though he does believe nonbelievers are annihilated rather than confined to an endless hell. I really respect Stott, but as march as part of my heart wishes to agree, I can't. His books, especially this one, are well worth reading:
1 comment:
A note on universalism: Me thinks you are being overly gracious in calling it a "controversy". It is in fact another route of "exchanging the glory of the immortal God for an image resembling mortal man...". Universalism is a damnable offense in that it denies the necessity of responding to grace in repentance and faith. Just my thoughts
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