A crucial problem with how people conceive the doctrine of Christ’s saving work is the attempt to understand the doctrine apart from the doctrine of God. Until we have a biblical understanding of God and His nature, we are not fit to see the necessity of the cross. Propitiation and expiation and the various aspects of the atonement will be nonsense to us. If we step into this doctrine without a grasp of who God is then we will most likely gravitate to the aspect of the atonement that seems most compatible to our own interests, expectations, standards, etc.

Most people conceive of God to be a God of love. That is not controversial. To most people the caricature of the Divine Being is at least some giant ‘care bear’ in the sky who is nice to people. The “man upstairs” is everybody’s kind of guy. He loves and is comfortably lovable to the point that there is enough mercy to go around when we screw up. But what is  nature of this real love and real mercy?

It should be clear that we would know nothing about love or mercy if there were no such thing as wrath. The meaning of mercy implies an alternative. Mercy is not an independent concept that drops out of an undermined idea of love. Mercy is the response that’s very presence testifies to the fact that it is what should not be. If mercy is to be fully understood then understanding wrath is a necessity.

Unless we get that we really deserve eternal condemnation, unless we get that we really deserve the furious anger of God’s wrath against us forever–unless we get all of that then Jesus’ death in our place is emptied of its glory. How can we appreciate salvation if we don’t know what it is that we are saved from?