S157P4 – Life after death: free from wrath
Rom. 5:6-11
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
We have been taught about the difference between good fruit and bad fruit. We know that each fruit comes from its respective tree. The bad tree cannot produce good fruit, and the good tree cannot produce bad fruit. The metaphor is clear, and its application is something we see daily. In our own actions, the fruit of what we do can become evident rather quickly. When you break the law by speeding and get pulled over and receive a ticket right then and there, you see the fruit of judgment being produced by a disobedient act. This is like the judgment and wrath produced by the disobedience in the garden of Eden. This is a correlation between death and wrath that we must understand.
When Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they gained more than that knowledge. They took upon themselves and placed upon us the judgment and wrath of God for disobedience. It is this judgment and wrath which bring about spiritual death. The fact is that no person can pay the penalty for disobeying God without dying. We see what it took to satisfy his wrath and lift his judgment from humankind. It took perfection, and we do not have that. That is why the kindest and most honest good man you know cannot save himself. That is why even the best of the best need Jesus. Only He makes a way for us to come out from under the wrath of God which dooms us to spiritual death.
The disobedience of Adam and Eve brought God’s wrath and judgment upon all humankind. His wrath at being disobeyed came with a judgment which would need to be satisfied to quell that wrath. Without Christ, each of us would have had no choice but to die, but our deaths would not have saved anyone. We simply would have died. The death of Christ, on the other hand, satisfies that wrath for all and then lets us live. This great exchange is about satisfying a God with death yet having that process produce life. Father, thank You for saving us from your wrath and for making a way for us to escape judgment and death.