Romans 3:21-28
But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22 This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith.
27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. 28 For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.
Atonement Appeases God’s Anger
Do you remember the last time you were angry? I want you to think about that for a second. Who or what had upset you? How long were you angry? What made you stop being angry?
Anger is a funny thing. It can ruin your whole day. It can sour your mood. We can stew over something for hours or days. We can hold grudges for years after the fact. Anger can divide people. It can lash out in an instant and leave scars that last a lifetime.
But how do we usually deal with anger? Oh, you just go for a walk. Get some fresh air. Take your mind off of everything. You remove yourself from the situation. You distract yourself and hope that if enough time passes, all that anger will magically fade away.
Does that ever work? In my experience, not very often. Can taking a walk lower your blood pressure? You bet it can. Can removing yourself from a tense situation prevent further damage? Absolutely. But what does that do to the anger itself? What happens the next time you see that person? How do you feel when the thing that made you angry the first time happens a second or third or fortieth time? Does the anger ever go away, or does it just lie dormant, ignored and unsatisfied, until something sets it off again?
What is it that can actually satisfy anger? I think most of our methods are a mixture of avoidance and coping mechanisms. We try to learn to live with it, or repress it, i.e. shoving it into a corner where we don’t have to think about it. But some of the events on the news lately illustrate how anger boils over when it’s not addressed.
Maybe you won’t stop being angry until the police are defunded. Maybe you won’t stop being angry until the protests stop. Maybe you won’t stop being angry until the pipeline is installed or put in mothballs. It honestly doesn’t matter on which side of any given issue you fall, we all find plenty of reasons to be angry about it, and usually the only thing that will satisfy that anger is someone else doing what you want them to do.
Did you know that God gets angry? Sometimes we like to paint him as a benevolent, kind, grandfather figure who is a big ol’ softie and couldn’t hurt a fly. But even grandfathers get angry when their grandchildren misbehave and turn destructive.
Do you imagine that God is happy when he looks down at this world and sees what we do? Do you think that God is happy to see human relations so bad that people feel the only way they’re going to be heard is through protest? Do you think God is happy to see violence we inflict on each other, or to hear what we have to say to people or about them behind their backs or on social media?
For the first 2 chapters of his letter to the Romans, Paul makes the point that none of us has an excuse. We have each made God angry. We can’t point the finger and say, “They’re the problem; I am not,” because as Paul reminds us, “You who pass judgment are condemning yourselves because you do the same things. Don’t you realize that God wants to lead you to repentance?”
It is easy to see faults and failings in other people. It’s harder to admit that we struggle with the same thing. The people that we accuse of being selfish or short-sighted could just as easily make those accusations against us. And, sadly, the result is that we are part of a world that is storing up God’s wrath against us.
So, what can possibly satisfy God’s anger against our sinful behavior? Well, that’s where our word for the day comes in – atonement.
A pithy little way to define atonement would be to say that atonement is the way that God makes us “at one” with him. In that sense, atonement is just another way to speak of harmony or reconciliation. We could say that atonement is a synonym for forgiveness and salvation, but to do that would be to ignore the rich picture behind that word.
The word Paul uses here for “sacrifice of atonement” is actually a call back to the Old Testament and specifically to the ark of the covenant.
Maybe you only know the ark of the covenant from Indiana Jones, but it actually was an important piece that was put in a very special place in God’s Temple. It was a box about a meter long by half a meter high and wide. It was overlaid with gold inside and out, and it housed the original Ten Commandments, among other things. But it’s the cover that was the most special.
The cover was made of pure gold and it had two golden angels seated at either end with their wings stretched out toward each other in the middle. And it was there, right above those wings that the visible presence of God would meet with the High Priest once a year on the Day of Atonement. On that day, the High Priest would make a sacrifice of a bull for the sins of all the people and sprinkle the blood of that bull on the cover to the ark of the covenant.
The word that Paul uses here for “sacrifice of atonement” is the same word that God used to describe the cover for the ark of the covenant. So, we could say that Jesus is like that cover in that he represents the place where God meets man in mercy and forgiveness. But Jesus is much more than just the cover. He is also the one whose blood makes atonement for sin. Let me put it another way: Jesus’ blood was the only means possible to satisfy God’s anger over our sin.
God doesn’t do what you and I do when we’re angry. He doesn’t take a walk and try to forget it. He doesn’t change his mind or learn to live with it. He doesn’t wink away our sin as if it’s not a big deal or drown it in tears. As the God of perfect justice, he cannot let sin go unpunished (just ask any victim how they would feel if there were no justice for the crime committed against them); but as the God of perfect love, he chose to punish someone else. He sacrificed his one and only Son on a cross in your place, to pour out Jesus’ blood to resolve your sin.
God was deadly serious about your sin, but he dealt with it by his Son, and now it’s done. Now you’re “at one” with your God, i.e. harmonized with him through the blood of Jesus, your atoning sacrifice.
God is not happy when he sees the sin of this world. He’s rightfully wrathful when we disobey him and turn our destructive anger toward each other. But God does not see your sin anymore, because it has already been paid for by Jesus. He’s done all the work for your salvation. When we get mad, we demand that someone else do something to satisfy us and make that anger go away. When we made God mad, he didn’t demand anything of us, but gave everything to us as a matter of his grace through faith.
That’s what Paul says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” God does all the work. He’s the one who justifies; we’re the ones being justified, i.e. he doesn’t hold our sin against us anymore. He forgives it freely, as a gift. It’s not a transaction. It’s not something we can earn. It’s a matter of God’s grace, his undeserved love for us, and it’s all possible because of the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
He paid the price that we could not. He poured out his holy, precious blood and endured innocent suffering and death to be the atoning sacrifice to take your sins away. Like that cover on the ark of the covenant, Jesus’ blood is what allows God to meet man in mercy and love. Jesus’ blood is what takes God’s anger away.
You have been atoned – your sin paid for, your guilt removed. And our God has not demanded anything from you, but invites you to receive his grace by believing in his Son.
God’s anger with you has been satisfied by Jesus. Now what about the anger that we feel toward others? This doctrine of atonement doesn’t mean that we try to avoid people or situations that make us angry. It doesn’t mean that we try to learn to live with those angry thoughts and feelings. It means that we cover them in the blood of Christ, just as his blood covers us.
Even when someone has wronged you, God has already forgiven their sin in Jesus. Your job isn’t to wipe away Jesus’ blood and reveal the sin that God has covered so that you can revel in it and relish your opportunity to hold something over them. Your responsibility is to forgive them too and give up your right to be angry.
When I’m inconsolable – when I want to wallow in self-pity and harbor hatred in my heart, when I want to cling on to that grudge for dear life and never let my anger be satisfied – faith in Christ’s atonement compels me to look to the cross where the wrath of God toward me was satisfied. That’s where my anger goes to die too.
Atonement isn’t this mysterious harmony that comes out of nowhere. It was dearly bought with Jesus’ blood and freely given to all who believe. May we who put our faith in Jesus value that sacrifice and honor it by giving up our right to be angry and living in the forgiving love of our God in Christ Jesus our Lord and the Lamb of sacrifice for all of our sin. May he teach us to be forgiving to each other, as he has forgiven us. Amen.