Why John Calvin Was Wrong And Right On God's Anger Toward Jesus 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 a 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 (and to give a few other witnesses on my side). 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!

A Better Approach By Trusted Theologians

Thomas Goodwin is a much more helpful and consistent guide. Yes, the Father always loved the Son on the cross, but the Father was also very angry with His Son because of our sins imputed to Him. God didn't merely punish sin on the cross, He punished His Son Who was made sin. This is the heart of propitiation and the heart of the Gospel. See Goodwin here: Thomas Goodwin On The Father's Love And Anger At The Cross

Consider a brief sample of Goodwin's excellent work on this point:

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?" (Thomas Goodwin, The Works Of  Thomas Goodwin, Volume 4, Chapter 2, Glory Of The Gospel (Tanski Publications: Eureka, California: 1996), 275.)

And also this offering up himself was so sweet a smelling sacrifice to God (as Eph. V. 2), that although God expressed never so much anger against Christ as when he hung upon the cross, yet he was never so well pleased by him as then . . . . (Thomas Goodwin, Christ Our Mediator, (Sovereign Grace Publishers, Grand Rapids: 1971), 136.)

William Bates was right to preach that the "Anger of God" is what crucified Jesus and that when Christ died "He looked upon God as an Enemy" and Judge:

Of his Love, because as the Anger of God was that which crucified our Saviour, so on the contrary, it must be his Love that should raise and restore him. Christ when he died, he looked upon God as an Enemy, as a Judge . . . . (A Complete Collection Of Farewell Sermons)

Stephen Charnock was 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) 

Richard Sibbes was right:

. . . 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 . . . But how could Christ be forsaken of God, especially so forsaken as to suffer the anger of his father, being an innocent person? . . . 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 . . . 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)

And:

Yea, it [sin] 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. (The Complete Works of Richard Sibbes, Volume 2, Page 336)

Samuel Rutherford was right: 

What a fight was it to behold Christ dying, bleeding, pained, shamed, tormented in soul, wrestling in an agony with divine justice and wrath, receiving strokes and lashes from an angry God . . . Christ's love burnt and consumed him till he died; love followed and pursued his lost spouse through the land of death, through hell, the grave, the curses of an angry God (Christ Dying And Drawing Sinners To Himself, Page 688)

The Lord . . . punished Christ, who was not inherently, but only by imputation the sinner, with no hatred at all, but with anger . . . Christ, under his forest assault with hell . . . and the felt anger of a forsaking God (The Covenant Of Life Opened, Pages 265 and 353)

Robert Murray M'Cheyne was right:

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? (The Works of The Late Rev. Robert Murray M’Cheyne, Vol. 2, Page 257)

Herman Witsius was right:

Since there is an exchange of persons between Christ and believers, and since the guilt of our iniquities was laid upon him, the Father was offended and angry with him. (From: Love and Anger at the Cross?)

Petrus Van Mastricht was right when he wrote that God was like a judge who was angry with Christ and raged with just cruelty against the inmost parts of his only begotten Son because of our sins imputed to Christ:

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 . . . 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?" (Theoretical-Practical Theology, Vol. 4, pages 406 and 450-451)

Hugh Martin was right:

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 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 9, 99)

Mark Jones is right:

Let us remember the salient fact that the Father would soon abandon His beloved Son in Whom He found such delight . . . In relation to His death on the cross, God was never more pleased with His Son than when He was most angry with Him. (Knowing Christ, Page 82)

Stephen Wellum and Donald Macleod are right: 

In saying that the Son bears the Father's wrath for us, we must never forget that the unity of the triune persons remains unbroken. Macleod rightly notes: "Even while the Father is angry with the Mediator, the Son is still the beloved and still fully involved in all the external acts (the opera ad extra) of the Trinity." (Christ Alone: The Uniqueness of Jesus as Savior: What the Reformers Taught...and Why It Still Matters (Five Solas), Page 209)

God's Word is right: Psalm 89 is very clear that God was angry with His Anointed One on that cross: 

You have been very angry with Your Anointed One. Psalm 89:38

Ligon Duncan is right:

One Final Hope: The Gospel Of Jesus Christ . . . Ultimately, we'll never appreciate this psalm fully until we see how it points to our Savior. "But now you have cast off and rejected; you are full of wrath against your anointed" . . . Psalm 89:38-45 is a picture of the dashed hopes of the people of God. They were promised that David and his line would reign forever, but now that promise seems to have failed . . . This description of David and his line cannot be exhausted by the experiences of David and his sons. Instead, these words are true, in the fullest sense, of David's greater son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

On Psalm 89, read more here: The Bible Says God Was Angry With Jesus On The Cross

When I first became aware of men who (wrongly) say God was not angry with Jesus on the cross, I asked my Systematic Theology professor, Dr. David VanDrunen, about this error. He wrote me this helpful comment:

. . . it seems difficult to make sense of Jesus saying that he would drink of the cup (since in the OT "the cup" was the cup of wrath against the wicked) or of the terminology of propitiation if God's anger wasn't upon the Son in some important way. I agree with you that there's mystery here, although I think the explanation can be reasonably clear if we distinguish the eternal intratrinitarian relationship of Father and Son (in which it's impossible to think of one being angry with the other) from the historical relationship between the Father and the incarnate Son. Still mysterious, to be sure, but if we locate God's wrath against Christ in the latter we can avoid problems with our Trinitarian theology.

God was angry with Jesus on that cross so that He will never be angry with all those who repent and believe in Jesus!

Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Christ Jesus Is God's Anger Propitiation
They'll Say Christ Bore God's Wrath For Every Nation
But Deny God Was Angry With Him Our Salvation
Of The Heart Of The Gospel That's A Castration
Not Precise Theological Thought Interpretation
Since Christ Was Made Sin On That Cross By Imputation
God's Word Says He Was Angry With The Beloved Incarnation
Psalm 89:38, Crushed, Struck, Cursed, Full Damnation
Drank God's Cup Of Anger: Hell's Fury Summation
Pierced With God's Sword Of Anger Retaliation
God Did Not Spare Any Anger Conflagration
Toward Christ According To His Human Nature Mediation
He Died And Then Rose For Our Justification
So Please Don't Propitiate God's Propitiation
For This Is Our Only Hope Of Salvation
Through Him Who's Our All And Praise Adoration!

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.