God was robbed! He was robbed of something precious and important to Him. He was robbed of something that belonged exclusively to Him. He made that which was His. His possession existed because He made it. His possession never belonged to anyone else because it did not exist before He made it. He did not acquire this possession from someone or some place elsewhere. He created His precious, important possession. He brought into existence something that did not exist prior to His creative act. It was His and no one else's.
Rarely do many Christians give serious thought to the fact that Satan through evil robbed God. Most human concerns about salvation matters center in us, our need for forgiveness, our losses because of sin and guilt, and our conclusions about what the person who would be a Christian should "give" God. Too infrequently do Christians give serious thought to the injustices God suffered because Satan deceived people. Too infrequently do Christians consider the fact that people [all people!] rightfully belong to God. People [all people!] should be God's possession! He created us! A direct link exists between trusting the certainty of our salvation and understanding God's reaction to the robbery He experienced.
How do you react when something is stolen from you? What are your feelings when someone takes something from you that belonged exclusively and uniquely to you? Name something that is yours that is extremely important to you. How would you react if it was stolen? What would be your feelings if it was taken from you?
Understanding God's reaction to Satan's theft begins by understanding our feelings of anger and sense of injustice when we experience a theft.
When something important to us is stolen, we feel anger. The thief ignored us. He [she] declared we are unimportant and insignificant. He [she] treated us unjustly, and that injustice angers us. When something important to us is stolen, we want it back! Our desire to have back that which was [and is] rightfully ours is intense. It is not unusual for our anger to grow as our awareness of the injustice grows. As our awareness grows, our desire to recover our stolen possession intensifies.
Experiencing a theft angers us for many reasons. Each reason in some way is related to the theft's injustice. The theft exploited us! The thief was not concerned about us! The theft of something we regard important produces intense feelings.
The Bible begins by introducing us to God Who creates (Genesis 1, 2). He brought the physical creation into existence. The crowning jewel of His creation was human life. His creative act brought human life into existence. He liked everything that He made! Without reservation, He liked His creation (Genesis 1:31)! He had a special relationship with the crowning jewel of His creation--human life. He placed the people He made in a garden He made. Everyday He visited with them (Genesis 3:8). For a while the people He made communicated with Him without shame, fear, or guilt.
Scripture reveals these two things. (1) God is the origin of life and all physical things. (2) From the beginning, God valued human life. His initial relationship with human life was special and cherished.
Then evil robbed God. Through deception, evil took from God that which exclusively was God's. Evil destroyed God's relationship with His people. However, evil did not stop there. Evil corrupted God's entire physical creation. Paul said in Romans 8:20,21 that this physical creation longs for a time of renewal when death and decay are destroyed. Evil diverted the entire creation from its original purpose. Creation longs to be set free from its corruption and fulfill its intended purpose--God's glorification.
Evil stole what was special to God. Evil's deception of human life produced the perversion of all physical creation.
When God was robbed of that which He created [that which belonged exclusively to Him], how did He feel? What did He want? He felt angry. He wanted what had belonged to Him back. God did not want, does not want, and never shall want that which is not His. God passionately wants what is His. He wants it with such intensity and determination that even the angels could not understand His determination to get back what had been His (1 Peter 1:10-12).
We should thoroughly understand God's reaction to this theft. The theft's injustice angered Him! He wanted back that which belonged to Him! His desire to recover humans was (is) intense! It mattered! It mattered more than humans comprehend!
Evil's theft placed two aspects of God's nature in conflict: His anger was in conflict with His love. His anger wanted to impose just consequences on evil, but He deeply, passionately loved people. Because evil enslaved people, destroying evil also meant destroying people. Evil's slavery so contaminated people that evil controlled people. People enslaved to evil no longer belonged to God. People must be rescued from evil before He destroyed evil! Yet, it was impossible for people to rescue themselves from evil's slavery. People could not escape evil exclusively through their own wills and actions. Only God could rescue them! But how? He could rescue them only if He redeemed them. God could not resort to practicing evil to destroy evil's slavery. His just nature demanded that evil be allowed to destroy the slavery evil imposed on people. That could happen, but only if God allowed evil to attack a part of Himself. Redemption could occur, but only if God paid the ransom. God loved people enough to pay their ransom (John 3:16-21).
Just anger is a part of divine nature. Compassionate love is also a part of divine nature. As long as God is not the victim of injustice, divine anger and divine love are not in conflict. The theft's injustice placed divine anger in conflict with divine love. Divine anger demanded just consequences. Divine love wanted to extend compassion to the enslaved.
This was the challenge our just God faced [justice is also a part of divine nature]: destroying evil in a way that satisfied divine justice without destroying people. How could God pay the consequences made necessary by human failure [being deceived by evil] and, at the same time, extend His compassion to people? How could God justly forgive human evil and extend compassion?
John 3:16-18 declared God's purpose in sending Jesus was to express His love for those enslaved to evil. In Jesus, God's objective was not condemnation. People were already condemned. Their slavery to evil condemned them.
2 Peter 3:9 emphasized the same truth. God delays His total victory over evil [which shall occur with Jesus' judgment] to give those enslaved to evil the opportunity to repent. God does not desire the destruction of one human. He made escape from evil's slavery possible. He patiently waits for people to repent because they realize their need for that escape.
God's dilemma: how could divine anger be appeased, people be redeemed from evil's slavery, and God remain just? If divine love expressed divine mercy and grace, divine justice demanded that divine anger be appeased. God could not function unjustly in the redemption He offered people. That is the core concept of propitiation. Propitiation was God's act of justly appeasing divine anger at the same moment He justly redeemed people. God allowed a part of His pure self to endure the penalty that belonged to evil and to people enslaved to evil. God paid the price of redemption for people enslaved to evil. Remember: people exist because of God's creative act! Jesus' death was God's act of propitiation. Evil motivated God's people to kill God's son. At the moment evil killed Jesus, evil also destroyed its stranglehold on people. By killing Jesus, evil destroyed its power to enslave people (see Hebrews 2:14-18).
In Jesus' death, God appeased divine anger and wrath, redeemed people, and remained just by satisfying the consequences of human participation in evil. The innocent Jesus died to liberate us from all evil. The fact that God must propitiate to be just in resolving the problem of human enslavement to evil reveals the seriousness of evil. This understanding is essential: the means for appeasing divine wrath was created by God, not devised by people. Divine wrath is appeased and divine forgiveness is extended because of God's accomplishments in Jesus' death, not because we accept God's accomplishments in Jesus' death. All we can do is accept forgiveness. We accept what God created when He appeased divine wrath by satisfying divine justice with Jesus' innocent blood.
God of necessity propitiated because evil's theft through deception provoked the just wrath of God. To realize divine wrath is a part of God's character and nature [just as is mercy], consider Exodus 32:1-14 [with the plagues in Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, God's physical nurturing in the wilderness, and Sinai's events as a background]; Ephesians 2:1-3; 5:3-6; and Colossians 3:5-11.
When God's kindness is misunderstood, exploited, or rejected, God's wrath is stirred. Any rejection or exploitation of divine kindness provokes divine wrath. Outside of Jesus Christ, every involvement in evil insults God's kindness. Those who place their faith in God's accomplishments in Jesus' death and live in the Christ live under the umbrella of God's propitiation. They are not sinless. They are forgiven. For the person in Christ, the penitent's failures are covered with divine mercy rather than confronted by divine wrath.
Some simple statements containing profound truths must be noted. Understanding these simple statements requires a lot of thought. Truth one: evil is the total, exact opposite of God. Consider something you find extremely detestable. The mere thought of this detestable situation repulses you. God detests evil beyond any form of repulsion you experience. Truth two: evil is God's avowed enemy. Evil despises God as much as God despises evil. It is impossible for the two to coexist. Evil's ultimate objective in human life is simple: eliminate every godly influence in a person's life. God's ultimate objective in human life is simple: eliminate every evil influence in a person's life. Truth three: evil acquires by theft. Evil defrauds. It steals by lying and deceiving (consider John 8:34-47). Truth four: God acquires by creating (consider Genesis 1:31; Exodus 19:3-6; Ephesians 4:20-24; Colossians 3:8-11; Titus 2:11-14). While Satan covets things that God creates, God wants only what is His. Truth five: God's anger and wrath have neither evil nor injustice in them. Human anger commonly contains injustice. Human anger commonly offers some form of opportunity to evil. (Consider Genesis 4:6,7 and Ephesians 4:26,27). God's anger never uses evil or provides opportunity for evil. God's anger expresses itself because evil acts before His anger is stirred. God's wrath never is motivated by injustice. God is wrathful because justice is violated.
These truths are easy to state but challenging to grasp. Truth one: evil must be seen as everything God is not. God must be seen as everything evil is not. Truth two: no person can knowingly, deliberately seek to accommodate both God and Satan in his or her life. See Matthew 6:24 and note the context created by verses 19-34. Serving two masters is never an option for anyone. Truth three: evil must be understood to be deceitful. Evil seeks to possess and control what is not rightfully Satan's. Truth four: God must be understood as Creator. God seeks to possess and control that which is rightfully His. He made it. Truth five: injustice never occurs, in any form, in God's anger and wrath. God seeks the objectives of righteousness. Evil never seeks the objectives of righteousness. God seeks our highest good. Evil seeks to destroy us.
State your understanding of how each of these texts in today's lesson relate to the divine act of propitiation.
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1 John 2:1,2--the core propitiation concept: in Jesus Christ, God created a perfect solution for imperfect people. While God has no desire for us to involve ourselves in evil in any capacity, He gave us an Advocate who permanently represents us before Him. Jesus Christ is the assurance that God will react to our evil mistakes with mercy rather than with wrath. We do not exploit our Advocate by rebelliously, indifferently engaging in evil, but neither do we doubt the ability of our Advocate as we seek to serve God.
1 John 4:7-10--the core propitiation concept: the understanding of God's enormous love for us revealed through His act of propitiation is our foundational motivation for loving others. We do not love other Christians because they are lovable or because they agree with us. We love other Christians because God loves them. His act of propitiation expresses love for them as much as it expresses love for me.
Hebrews 2:14-18--the core propitiation concept: God allowed Jesus to participate fully in the human, fleshly experience to qualify Jesus to be our perfect representative [high priest] before God. [The primary task of a high priest is to represent imperfect people before the perfect God.] He fully experienced human existence to qualify him to be our merciful representative before the Perfect God. His consistent plea for us is for mercy, not for punishment. Regarding us, the resurrected Jesus constantly appeals to God for divine forgiveness, not for divine wrath.
Romans 3:21-26--the core propitiation concept: in producing the means for people being righteous before God through faith, God was just as He created our justification through our faith in His accomplishments in Jesus' death. God was righteous [just] because He paid for all evil He has forgiven [as well as all evil that has not accepted His forgiveness].
End note:
God the Creator was sovereign over His good creation. When free-willed humans (created by the sovereign God) yielded to evil's temptation, their act of sin defied God's sovereignty. God has been working from that moment to reassert His sovereignty over a creation in rebellion. Paul referred to the fact that the physical creation is in a state of futility because of its slavery to corruption (Romans 8:20-22). Its original purpose has been perverted, and it longs to serve its original purpose.
The highest objective of Jesus Christ is to restore God's sovereignty (1 Corinthians 15:24-28). When all things in this creation that rebelled against God are placed in subjection to God, as a final act the Son will place himself in subjection to God. The salvation of people cannot be separated from God's reestablished sovereignty. In truth, our salvation is about God, not about us. We accept Christ and his forgiveness to acknowledge God's sovereignty. On earth we acknowledge God's sovereignty by surrendering our lives to Him so we can exist to the praise of His glory (Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14).
Link to Student Guide
Lesson 4