Invitation

Recently I came across this sentence in my ESV study Bible:

"Every instance of the wrath of God against sin,
and his punishments of sin,
looks forward to the wrath
that was poured out on Christ on the cross."

Coming as it did after several years of exposure to Christ-centered preaching and the narrative/historical approach to preaching, this one sweeping sentence stated in a few words a key that promises to open up the Bible in passage after passage. Finding it there at the beginning of my new study Bible has given me the idea to just start reading the Bible and examine "every instance of wrath of God against sin, and his punishments of sin" and see if it is so.

John Piper received the idea for "The Pleasures of God" reading this sentence from Henry Scougal's "The Life of God in the Soul of Man": "The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love." Piper reasoned that Scougal's insight into the heart of man would also illumine the heart of God. He then went through the bible on a search for what God loves; the result is "The Pleasures of God".
Piper writes,
"If the excellence of God could be admired in his pleasures, and if we tend to conform to what we admire, then focusing on the pleasures of God could help me be conformed to God. This made sense not only from experience but also from Scripture.
For example, in 2 Corinthians 3:18 Paul says, "We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another."
That sentence from my ESV Study Bible inspires me likes Scougal's sentence inspired Piper. Men like Jonathan Edwards, John Piper and Tim Keller have convinced me that the essence of the born-again experience is the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit whereby he opens our eyes to the beauty of Christ, most powerfully seen in his dying, self-sacrificing love for us on the cross - the Gospel. Our hearts are never transformed until we gaze upon costliness of our redemption.
If it is true that "Every instance of the wrath of God against sin, and his punishments of sin, looks forward to the wrath that was poured out on Christ on the cross" then the provision for my salvation and transformation into His likeness lies waiting to be uncovered on every page of the Bible within every law, warning, exhortation, punishment, covenant, curse, defeat, death or suffering. It is all - even hell itself - placed there in the Bible by God ultimately to give me the words, images, concepts, categories, experiences, emotions and memories with which to experience and comprehend what Jesus endured for me as a free gift that I may escape God's wrath and spend the rest of eternity in amazed, ever-growing, grateful worship.
I say, "waiting to be uncovered" because it is so easy to read by an instance of God's wrath and not see Christ. In most passages of God's word the recipient of wrath is another specimen of fallen and cursed wickedness. "How can that be Christ?" Seeing Christ as the ultimate sin bearer in any particular passage is made more difficult when God or Christ explicitly appears as the judge or executioner in the story!
Nevertheless, I'm taking the challenge. Join me. I don't think I'll live long enough to do this on my own. Take a passage, find Chirst, add it to this blog and we'll create the Grace Reformed Church Commentary.