Wrath and Love

"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree." (1 Peter 2:24)

"While Jesus hung on the cross, darkness came over the land from noon until three o'clock. During those awful three hours, Jesus drank the cup of God's wrath in our place—the cup that we should have drunk. He drained it to its dregs.

We do not know all that transpired during those terrible hours. Scripture draws a veil over them for the most part. We do know that the physical suffering Jesus endured was only a feeble picture of the suffering of his soul. And part of that suffering was the very real forsakenness by his Father. Toward the end of that time he cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46). The night before, he had been strengthened by divine assistance (Luke 22:43), but now he was left alone. God turned his back on his own dearly loved Son.

We can perhaps better understand what transpired that day by considering Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 5:21: "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (NIV). Christ was "made sin" for us by a judicial act of God; he charged the guilt of our sin to Jesus.

However, we must always keep in mind the distinction between Christ's sinlessness in his personal being and his sin-bearing in his official liability to God's wrath. He was the sinless sin-bearer. Though officially guilty as our representative, he was personally the object of the Father's everlasting love and delight.
Should this not make us bow in adoration at such matchless love, that the Father would subject the object of his supreme delight to his unmitigated wrath for our sake?"

- Jerry Bridges, Holiness Day By Day

Shirley MacLaine: "I have some credibility about what I think now."

Posted by Christine Pack

We wrote in a previous article that the New Age Movement never really went away, as most people believe, and this is true. The fact is, it didn't go away; rather, it was absorbed and mainstreamed into the culture. Many of its ideas and beliefs have become absorbed into everyday thinking, including how we think about:

Weather (global warming)

Business (sustainable development)

Health (holistic remedies, many based on Chinese religious beliefs)

Stress management (yoga, mantra meditation)

Food (organic, free trade, sustainably grown)

Entertainment (T.V. shows like Medium, Ghost Whisperer, Charmed; movies like The Matrix, Avatar, Hereafter)

Everyday lifestyle ("Green Living" - i.e., biodegradable housecleaning products, CFL lightbulbs, "low flow" showers and toilets, hybrid cars, fretting over one's environmental footprint, etc.)

Academy award winning actress Shirley MacLaine was one of the first prominent figures to promote the New Age movement and its beliefs in a positive way, which she did in her 1983 bestselling book, "Out On A Limb." Even though this book - and MacLaine - both became punchlines and late night talk show fodder for many years to come, it looks like MacLaine (and the power behind her) is having the last laugh:

In a recent USA Today interview with MacLaine, the interviewer writes:

"When asked what people think when they hear her name, the actress quickly raises her index finger and twirls it in the air, making a high-pitched whistle as she does. 

Translation: She's a nut case! 

'But I don't think so much anymore. I think I have some credibility about what I think now,' she says, adding that she was a few decades ahead of the curve. 'Remember what people used to say about meditation? Now everyone is doing it.'"

And she's right.  Look around at our culture today. Do people today have to make a special trip to New Age bookstores to find their books on meditation? Or to purchase their tarot cards, runes, or crystals?  No, they only have to drive as far as Barnes & Noble, or click on Amazon, to get all of these things. Do people still joke about wacko, tree-hugging environmentalists? Well, they might, but the car they're driving to Barnes & Noble in is a hybrid, and has a yoga mat rolled up in the back. The New Age is no longer a punchline.  It's our everyday reality.

photo credit: Marilyn M via photopin cc

 Additional Resources 

Universalism: The Gospel Message of the Emergent Church Movement and New Age Spirituality

Julia Roberts: "I'm definitely a practicing Hindu"

Ayurveda "Old Fashioned" Therapy? Well, Sure, If You're A Hindu.

"Christian" Yoga?

Karma Just Doesn't Cut It

The Light That Was Dark

The Beautiful Side of Evil

Tim Keller and "Social Justice"

Below is an excerpt of an excellent article by my friend Jonathan Cousar that was originally posted on the Freedom Torch website:

"I was so surprised to see an article posted here - on my own website about my former pastor, Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York city!  I went to Tim Keller's church for nearly 20 years and in fact I left just last year because of my growing concern that the church and Tim were far more liberal, theologically and ideologically than I had ever imagined. 

However, I never intended to write anything about it here because it just didn't seem like a relevant topic on FreedomTorch.  But since conservative FreedomTorch members are writing about him and doing so in a most positive way, I feel I must warn my conservative political and conservative Christian friends that Tim Keller, despite all claims to the contrary, is not a theological or an ideological conservative and he is most definitely not a traditional Evangelical.  He is in fact very liberal on both counts.  As J. Gresham Machen so well put it in his book “Christianity & Liberalism” liberal Christianity really isn't Christianity at all.  And I might add the corresponding political statement that liberal Americanism isn't Americanism at all either! 

The Christian media is fond of telling us that Tim Keller is an Evangelical Christian… just like us, they seem to imply.  So one thing Christians need to know about Tim’s teachings is that they are really anything but what we have come to know as “Evangelical” or conservative Christianity.   To sum it up most succinctly, you should know that Keller says "the primary purpose of salvation is – cultural renewal – to make this world a better place."  Whether you agree or disagree with that statement – it’s certainly not an “Evangelical” or conservative Christian belief." (Continue reading article here.)

Think Only Christians Have "Eschatology?" Think Again.

es·cha·tol·o·gy

noun \ˌes-kə-ˈtä-lə-jē\

Definition of ESCHATOLOGY

1

: a branch of theology concerned with the final events in the history of the world or of humankind

2

: a belief concerning death, the end of the world, or the ultimate destiny of humankind.

Contrary to what some might think, Christians aren't the only ones who have beliefs about the end times. After all, "Eschatology" simply means the study of, or knowledge of, the end times.  All false religions have an "Eschatology;" that is to say, a view of how the end times are going to play out.   It's wrong eschatology of course, but it is still that religion's view of how the end times will look.

In the video below, John MacArthur presents a brief, side-by-side comparison of Islam's eschatology next to the eschatology of the Bible. (This sermon in its entirety can be listened to here.)

Wrath Revealed

"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men." Romans 1:18

"Some people like to think that although the wrath of God is a reality in the Old Testament era, it disappears in the teaching of Jesus, where God's love and mercy become the only expressions of his attitude toward his creatures. Jesus clearly refuted that notion: "Whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him" (John 3:36, NIV). And he frequently referred to hell as the ultimate, eternal expression of God's wrath. (See, for example, Matthew 5:22; 18:9; Mark 9:47; Luke 12:5.)

In the inspired letters of Paul, we read of God's wrath being "stored up" for the day of judgment (Romans 2:5) and that God's wrath is coming because of sin (Colossians 3:6). And the whole tenor of Revelation warns us of the wrath to come.

Having then established the grim reality of God's wrath, how are we to understand it? God's wrath arises from his intense, settled hatred of all sin and is the tangible expression of his inflexible determination to punish it. We might say God's wrath is his justice in action, rendering to everyone his just due, which, because of our sin, is always judgment.

Why is God so angry because of our sin? Because our sin, regardless of how small or insignificant it may seem to us, is essentially an assault on his infinite majesty and sovereign authority. As nineteenth-century theologian George Smeaton wrote, God is angry at sin "because it is a violation of his authority, and a wrong to his inviolable majesty."

Here we begin to realize the seriousness of sin. All sin is rebellion against God's authority, a despising of his law, and a defiance of his commands."

- Jerry Bridges, Holiness Day By Day