Mere Missions

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3. Plan: The Love of God God has not destined the rebels for wrath (1 Thess. 5.9). God’s boundless and overflowing love caused Him to devise a plan to rescue and save all of humanity from His judgement, condemnation, and punishment (John 3.16-17). His desire, flowing out of His matchless love, is that none should perish but that everyone would be saved and receive His peace rather than experience His enmity and just wrath (2 Pet. 3.9). This is the heart of the “Good News” – God has taken the initiative to seek and to save (Luke 19.10) those who have rebelled against His Kingdom, i.e., His rule and reign. Here is the love of God, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son, whose name is Jesus, to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4.10). This Son of His appeased His wrath that is upon us (Rom. 3.24-25). We no longer need to be His enemies (Col. 1.21-22; Rom. 5.10-11). But how did Jesus, the Son of God, appease God’s wrath so that we are no longer enemies of God? What did He do? Jesus took our judgement, condemnation, and punishment upon Himself by being a sacrifice to God (John 1.29; Rom. 5.6-10; Eph. 5.2; Heb. 10.10). It was a brutal sacrifice of death upon a Roman cross. Jesus could be that sacrifice for the whole world because He was without sin and rebellion against God. He was perfect. 2 Corinthians 5.21 says, “For our sake he [God] made him [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him [Jesus] we might become the righteousness of God.” The Good News is that God actually saves us from Himself (Luke 2.14; 2 Cor. 5.21; Rom. 3.21-26; 5.1, 8-11; 1 Thess. 1.10; Col. 1.20; Isa. 53.5; 61.10; Eph. 2.14-18; Heb. 8.12). When Jesus cried out on the cross, “It is finished,” He was stating that the war and wrath of God towards His rebellious enemies, humanity, has ended.