Cosmic Abuse?

I am currently reading John Piper’s book The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World. In his chapter on Joy and the Supremacy of Christ, he quotes a postmodern church leader as saying the way we interpret the cross is “cosmic child abuse.”

The fact is that the cross isn’t a form of cosmic child abuse – a vengeful Father, punishing his Son for an offence he has not even committed. Understandably, both people inside and outside of the Church have found this twisted version of events morally dubious and a huge barrier to faith. Deeper than that, however, is that such a concept stands in total contradiction to the statement: ‘God is love.’ If the cross is a personal act of violence penetrated by God towards humankind but borne by his Son, then it makes a mockery of Jesus’ own teaching to love your enemies and to refuse to repay evil with evil.
(Steve Chalke and Alan Mann, The Lost Message of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003), 182-83).

Piper does a nice job defending the essential doctrine of the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ, but another thing came to mind as I was reading the scriptures he presented. If we are going to view everything in the Bible through the lens of the one sentence “God is love” we must be sure we interpret that one sentence exactly as it was meant.

It seems to me that this leader has a misunderstanding of what love is. He seems to also ignore the fact that God is holy; He is angry at sin, righteous, and just. Grace and mercy do not mean anything if we don’t understand the wrath of God. God’s love does not mean He overlooks our sins, it means He showed us favor despite them because of what Christ did on the cross.

Here I just wanted to post the verses that Piper responded to this quote with and the verses that came to mind. Quite contradictory to the quote from this leader is the fact that when the Bible refers to the love of God, it ties it directly to the cross.

We esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all…. It was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief. (Isaiah 53:4-6,10)

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us – for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’ (Galatians 3:13)

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. (Romans 8:3)

I found it interesting that this author claims that penal substitionary atonement is actually a barrier to faith. Our Bible study last night revealed another verse very applicable to this very statement.

Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone,’ and ‘A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.’ (1 Peter 2:7,8)

Here are the verses tying the love of God to the cross.

For God so loved the world (i.e. He loved the world in this way) that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. (John 15:13)

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. (Ephesians 5:2)

In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:9,10)

To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood… (Revelation 1:5)

I give these verses as a study, not simply to point out a false teacher, but to encourage believers to dig deeper into the word. The death on the cross and the resurrection are foundational to our faith. Without them we are still in our sins and are to be pitied above all men (1 Corinthians 15:12-18)