September 18, 2026
Friday, September 18
Hopefully this week I’ve shown how God can punish evil, but still expect us to forgive. His wrath is motivated by love, not selfishness, and it brings us the justice our souls cry out for. But there’s one question I haven’t answered: How can God be both completely merciful (forgiving every sin) and also completely righteous (punishing every sin)? We’ve all been told that God can do anything. Yet it seems like, according to Exodus 34, God’s own nature has painted Him into a corner. For centuries, the people of God wondered how all of this would turn out. Which side of God’s nature would win? Would His mercy win out, and He would simply ignore the sins of His people? If He did that, He wouldn’t be a righteous God. Would His righteousness win out, and He would call in that sin debt, punishing all of the evil once and for all? If He did that, it would mean the end of humanity, and eternal separation from Him forever. There were times when it seemed as if God’s righteous wrath had overwhelmed His love, such as when Jerusalem was destroyed by Babylon. There were no more sacrifices in the temple, no more priests leading the people to repentance. It was as though God had given up on them all.
Then a man named Jesus appeared. There was something different about Him, right from the start. Even His enemies could find no sin in Him. Yet He told sinful people they were forgiven. When the authorities protested that no man had the authority to forgive sins, He healed people’s illnesses and proved that He was more than just a man. In fact, He was God come down in human flesh. In John 14:9, when Philip asks Jesus to show him the Father, Jesus can’t believe His ears. “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”
The Gospel of John begins with a meditation on Jesus that calls Him “The Word,” and says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…and that all things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made (John 1:1, 3).” Colossians 1:17 and 19 says “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together…For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” Jesus was God, living among us.
Then He did the most stunning thing of all. He allowed Himself to be arrested and crucified without a fight. People today think of the death of Jesus as an awful tragedy, just one more example of evil people in power taking an innocent life. And it was that. But it was so much more than that. Jesus was no victim. In John 10:17-18 He said, “I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.” In dying, Jesus was solving His own divine dilemma. As Romans 3:26 says, “It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” There was only one way for Him to be both just—in making sure every sin was paid for—and the justifier—the one who makes us right and clean. That one way was to die in our place.
So John Stott could write, “The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting Himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices Himself for man and puts Himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prerogatives that belong to God alone; God accepts penalties which belong to man alone.”
“Oh Lord, the cross which is so ugly because of what it did to my Savior is also so very beautiful because of what it accomplished. Let me never get over the glory of the cross. In your name, amen.”
Senior Pastor
First Baptist Conroe
More from Pastor Jeff at his website: jeffbergerwriting.com
