Heidelberg Catechism: Lord’s Day XV—“[sustaining the wrath of God] all the time that he lived on earth …”

Q. 37. What dost thou understand by the words, “He suffered?”

A. That he, all the time that he lived on earth, but especially at the end of his life, sustained in body and soul, the wrath of God against the sins of all mankind: that so by his passion, as the only propitiatory sacrifice, he might redeem our body and soul from everlasting damnation, and obtain for us the favour of God, righteousness and eternal life.

(I)

Herman Hoeksema (1886-1965)

[Source: Sermon: “Atoning Suffering” (LD15), recorded in The Triple Knowledge: A Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism (2015), volume 3: “The Death of the Son of God”]

What does the Catechism mean when it teaches that Christ bore the “wrath of God” against the sins of the whole human race? Does this mean that God was ever angry with Christ personally? How could this possibly be? In his person our Lord is the only begotten Son of God who is in the bosom of the Father eternally. Certainly it would be blasphemy to assert that the Father is ever angry with the Son. Was the Father perhaps angry with the man Jesus? Was the Father’s anger directed against Christ as the servant of Jehovah personally? This is equally impossible, and besides, it is contrary to all we read in the scriptures of the Savior as man in relation to God. If he suffered the wrath of God all his life, this certainly cannot mean that God was angry with his holy child Jesus during his entire lifetime, and that our Savior was conscious of this anger of God against him. All his life was a testimony to his living in perfect fellowship with the Father and being conscious of his approval and favor. What was announced from heaven at his baptism and again at his transfiguration on the mount covers his relationship to the Father during his whole life: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17; 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35). Was he not the obedient servant? And was not God always well-pleased with him, even as man? Was there ever a moment in which he was so perfectly obedient, so deeply in harmony with the will of God, as the moment in which he cried out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me” (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34)?

What does it mean then that our Savior bore the wrath of God? It means that he suffered the expression, the concrete effect, of the wrath of God against the sin of others, of the human race. God’s wrath is the reaction of his holiness against the workers of iniquity. God is the holy one. He is the only good. He is the implication of all infinite perfections. Hence he is consecrated to himself. He seeks himself, knows himself, loves himself, and glorifies himself.

He seeks his glory also in the creature. For man this means that it is his everlasting obligation to be consecrated to God only. He must love God, seek him, and glorify him with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his mind, and with all his strength. If he does this, God embraces him in his blessed loving-kindness and favor, and he is unspeakably happy. But if he fails to do just that, if he turns against the Holy One, rejects him, rebels against him, ignores him, and tramples his glory underfoot, God reacts against that rebellious sinner in his anger, pursues him constantly with fear and terror, makes him inexpressibly miserable, and casts him down into everlasting darkness of desolation. This is his attitude toward the sin of all mankind. The expression of this wrath—the pain and agony, the suffering and misery, the sorrow and anguish of soul, the desolation and darkness, the fear and terror, the death and hell that become the experience of him against whom God directs his wrath—Christ experienced.

That is the explanation and the paradox of the cross. At the moment of his deepest and most perfect obedience, he endured the agonies of the damned. At the moment God was most highly pleased with him, he experienced all the terror of being forsaken of God. This is exactly why hell was still a question, an outcry to God for an answer. And that is also the reason that even from the darkness of hell and in the condition of utter desolation, the obedient Servant could still cry out, “My God, My God!”

He who knew no sin was made sin.

That is also the reason his question, pressed from his utterly forsaken and agonized soul, has an answer. In the hell of mere sinners there is no question. It is the answer, the final answer, the answer of everlasting wrath. But the suffering Servant of Jehovah, because he was obedient and yet forsaken, had a question: why me? And it received an answer presently, an answer to which the Servant responded even at the cross: it is finished!

Christ, then, bore the wrath of God in his bearing all the agonies of soul and body that are the expression of Gods’ wrath. That wrath of God, the Heidelberg Catechism instructs us, Christ “sustained.” This expression deserves special attention and emphasis because it points to the deepest reason the suffering and death of our Savior could be an atonement for sin.

Atonement is the perfect satisfaction of the justice of God with respect to sin. This satisfaction must be an act of perfect obedience in the love of God. Sin is an act; atonement must be an act. Sin is an act of rebellion and disobedience; atonement must be an act of self-subjection and obedience. Sin is an act of enmity against God; atonement must be an act of perfect love of God, for the fundamental demand of the law of God upon man is expressed in the one commandment: “thou shalt love the Lord thy God.” This demand is unchangeable. God never relinquishes it, not even when he subjects fallen man to his wrath and to the suffering of the curse. Man must love God even in his wrath, for God’s wrath is righteous and holy, an expression and revelation of his goodness and perfection.

Hence the guilt of sin can be removed only by an act of love under the wrath of God. He who would atone for sin must willingly, motivated by pure love of God, seek to fulfill all the justice and righteousness of God against sin. He must will to suffer all the agonies of the expression of that wrath in death and hell for God’s sake. Only such an act is a sacrifice. And only such a willing sacrifice is satisfaction of God’s justice and therefore atonement.

Thus this is the meaning of “sustained” in answer 37. Christ did not merely suffer the wrath of God against sin. He sustained it. He suffered, but his suffering was an act. The distinction that is often made between the active and passive obedience of Christ may be accepted, provided it is rightly understood. By active must be understood that Christ without fail was obedient to the law of God in all his walk and conversation. By passive must be understood that he was obedient also in his suffering. But it must be maintained that in all Christ’s suffering, he was never purely passive. He was active also in his passion and death. He willed to fulfill all righteousness. He was determined to satisfy the justice of God against sin. Voluntarily he assumed the obligation to suffer the wrath of God. Actively, in the love of God, he bore that wrath even unto the end. Thus his suffering was the perfect yes over against the rebellious no of sin.

That wrath of God against sin, the Heidelberg Catechism teaches us, “he sustained all the time that he lived on earth, but especially at the end of his life.” It is not difficult to see that Christ’s suffering extended over his entire life. This does not mean that he was subject to special diseases or even to the common sicknesses of mankind. If we consider the life of Jesus from the gospel narratives, we can find no special suffering of pain or sorrow that distinguished him in any respect from other men. Although he took all our sicknesses upon himself, not once do the gospel narratives mention that he was sick.

But he sustained the wrath of God. He, the Son of God in the flesh, the sinless one, assumed the likeness of sinful flesh. This means that he took upon himself the corrupt human nature, in which life is nothing but a continual death. This death he tasted as the heavy hand of the wrath of God against sin. Moreover, in the likeness of sinful flesh, he came into a world that was sinful and under the curse of God. The creature itself was made subject to vanity and was subjected to the bondage of corruption. The person of the Son of God in the sinless human nature tasted and suffered through it all the just wrath of God. Add to this that he suffered the contradiction of sinners against himself, that he dwelt among men who loved the darkness rather than the light, with whose enmity against God and against one another he came into daily contact, and in the corruption of whose nature he apprehended the wrath of God revealed from heaven, and we need not try to discover some special suffering, sicknesses, or calamities in the life of Jesus on earth to understand that in the corruptible and mortal flesh, in the midst of the world filled with enmity against God and of a creation that bore the curse of God, Christ’s life was nothing but a continual death, in which he experienced the wrath of God during his entire sojourn in our world.

Not only so, but all his life Christ lived in the shadow of the cross, and with increasing consciousness he moved deliberately in the direction of that cross. He had come not only under the moral law, but also under the entire Mosaic institution of ordinances and shadows. That meant that he came under the curse and that it was his task to remove that curse. He knew the program of his suffering, as is evident from his repeated and detailed announcement of it to his disciples. He had come to lay down his life, and he was well aware of it all his life. In a sense, all his life was a Gethsemane, an anticipation of the hour of the righteous judgment of God, when all the vials of God’s wrath would be poured out over his head.

Especially at the end of his life he suffered and sustained the full concentration of God’s holy wrath against sin and finished it. Two elements of his final suffering need to be emphasized now. First, in all his final suffering—inflicted upon him through the wrath and fury of evil men, his passion in the garden, before the Sanhedrin, before Pilate and Herod, and on Calvary, in all his being forsaken and denied, despised and rejected of men, beaten and buffeted and scourged and spit upon, in his condemnation and death—he tasted and suffered the wrath of God against the sin of the world. Second, he voluntarily bore the wrath of God in the obedience of love even unto the end. Thus his passion was the sacrifice of reconciliation, by which he obtained for us not only redemption from everlasting damnation, but also the everlasting righteousness that makes us worthy of that higher, heavenly glory that the scriptures denote as eternal life. So infinitely precious was the death of the Son of God.

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(II)

More to come! (DV)

QUESTION BOX

Q. 1. “It has been claimed, by some, that Christ only suffered the wrath of God ‘on the cross’ and not before. But the Catechism says that Christ was bearing God’s wrath ‘all the time that He lived on earth.’ So far, the only explicit Scripture text that I have found that comes close to supporting that phrase is John 1:29, where John the Baptist says ‘Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world’ (the key word here being ‘taketh’—which means ‘takes/taking’). Do you know of any other texts or arguments that support that phrase? Also, what about I Peter 2:24 (‘He bore our sins in His own body on the tree’), and also Christ’s words on the cross, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ (e.g. Matt. 27:46). Do not these texts imply that wrath was upon Christ only on the cross?”

Jesus suffered the wrath of God all his life. The whole New Testament is proof. The Son of God coming into our “weakened nature” is already a proof in itself. The eternal and unlimited God in weakened human nature! If that isn’t suffering, I do not know what suffering is. In that human nature, Christ suffered the rejection of the Pharisees and their repeated attempts to kill him. He suffered from his disciples’ inability to understand his coming into the world, their bickering about who was the greatest among them, and that in some of the Lord’s most trying times, the flight of his disciples to leave him, Peter’s denial of him, etc.

If you say that these things were not the wrath of God, you should consider that they were all heaped on him when he came into our flesh and because he dwelt among us as one like us in all things except our sins. They are suffering for us; why not for him who was like us? None of these things would have happened if he were not weak and frail as we are and needed the comforting of angels after his 40 days in the wilderness.

The interesting part of it all is that God said publicly, “Thou art my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” He experienced both all his life—wrath and favor together—but as the cross drew nearer, the consciousness of God’s favor grew weaker and the consciousness of God’s wrath grew stronger, until his suffering in the garden and his crucifixion itself. In fact there seems to be a moment when all he knew was God’s wrath when he cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” And yet God was more pleased (if I may speak as a man) with Christ at that moment of complete abandonment than at any other time. But even his willingness to suffer God’s wrath was suffering when he did not understand God’s wrath on him. He had done no sin. He cried, “My God …” and “why” am I so completely abandoned by thee when I love thee?”

We must be careful we do not minimize Christ’s suffering. Do you really think that Christ thought all was well because he knew God’s favor and love for 33 years? And then, suddenly when the soldiers drove the first nail into his hand that suddenly he experienced God’s wrath? The Heidelberg Catechism is right on target.

(Prof. Herman C. Hanko, 30/04/2018)

Q. 2. “How does Christ’s having a weakened nature and His sufferings in that nature, such as the rejection of the Pharisees and their attempts to kill him, the suffering of His disciples’ inability to understand His purpose and mission, and His anticipation and acceptance of what would happen to Him tell us specifically that God’s ‘wrath’ was upon Him before the cross, and, by extension, ‘all the time that He lived in earth’ (H.C., Q, 37)? Some have argued that all these things don’t necessarily mean there was wrath upon Him during those times, but rather that He was experiencing these things merely because He was ‘made like unto us in all things, except sin.’”

These sufferings were a direct consequence of his taking on our human nature. That in itself is so great a suffering we cannot fathom it. The infinitely divine became like us in all things except sin! He took our human nature on with all its limitations and weaknesses. He bore all our sicknesses and diseases, according to Psalm 103 and Isaiah 53. He wept when he knew Lazarus was dead. But above all, he knew that just as the wrath of God is God’s just punishment for our sin, when our Lord took our sin on himself—when he who knew no sin was made sin for us—he endured the wrath of God. All these things come on man because of God’s wrath. Wrath came also on Christ who “was made sin for us.” (II Cor. 5). That seems to me easy to understand. If he was made sin for us and if he bore our sins, and if he had a “weakened” human nature, the only reason could be that he bore all his life the wrath of God.

(Prof. Herman C. Hanko, 07/05/2018)

Q. “I was wondering if you could shed any light on ‘when’ our sins were imputed to Christ---when He bore our guilt.  Were they imputed to Him before the foundation of the world? at His Incarnation? at His baptism? at Gethsemene? or at the cross?

This is quite a controversial question because the Heidelberg Catechism says that ‘all the time that he lived on earth’ He sustained in body and soul, the wrath of God against the sins of all mankind (LD 15).  A lot of Calvinistic people absolutely reject that statement in the catechism on the grounds of the passages that speak of God being ‘well-pleased’ with Christ (and how can God be ‘well-pleased’ with Him and, at the same time, view Him as guilty for our sins, and Him bear God’s wrath simultaneously?), and they assert that ‘only at the cross’ were our sins imputed to Him, as evidenced by the Father’s ‘turning His face away’ from Christ, at the moment He cried out ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’, and in view of Peter’s statement that ‘on the tree’ He bore our sins in His own body (I Peter 2:24).”

The aspect of the question concerning the imputation of sin to Christ during his life is not difficult to answer.  God was imputing our sin to his Son throughout his life, beginning with his incarnation in the likeness of sinful flesh.  This is the teaching of Philippians 2.  The Son of God emptied himself in the incarnation as the lowly birth signified.  He made himself of no reputation in his incarnation.  His entire life was humiliation on account of the imputation to him of our guilt and shame.  Always he was bearing the guilt and shame of our sins.  Throughout his life he was the man of sorrows (Is. 53).  Isaiah 53 by itself answers this question and settles the disagreement over this issue.

This imputation and his suffering of the guilt and shame of it culminated in the punishment of the cross.  Culminated! 

This consisted of enduring the wrath of God against us on account of our sins.  But wrath is not inconsistent with God’s being pleased with him and indeed loving him.  God was never more pleased with his Son than when he willingly suffered the abandonment of God in the hours of darkness.  For then, above all, Christ was doing the Father’s good pleasure as his willing servant.  In addition, as to his person, Christ is the eternal Son of God.  Never did the Father hate his Son.  Never was he displeased with him.  God did make Christ to experience his displeasure with us, inasmuch as Christ was our representative.

Throughout his ministry, Christ suffered the experience of God’s wrath against him as the representative of a guilty people.  And throughout that ministry, God was well-pleased with his servant-Son, as he himself said from heaven on the mount of transfiguration. 

More difficult is the question whether God also imputed our sins to Christ in his eternal counsel.  The best way to answer this question is to affirm that God eternally decreed the imputation of sin to his Son in human flesh.  But the actual imputation took place in time and history beginning with the incarnation and culminating with the cross.  It is the same as is the truth of the cross.  God decreed the cross.  But Christ actually suffered the cross in history. 

Also, the testimony of the creeds must not be quickly dismissed.  They express the wisdom and orthodoxy of the church.  The Heidelberg Catechism is right when it states, “all the time that he lived on earth.”  This is the confession also of other creeds.  Knowledge of the truth does not start with us individually.

(Prof. David J. Engelsma, 18/08/2020)