Questions & Answers
With Dr. Bob Burrelli, Grace Bible Church
I have heard the teaching that Christ appeased God’s wrath when he died and it sounds a bit like something out of pagan mythology. Is this teaching right and, if not, did Christ actually do anything for God on the cross?
Jesus accomplished different work on the cross for two different parties. He redeemed and justified sinners, on the one hand; on the other hand, He met the just demands of a holy God on behalf of the sinner. What Jesus did for God on the cross is what Paul calls propitiation in Romans 3:25. This word is not familiar to those who do not read the Bible, because it is seldom used in regular conversation. It has elements of divine wrath, sacrifice, and appeasement and is used in pagan literature around the time of Christ to describe how worshippers made various offerings to appease the anger of their gods. But this idea is absolutely foreign to Paul’s use of the word. He is very clear in his epistle to the Romans that no sinner is capable of offering anything to God that would please Him (8:7-8), much less obtain his or her salvation. So what does Paul mean by this word? He means the satisfaction of God’s just demand for the penalty of sin in Jesus Christ.
God’s wrath is certainly one of the most important characteristics of His nature and arguably the most ignored. Many simply do not want to talk about God’s wrath. They would rather hear of His love and mercy and grace. But the Bible is clear that God is also a wrathful God; He hates sin and is obligated by His holiness to punish the sinner. All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory and, consequently, all deserve an outpouring of God’s wrath. That is the penalty for rejecting Him.
Knowing full well that man cannot meet the just demands of God’s penalty for sin, which is death, God, in a great act of love, came to earth in the form of a man, whom we know as Jesus Christ, and met His own demands on behalf of sinners. To say it another way, God unleashed all His wrath that was meant for us upon Christ and, by doing so, was satisfied with His perfect sacrifice. Christ’s sacrifice was acceptable to God. It met the just demands for sin. It appeased God. It propitiated Him.
The result of Christ’s propitiation is that those who trust Christ will not receive God’s wrath. Christ saves them from it.