Thought to post this here too (first posted it on fb status today: 28//11/13)

Today's daily bread: doctrines of Christ and the Holy Spirit: The Atonement (Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem, 2007)...

The hardest part was to read and study the section on The Nature of the Atonement:Christ's Sufferings for Us: The Pain of the Cross: Bearing the Wrath of God. Hardest because what had we done by putting this innocent being through such suffering... before I quote the part let me first quote this

"[Jesus] "having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end" (John 13:1)"

and it was necessary for Him a total innocent being to carry our sins in order for God to be merciful and yet maintaining His righteousness--His attribute. "For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16) and also Romans 3:25-26 "This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus" (Grudem used RSV for this biblical verse)

But then the wrath of God--the intensity of it--"Jesus became the object of the intense hatred of sin and vengeance against sin which God had patiently stored up since the beginning of the world" (Grudem, 2007) and "[the] heavenly Father, who is "of purer eyes to behold evil" (Hab 1:13).