Christ Jesus Died, Was Buried Dead!

Christ Jesus Died, Was Buried Dead

It Happened As God’s Prophets Said

He Conquered Death And For Us Bled

The Keys Of Death He Took To Spread

New Resurrection Life Instead

Captives To Freedom He Has Led

He Bore God’s Wrath And Died And Bled

Then Rose Our Great Exalted Head

By Faith Alone We’re Just And Wed

To Christ, Our Groom, Who Struck Death Dead

So Now, For Us, There’s No More Dread

On Death, Our Enemy, He Tread

And Crushed The Serpent’s Evil Head

So Now, In Him, There’s No More Dead

But Joy’s Fullness As He Said!

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

Kevin DeYoung On Jesus As Autotheos

This meditation on Autotheos is very helpful. In his Daily Doctrine book, Pastor Kevin DeYoung writes:

John 5:19-26 is a crucial passage about the identity of Jesus Christ. At the heart of Jesus's teaching about himself is the statement he makes right in the middle of this section: "Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him" (5:23b). The point is not simply that we should honor Christ because he is the Father's Son. Rather, we must honor the Son because he is equal with the Father.

It's hard to exaggerate how upsetting statements like this must have been to first-century Jews. They knew there was only one God, but now Jesus was calling God his own Father and making himself equal with God (5:18). No wonder they wanted to kill him. Everything about their religion as they understood it and their worship was being called into question.

So how can God be one and the Father and the Son be equal? How can Jesus say that whoever does not the honor the Son does not honor the Father? The answer is found in five "for" (gar) statements that follow (5:19b, 20a, 21, 22, 26).

• "For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise" (5:19b).

• "For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing" (5:20a).

• "For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will" (5:21).

• "For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son" (5:22).

• "For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself" (5:26).

This last statement from verse 26 is particularly important. The phrase "life in himself" refers to the life God has because he is God. It means God is dependent on no one and contingent on nothing for his existence. The Father has this life in himself and so does the Son. They are both marked by aseity.

Verse 26 supports Calvin's argument that the Son is autotheos; he is God in himself. Calvin insists that the Father was not the deifier of the Son. The Son is deity in himself. His divinity is in no way subordinate to the Father. To be sure, the Son’s in-himself-life came from the Father in one sense, by an eternal grant (to use Augustine's language). But we must not take the language of "eternal grant" to support the contention (made by Arminius, among others) that only the Father was autotheos, and not the Son. As we might expect, Turretin's distinction is helpful: "So the Son is God from himself although not the Son from himself." That is to say, the Son is God-of-himself (autotheos) with respect to his essence, but not with respect to his person.

The phrase "life in himself" in verse 26 is a perfect, pregnant phrase. Jesus has both clarified the charge in verse 18 and reaffirmed it. He is not another God, an independent God, or a second God. He only does what the Father does. And consequently, he ought to receive what the Father receives; namely, glory and honor. The Son can exercise divine judgment and produce in us resurrection life because he is, himself, the self-existent one. We will not find the true God except in and through his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. (Week 24, Day 116, Pages 169-170)

Hallelujah! What a Savior!

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

MacArthur And Mayhue On The Forsakenness Of Jesus On That Cross

In their systematic theology, Biblical Doctrine: A Systematic Summary Of Bible Truth, John MacArthur and Richard Mayhue write:

References describing the whole person according to his humanity but predicated of both natures:

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" that is, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46; God cannot leave or abandon God. In his whole person Jesus is on the cross, yet the Father temporarily abandons him according to his humanity. As the God-man, Jesus dies with respect to his humanity, for the divine nature cannot die.) [They are referencing John F. Walvoord, Jesus Christ Our Lord, pages 116-118] (Page 267)

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A petition to the Father: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt. 27:46). 

No man can fully fathom the significance of this cry from Jesus's lips. Herein lies the mystery of the hypostatic union . . . The presence of darkness (Matt. 27:45) symbolized both the loss of fellowship's light and the reality of abandonment. 

The Father and the Son were not separated in their being or in their essence through this experience. The unity of the Trinity remained intact. The three-hour darkness occurred due to the wrath of the omnipresent Father who acted faithfully in his role to bring about the completion of Christ's perfect, substitutionary sacrifice . . . All of mankind's worst fears about the horrors of hell were realized by Jesus as he received the due penalty for the sins of all who would believe in him. In that period of darkness, in some incomprehensible way, the Father had abandoned him. "Though there was surely no interruption in the Father's love for Him as a Son, God nonetheless turned away from Him and forsook Him as our Substitute." (MacArthur, Murder of Jesus, 221).

This substitutionary aspect of Christ's death does not rest on his physical death alone. Christ had to bear the outpouring of God's unmitigated wrath against sin in order to satisfy justice completely. True substitutionary atonement therefore involved a painful sense of estrangement from the Father, expressed by Christ in his heart-felt petition in Matthew 27:46 - "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Although it was temporary, the agony Christ experienced in absorbing the Father's wrath was the full equivalent of hell. 

This is the suffering that Jesus anticipated in the garden of Gethsemane when he prayed, "Let this cup pass from me" (Matt. 26:39). The "cup" refers to the greatest of all suffering for the perfectly sinless God-man - the wrath of God poured out on him when he was made to be a sin offering. A cup is often the symbol of divine wrath against sin in the Old Testament (Isa. 51:17, 22; Jer. 25:15-17, 27-29; Lam. 4:21-22; Ezek. 23:31-34; Hab. 2:16). Christ would "bear the sins of many" (Heb. 9:28), and the fullness of divine wrath would fall on him (Isa. 53:10-11; 2 Cor. 5:21). This was the price of the sin he bore, which he paid in full . . . Jesus's suffering thus included his temporary separation from the Father (pictured by the three hours of darkness on the cross) while experiencing the fullness of divine wrath prior to his physical death. (Pages 302-303)

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Finally, Jesus perfectly fulfills the scapegoat as well. The imputation of sin from Israel to the scapegoat is epitomized by the Father laying on him the iniquity of us all (Isa. 53:6), reckoning him to be sin on our behalf (2 Cor. 5:21), so that he has borne our sins in his body on the tree (1 Pet. 2:24). As the midday sun was shrouded in darkness, the Father was, as it were, laying his hands on the head of the Son and confessing over him the sins of his people. As a result of bearing their sin, the Son was banished from the presence of the Father, leaving him to suffer outside the gate (Heb. 13:12) and to experience the terrifying abandonment of his Father (Matt. 27:46). (Footnote 40: This abandonment is the mystery of mysteries. Jesus's cry of dereliction is, as Albert Martin has preached, the utterance that eternity will never exegete for us. Yet we must note that this separation between the Father and the Son was a relational separation, not an ontological one. The Son could never be ontologically separated from the essence of the Trinity, for then the triune God would cease to be. Christ remained God; the Trinity remained unbroken and unchanged. Nevertheless, in a way our minds cannot fully comprehend, God the Father forsook God the Son as he laid upon Christ the iniquity of us all, abandoning him to bear his unleashed fury against the sins of his people.) "Outside the camp," away from the presence of the Lord and of his people, was where the sacrifices were to be disposed of (Lev. 4:12, 21; 6:11; 8:17; 9:11; 16:27; cf. Heb. 13:11); it was that lonely place where the leper was isolated to bear his shame (Lev. 13:46) and where the blasphemer was to be stoned (Lev. 24:14, 23). And it is to that place of shame and isolation that the Son of God was banished so that we might be welcomed into the holy presence of God. (Pages 527-528)

Hallelujah! What a Savior!

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

Kevin DeYoung: There Are No Variable Eternal Rewards In Heaven

I was surprised to read that, unlike many (most?) Reformed theologians, Pastor Kevin DeYoung, in his Daily Doctrine book, argues against variable eternal rewards for Christians in heaven. He writes:

Does the Bible teach the doctrine of variable eternal rewards? We know there will be different degrees of punishment. It will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than in the cities where Jesus performed his miracles (Luke 10:10-14). But what about eternal rewards? Will some people have more crowns? Will some of us have big mansions and others small apartments? Will some believers have a capacity for joy that is bigger than others? Though many (most?) Reformed theologians past and present disagree with me on this matter, I want to make the case that the Bible does not teach the doctrine of variable eternal rewards. (1) Rewards, yes; variable rewards, no. There is one reward: eternal life with Christ. This gift is described in many different ways, but the images and vocabulary describe the same reward, not different levels of reward.

Let me make the case against variable rewards by looking at the big picture, by noting a few specific passages, and by making a final argument from reason.

First, the big picture. The longest, fullest description of heaven - the glorious picture found in Revelation 21-22 - contains nothing about variable rewards. There is no hint that some believers experience a better version of eternal life than others. This point is made even more explicitly in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matt. 20:1-16). Grace is the operative principle in the kingdom, not merit. You are either in or you are out. And once you are in, your reward is not any more or less than anyone else who is in.  

 

Second, a few specific passages. The promised rewards in Revelation 2-3 are not variable rewards, but the same reward of eternal life with Christ described in different ways to match the trial each church is facing. Likewise, the five different crowns mentioned in the New Testament all refer to eternal life. And the parable of the talents (or minas) is about kingdom opportunities, not about heavenly rewards. While we may have different opportunities and gifts on earth, each faithful servant receives the same commendation ("well done") and the same reward ("enter into the joy of your master"). Finally, the "loss" that the believer experiences at the judgment in 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 is not the loss of eternal rewards, but the realization that his work was not as profitable as he thought. Some of us will be pleasantly surprised when our works are judged; others will suffer loss. But this unique experience on judgment day does not entail a perpetual hierarchy in heaven.  

 

Third, an argument from reason. Proponents of the doctrine are quick to say that we won't have regret or jealousy in heaven when we view the rewards of others. In fact, someone's greater reward will only increase our sense of happiness as we rejoice in their reward with them. But this line of thinking undermines the very incentive rewards are supposed to offer. If we are all wondrously happy, but some are more wondrously happy than others, but that just makes us happy too, then what difference did the reward really make? Either the rewards are variable and some believers - because of their works on earth - experience a better eternal life than others, or everyone in heaven is perfectly happy all the time, in which case we should think twice about whether the doctrine matters at all. (Pages 357-358)

(1) Influential in my thinking has been the article by Blomberg, "Degrees of Reward in the Kingdom of Heaven?" 159-72.

I think I may be persuaded! Jesus is our reward! Come Lord Jesus! Come quickly! 

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

Christ Jesus Came For Women’s Salvation!

Christ Jesus Came For Women’s Salvation

All Men Save For John Fled From Jesus’ Damnation

Women Stayed To The End Of The Cross Our Foundation

They Followed The Christ, Our God Incarnation

Took Up Their Cross And Stood The Duration

They Ministered To Him, His Humble Creation

The Creator Was Killed, Seed Of Woman’s Relation

Crushed The Snake’s Head Now There’s No Condemnation

He Bore All God’s Wrath As The Cursed Imprecation

Then Rose Up Alive For Our Justification

And Works In These Women For Sanctification

To Bring Them To Heaven For Glorification

For Men And Women Alike He Is All Our Salvation

Our Lover And Friend And Our Praise Adoration!

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

John Calvin On God's Anger Toward His Son On That Cross

I regard these first three sentences of John Calvin as the worst three sentences I've ever read in all of his writings. The last sentence he wrote here is excellent, and I argue it is inconstant with the first three. Calvin wrote:

Yet we do not suggest that God was ever inimical or angry toward him. How could he be angry toward his beloved Son, "in whom his heart reposed"? (cf. Matt. 3:17). How could Christ by his intercession appease the Father towards others, if he were himself hateful to God? This is what we are saying: he bore the weight of divine severity, since he was "stricken and afflicted" [cf. Isa. 53:5] by God's hand, and experienced all the signs of a wrathful and avenging God. (Institutes, II.xvi.11)

I agree with Calvin that Jesus was not hateful to God on the cross. I agree that God loved His Son on the cross. But I also agree that Jesus bore the weight of divine severity, was stricken and afflicted by God's hand, and experienced all the signs of wrathful and avenging God on the cross. Amen! So I disagree with Calvin saying that God was not angry toward His Son. That is a very inconsistent statement if you affirm that Jesus was stricken and afflicted by God's hand and experienced all the signs of a wrathful and avenging God. If you are struck by God's hand and experience all the signs of a wrathful and avenging God, that means God is angry with you in some sense, and we must affirm that to be faithful to the Biblical doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement.

Thomas Goodwin is much more consistent and helpful guide on this point. For more on God's anger toward His Son on the cross and getting the Cross and the Trinity right, please read here.

The point of this brief article is simply to show that Calvin's three little sentences here are inconsistent with his other writings and sermons on God's anger toward His Son on the cross. His sermons and commentaries tell another story about the anger of God toward His Son on the cross. And I am so thankful he was inconsistent because the anger of God toward His Son on the cross is the heart of penal substitution, which is the heart of the Gospel.

Calvin's Sermons And Commentaries

Calvin was unashamed to proclaim that on the cross, Jesus received the same horrors that unrepentant sinners should receive in hell. He taught that Jesus faced the frightful reality of having God stand against Him as Judge and that Jesus was even beaten by His own Father for our sakes and received the worst torments that could ever exist:

And how is it that we are raised through Him, unless in that He descended to the depths of hell, that is, that He sustained the horrors which were upon us, because of our sins, and by which we might have been crushed? For God always had to be our Judge; and there is nothing more frightful that that God should be against us! Jesus Christ had to go that far as our security, and as the One Who should pay instead of us, and to let Himself be beaten on account of our condemnation to absolve us from it. (The Gospel According To Isaiah: Seven Sermons on Isaiah 53 Concerning The Passion And Death Of Christ, Trans. Leroy Nixon (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953), 16)

. . . our Lord Jesus Christ was beaten and struck by the hand of God, in order that we might be acquitted. (Third Sermon on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ)

. . . He was struck and beaten by the hand of God, that He suffered the horrible anguishes of His judgment, that in His body He bore the most dreadful torments that could be; and beyond that, He was vilified by men, as if He had not been worthy to share even the rank of the worst scoundrels! This, this is how the Son of God was afflicted . . . Now, we are spared! Behold Jesus Christ, the Only Son of God, Who is imprisoned, and we are delivered! He is condemned and we are absolved. He is exposed to all outrages, and we are established in honor! He has descended into the depths of hell, and the Kingdom of heaven is open to us! (The Gospel According To Isaiah: Seven Sermons on Isaiah 53 Concerning The Passion And Death Of Christ, Trans. Leroy Nixon (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953), 87)

God is angry toward those in the depths of hell. God is angry with those He is against. God is angry with the one He beats and strikes. God's anger must be part of the most dreadful torments that could be. Jesus bore all of that anger and judgment for sinners so that all who repent and believe in Christ will never face it! This is the Gospel! Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Calvin used shocking language like Jesus being made “detestable” and even “hated” for the sake of sinners on that cross. This is a direct contradiction of what he wrote in the Institutes cited above:

He was willing to be as it were cursed and detestable for our sakes, in order that we might find favor before God and that we might be acceptable to Him. (Sixth Sermon on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ)

. . . the One who is the head of angels, to whom belongs all glory, majesty and authority, hung on a tree and was cursed and hated for our sakes? (On Glorying Only in the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ)

When describing the cross, Calvin even plainly wrote that Jesus had to face God as an angry judge:

Thus, "he was wounded for our transgressions," (Isaiah 53:5,) and had to deal with God as an angry judge. This is the foolishness of the cross, (1 Corinthians 1:18,) and the admiration of angels, (1 Peter 1:12,) which not only exceeds, but swallows up, all the wisdom of the world. (Commentary On Galatians, Galatians 3:13)

Calvin clearly believed that Jesus received the exact same equivalent punishment that unrepentant sinners should receive in hell forever – which must include the severe vengeance and anger of His Father:

If Christ had died only a bodily death, it would have been ineffectual. No – it was expedient at the same time for him to undergo the severity of God’s vengeance, to appease his wrath and satisfy his just judgment. For this reason, he must also grapple hand to hand with the armies of hell and the dread of everlasting death. A little while ago we referred to the prophet’s statement that ‘the chastisement of our peace was laid upon him,’ ‘he was wounded for our transgressions’ by the Father, ‘he was bruised for our infirmities’ [Isaiah 53:5 p.]. By these words he means that Christ was put in place of evildoers as surety and pledge – submitting himself even as the accused – to bear and suffer all the punishments that they ought to have sustained. All – with this one exception: ‘He could not be held by the pangs of death’ [Acts 2:24 p.]. No wonder, then, if he is said to have descended into hell, for he suffered the death that, God in his wrath had inflicted upon the wicked! (Institutes, II.xvi.10)

He bore the punishment which we would have had to endure, if He had not offered this atonement. (Commentary On The Book Of Isaiah, Isaiah 53:8 (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2003), 121)

Calvin understood Jesus to be both cursed by God and made a curse by God on that cross. 

Answering Calvin's Question 

Calvin's question was:

How could He [God] be angry toward His beloved Son, "in whom His heart reposed"? (cf. Matt. 3:17) (Institutes, II.xvi.11)

I'll answer:

1) Because the Bible tells me so: "You have been very angry with Your Anointed One." Psalm 89:38

2) Because of the imputation of our sins to Christ: 2 Cor. 5:21: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

If you can't say God was angry with Christ on the cross because of our sins imputed to Him, then you should also stop saying that God is pleased with the saints because of Christ's righteousness imputed to them. 

3) Because the words of Scripture demand that God be angry with His Son on the cross: He did not spare Him; He crushed Him; He struck Him; He cursed Him; He forsook Him; He pierced Him with His sword; He gave Him the cup of wrath; He turned His face away (Ps. 88).

4) Because God being angry with His Son on the cross is the heart of the Gospel - it is the very essence of what propitiation and penal substitution mean.

5) Because God never stopped loving His Son on the cross, as Thomas Goodwin wrote: "That God should never be more angry with his Son than when he was most pleased with him, for so it was when Christ hung upon the cross, God did find a sweet-smelling savour of rest and satisfaction even when he cried out, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'" As the last Adam, the Son, according to His human nature, achieved perfect obedience to the Father's will. This was well pleasing to the Father. And so, the Father was well pleased with the Son, according to His human nature, because of His perfect obedience, but at the same time, He was also angry with the Son, according to His human nature, because of our sins imputed to Him.

6) Because God was not angry with His Son in the eternal, intratrinitarian relationship between the Persons. Yet, because of our sins imputed to Christ, God was angry with Christ according to His human nature with all His infinite anger. But it was not the human nature which suffered, but the Person according to this nature. "And since the Person is infinite, all that Christ suffered was of infinite efficacy and value." (Wilhelmus à Brakel)

Jesus endured all of this for us and for His Father's glory! Hallelujah! What a Savior!

More Resources On That Cross

1. A Concern About The Way Pastor Kevin DeYoung Writes About The Cross In His New Daily Doctrine Book

2. Forsaken, Or Felt Forsaken

3. The Bible Says God Was Angry With Jesus On The Cross

4. Is It Biblical To Say Jesus Was Damned By God On The Cross?

5. The Sufferings Of The LORD Jesus Christ On The Cross

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

Stephen Charnock On God's Anger Toward His Son On That Cross

The Puritan, Stephen Charnock (1628-1680), got the cross right:

As the Father did not in the time of his humiliation treat him as a son, but as a servant, as a sinner, as one he was angry with, he was exposed to the violences of men, as if he had been utterly neglected and abandoned by his Father . . . ." (The Necessity Of Christ's Death, Exaltation, And Intercession, Page 116)

To demonstrate His goodness to man, in preventing his eternal ruin, He would for a while withhold His goodness from His Son, by exposing His life as the price of our ransom; not only subjecting Him to the derisions of enemies, desertions of friends, and malice of devils, but to the inexpressible bitterness of His own wrath in His soul, as made an offering for sin. The particle so (John 3:16), seems to intimate this supremacy of goodness; He 'so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.' He so loved the world, that He seemed for a time not to love his Son in comparison of it, or equal with it. The person to whom a gift is given is, in that regard, accounted more valuable than the gift or present made to him: thus God valued our redemption above the worldly happiness of the Redeemer, and sentenceth Him to an humiliation on earth, in order to our exaltation in heaven; He was desirous to hear Him groaning, and see Him bleeding, that we might not groan under His frowns, and bleed under His wrath; He spared not Him, that He might spare us; refused not to strike Him, that He might be well pleased with us; drenched His sword in the blood of His Son, that it might not forever be wet with ours, but that His goodness might forever triumph in our salvation; He was willing to have His Son made man, and die, rather than man should perish, who had delighted to ruin himself; He seemed to degrade Him for a time from what He was. (The Complete Works Of Stephen Charnock Vol. 2, Pages 322-323)

More Resources On That Cross

1. A Concern About The Way Pastor Kevin DeYoung Writes About The Cross In His New Daily Doctrine Book

2. Forsaken, Or Felt Forsaken

3. The Bible Says God Was Angry With Jesus On The Cross

4. Is It Biblical To Say Jesus Was Damned By God On The Cross?

5. The Sufferings Of The LORD Jesus Christ On The Cross

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

Robert Murray M'Cheyne On God's Anger Toward His Son On That Cross

 

Robert Murray M'Cheyne was a pastor in Dundee, Scotland, who died in 1843 at the age of 29. I've been using his yearly Bible reading plan for years. All these quotations are from The Works of The Late Rev. Robert Murray M’Cheyne, Vol. 2. He got the cross right:

But now the wrath of God has all fallen upon Him. The thunder-clouds of God’s anger have spent all their lightnings on his head. The vials of God’s wrath have poured out their last drops upon Him. He is now justified from all the sins that were laid upon Him. He has left them with the grave-clothes. (Page 52)

Oh! how dreadful his Father's anger was in his eyes; for he had known nothing but his infinite love from all eternity. Oh! how could he bear to lie down under that wrath? How could he bear to exchange the smile of his Father's love for the dark power of his Father's anger? How could he bear, for the sake of vile sinners, to exchange the caresses of that God who is love, for the piercings and bruisings of his almighty hand? (Page 257)

"Thine anger is turned away." . . . There is abundant provision for the pardon and peace of the sinner; for God's anger is turned away on the head of Christ. The thing which troubles the conscience of awakened souls is the anger of God. It is this which makes them tremble, by night and by day, in public and in secret. An awakened soul feels that he has broken God's law, and is exposed every moment to his wrath. He can find no rest in his bed, no peace at his meals, no joy in his friends; the heavens are black above his head, the earth is ready to open and devour him. If God be a just and holy God, he will pour out his anger. If he be a true God, he will fulfill all his threatenings. If such a soul would take Christ as his surety, he would find abundant peace. The anger of God has already been turned away on the head of Christ. All the clouds of wrath have been directed, like a water-spout, upon that one head. If you are willing that Christ be your surety, you do not need to fear. (Page 414)

For this end he took on him our nature—became a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. From his cradle in the manger to the cross, the dark cloud of God's anger was over him; and especially toward the close of his life, the cloud came to be at the darkest —yet he cheerfully suffered all. "How am I straitened till it be accomplished!" The cup of God's anger was given him without mixture; yet he said: "The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" Now, we may be quite sure, that since he was the Son of God, he hath suffered all that sinners should have suffered. (Page 457)

If you believe on Christ, you are one with him-a member of his body; and as sure as Christ your Head is now passed from the darkness of God's anger into the light of his countenance, so surely are you, O believer, passed from darkness into God's marvelous light. (Page 520)

What this love cost him. When Jacob loved Rachel, he served seven years for her; he bore the summer's heat and winter's cold. But Jesus bore the hot wrath of God, and the winter blast of his Father's anger, for those he loved. Jonathan loved David with more than the love of women, and for his sake he bore the cruel anger of his father, Saul. But Jesus, out of love to us, bore the wrath of his Father poured out without mixture . . . it was love that made him not despise the Virgin's womb; it was love that brought him to the manger at Bethlehem; it was love that drove him into the wilderness; love made him a man of sorrows; love made him hungry, and thirsty, and weary; love made him hasten to Jerusalem; love led him to gloomy, dark Gethsemane; love bound and dragged him to the judgment hall; love nailed him to the cross; love bowed his head beneath the amazing load of his Father's anger. "Greater love hath no man than this." "I am the good Shepherd; the good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." Sinners were sinking beneath the red-hot flames of hell; he plunged in and swam through the awful surge, and gathered his own into his bosom. The sword of justice was bare and glittering, ready to destroy us; He, the man that was God's fellow, opened his bosom and let the stroke fall on him. We were set up as a mark for God's arrows of vengeance; Jesus came between, and they pierced him through and through; every arrow that should have pierced our souls, stuck fast in him. He, his own self, bare our sins in his own body on the tree. As far as east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us. This is the love of Christ that passeth knowledge. This is what is set before you today in the broken bread and poured-out wine. This is what we shall see on the throne - a Lamb as it had been slain. This will be the matter of our song through eternity: "Worthy is the Lamb!" (Page 544)

He was "a man of sorrows" from his youth. Often, often, he sank under the dark cloud of his Father's anger, till he groaned his last on Calvary. (Page 564)

More Resources On That Cross

1. A Concern About The Way Pastor Kevin DeYoung Writes About The Cross In His New Daily Doctrine Book

2. Forsaken, Or Felt Forsaken

3. The Bible Says God Was Angry With Jesus On The Cross

4. Is It Biblical To Say Jesus Was Damned By God On The Cross?

5. The Sufferings Of The LORD Jesus Christ On The Cross

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

Christ Jesus Is God’s Son Who Died!

Christ Jesus Is God’s Son Who Died

An Earthquake Shook The Land He Eyed

The Gentile Soldiers Testified

Truly This Was God’s Son He Cried

Forever By His Father’s Side

Well Pleasing, Loved By God, His Pride

Came Down To Save His Sinful Bride

He Bore God’s Wrath And Bled And Died

Then Rose Alive To Life Provide

Saves From All Nations, Saves Worldwide

Saves Men And Women All Abide

In Him By Faith We Come Inside

By Faith Alone We’re Justified

For Christ Is All Because He Died

All Joys In Him Are Now Supplied!

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

Richard Sibbes On God's Anger Toward His Son On That Cross

Richard Sibbes (1577-1635) was a puritan pastor and theologian who got the cross right:

That is not all, beloved, but there were immediate sufferings, even of his soul also, which he groaned under. God the Father laid a heavy stroke upon that. He was smitten of the Lord, Isa. 53:4; and when God deals immediately with the soul himself, and fills it with his wrath, no creature in the world is able to undergo the same. None can inflict punishment upon the soul but God only. Satan may urge and press arguments of discouragement, and affright us with God's displeasure; but the inflicting of anger upon the soul issues immediately from the hand of the Almighty. We must here, therefore, consider God as a righteous Judge, sitting in heaven in his judgment-seat, taking the punishment of the sins of all his people upon Christ. There was a meeting together of all the sins of the faithful, from Adam to the last man that shall be in the world, as it were, in one point upon him, and the punishment of all these was laid on his blessed shoulders, who suffered for them in both body and soul. (Christ's Sufferings For Man's Sins, Page 7)

3. Conclusion. But how could Christ be forsaken of God, especially so forsaken as to suffer the anger of his father, being an innocent person? Ans. 1. I answer, first, the Paschal lamb was an innocent creature, yet if the Paschal lamb be once made a sacrifice, it must be killed. Though Christ were never so unblameable, yet, if he will stoop to the office of a surety, he must pay our debt, and do that which we should have done. If a prince's son become a surety, though his father love him and pity him never so much, yet he will say, Now you have taken this upon you, you must discharge it. 2. Secondly, as in natural things the head is punished for the fault of the body, so Christ, by communicating his blessed nature with ours, made up one mystical body, and suffered for us. (Christ's Sufferings For Man's Sins, Pages 7-8)

Oh marvel not at it, but have such conceits of sin as God had when he gave his Son to die for it, and such as Christ had, when in the sense of his Father's anger he cried thus, "My God, my God," (Christ's Sufferings For Man's Sins, Page 12)

Sin also thrust Adam out of paradise, Gen. iii. 23, and made God angry with him and the whole world, so as to destroy it with a flood of water, Gen. vi.13, and will at last make him burn and consume all "with a deluge of fire", 2 Pet. iii.12. Yea, it made him in a sort angry with his own dear Son, when he underwent the punishment of sin as our surety, so that he cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Mat. xxvii. 46. If God thus shewed his anger against sin, in punishing it in Christ our surety, who was made sin for us, and yet had no sin in himself, how will he punish it much more in those who are not in Christ? (The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, Volume 2, Page 336)

More Resources On That Cross

1. A Concern About The Way Pastor Kevin DeYoung Writes About The Cross In His New Daily Doctrine Book

2. Forsaken, Or Felt Forsaken

3. The Bible Says God Was Angry With Jesus On The Cross

4. Is It Biblical To Say Jesus Was Damned By God On The Cross?

5. The Sufferings Of The LORD Jesus Christ On The Cross

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

Hugh Martin On God's Anger Toward His Son On That Cross

Hugh Martin (1822–1885) was a Free Church of Scotland Presbyterian minister of the Gospel. He got the cross right:

And what, it must be asked, was the cause of the tormenting sorrow and amazement which now so greatly weakened and agitated the Son of God? It is a solemn question, worthy of long and reverent consideration. But doubtless His sorrow arose from the source that His prayer was concerned with—the vivid view and near approach of that cup which the Father was just giving Him to drink. That curse of God, from which He came to redeem His elect people—that sword of the Lord's wrath and vengeance which He had just predicted—the penal desertion on the cross—the withdrawal of all comfortable views and influences—and the present consciousness of the anger of God against Him as the surety-substitute, a person laden with iniquity— these were the elements mingled in the cup of trembling which was now to be put into His hands: and the prospect caused Him deadly sorrow! (The Shadow Of The Calvary, Page 9)

The anger of the invisible God against the invisible soul of the man Christ Jesus could not be beheld by mortal eye. But the world might be constrained to behold it as in a glass. (The Shadow Of The Calvary, Page 99)

More Resources On That Cross

1. A Concern About The Way Pastor Kevin DeYoung Writes About The Cross In His New Daily Doctrine Book

2. Forsaken, Or Felt Forsaken

3. The Bible Says God Was Angry With Jesus On The Cross

4. Is It Biblical To Say Jesus Was Damned By God On The Cross?

5. The Sufferings Of The LORD Jesus Christ On The Cross

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

Christ Jesus Died, The Earth Did Quake!

Christ Jesus Died, The Earth Did Quake

The Temple's Curtain Opened Break

And People From The Dead Awake

For God, His Son, He Did Forsake

Christ Bore God’s Wrath, The Fiery Lake

And All Our Sins To Hell He’d Take

He Crushed That Head, The Evil Snake

Christ Died And Rose For Us To Make

A Way To God For His Name’s Sake

Into God’s Presence We Partake

Of Joys That Make Us Shout And Shake

And One Day Too We’ll Rise Awake

For Death And Sin We’ll All Forsake

To Be With God Our Holy Ache

For Christ Is All, Make No Mistake

That’s Why The Earth Did Move And Quake!

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

Forsakenness, Anger, Damnation, And The Death Of Christ On That Cross According To Petrus Van Mastricht

After reading the chapter in this book, "The Death Of The Mediator", Petrus Van Mastricht has become one of my favorite writers on the cross! He gets the cross right and clear! See more from Joel Beeke on why you should read Van Mastricht here: 3 Reasons Pastors Need to Read Petrus van Mastricht

Jesus Was Truly And Objectively Forsaken By God On That Cross

Don't ever let anyone tell you not to sing: "How deep the Father's love for us . . . how great the pain of searing loss, the Father turns His face away"

Sing it with Petrus Van Mastricht, who described the sufferings of Jesus on that cross as: 

Christ deserted and denied by the whole world, by friends as well as enemies, even by God . . . God stopping his ears to all his [Christ's] supplications, turning his face away from him (Pages 435-436)

Also:

(2) What did he suffer?
What he suffered; not some light affliction, but the greatest of all evils, the highest affliction of all, death, and not only one kind of death, not only natural death, which we sometimes read is sought and desired by men, because it brings them deliverance from pressing evils, and an entrance into a better life (2 Cor. 5:1-2; Phil. 1:23); but in addition spiritual death, wherein deserted by God, exceeding sorrowful, even to death, he walked in darkness and saw no light (Isa. 50:10) (Page 430)

(5) with respect to his soul, into the infernal state and condition (Ps. 88:4-6), wherein he was deserted by God his Father (Matt. 27:46), and tortured with the pains of death, that is, of infernal death (Matt. 26:37-38; Acts 2:24), and he was made the curse itself (Gal. 3:13) (Page 468) 

If (8) anguish of soul and spiritual desertions, his soul was exceeding sorrowful for his own, even to death (Matt. 26:37-38); abandoned by his Father for his own, he cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Ps. 22:1; Matt. 27:46). And all these things the Redeemer accepted for this purpose, that he might deliver his own from them all (Isa. 53:5). (Page 643)

God Was Angry With Jesus On That Cross

He sensed that God was in some way alienated from him, & like a judge who was angry with him, & inflicting upon him the truly hellish pains due for our sins. (Page 406)

And what was for God himself the cause of his raging as it were with just cruelty against the inmost parts of his only begotten Son, except human sin (2 Cor. 5:21; Isa. 53:6)? . . . If he burned with such rage against his own Son, who was so beloved by him, for our sins while they still lived, how would he not burn with rage against us, if we spare our sins? (Pages 450-451)

Jesus Was Damned By God On That Cross

(2) What did he suffer?
What he suffered . . . moreover, even eternal or infernal death, which the damned experience in hell, through which he was a curse (Gal. 3:13) (Page 430)

How Jesus Suffered As God And Man On That Cross

He suffered not only as man, nor only as God, but simultaneously as God and man.
XI. All these things the Mediator endured, whether in body or in soul, neither only as man, nor only as God, but as the God-man, simultaneously as God and man, just as, according to the nature of the theandric effects, each nature bestowed its own part to Christ's sufferings: while the human nature alone sustained and suffered them (since passive potency does not occur in the divine nature, Mal. 3:6; James 1:17; and much less death, because the divine nature is incorruptible, Rom. 1:23; 1 Tim. 1:17; 6:16), the divine nature furnished to his sufferings an infinite weight, value, and price, so that they were God's sufferings (Acts 20:28), and the blood of the Son of God (1 John 1:7), suited to cleanse us from all sin. (Page 415)

Who Ultimately Killed Jesus On That Cross? God Did 

I wrote an article defending the "American Gospel: Christ Crucified" documentary on this point: "American Gospel" Gets It Right. Petrus Van Mastricht said it well:

The supreme cause of Christ's death was God.
XII. Christ had, as the first and chief cause of his entire death, God his own Father, the supreme Judge (Isa. 53:6, 10; Zech. 13:7; 2 Cor. 5:21; Acts 2:23; 4:28), for which reason he laments, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Ps. 22:1). Moreover, God was involved in the sufferings and death of his Son in more than one way, namely: (1) by predetermining them (Acts 2:23; 4:28; Rom. 8:29; Luke 24:26, 46; Acts 17:3); (2) by foretelling them (Ps. 22; Isa. 53; Zech. 13:7; Dan. 9:26); (3) by sustaining him while he suffered them (Ps. 22:11, 24); (4) by permitting his enemies to do them (Acts 4:28); and (5) by limiting them (Acts 4:28; John 19:31-33); (6) by directing them to their predetermined end (2 Cor. 5:21; Isa. 53:5). God had as a moving cause, as it were: (1) his grace and mercy toward the sinner (Rom. 9:23 with 2 Cor. 5:21; Isa. 53:6; Rom. 8:32); (2) avenging justice toward the expromissor, his Son (Rom. 3:22; 8:3); and (3) the glory of both, of grace as well as justice (Rom. 3:25). (Page 415)

More Resources On That Cross

1. A Concern About The Way Pastor Kevin DeYoung Writes About The Cross In His New Daily Doctrine Book

2. Forsaken, Or Felt Forsaken

3. The Bible Says God Was Angry With Jesus On The Cross

4. Is It Biblical To Say Jesus Was Damned By God On The Cross?

5. The Sufferings Of The LORD Jesus Christ On The Cross

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.

Christ Was Forsaken Then He Died!

Christ Was Forsaken Then He Died

Gave Up His Spirit As He Cried

He’s Truly Man The Crucified

He Paid For Each Sin Of His Bride

The Wages Of Our Sin Applied

All Sin Is Dealt With Death Defied

No Charges Stick! We’re Justified!

Christ Rose – He’s LORD Of All Worldwide

We’re Changed For Now Christ Lives Inside

We Live For Him, In Him Abide

With Him Forever By His Side

With Him The Keys Of Death Reside

The Devil’s Crushed And Death It Died

For Christ Fulfilled God’s Word Our Guide

In Paradise He’s Glorified

For Christ Is All And He’ll Provide

All We Need Because He Died!

God And The Gospel

To learn more about the great and true Triune God, the God-Man, Jesus Christ, His cross, and His glorious Gospel message and everlasting Kingship, please watch American Gospel: Christ Alone. You can watch the full documentary here with a free, 3 day trial.