Today I want to wrap up this short series that I’ve titled “The Holiness of God and the Existence of Hell.” It looks at what happens when the holy God comes into contact with sin. So far we’ve seen that God may react to sin with just wrath and that he may react with patient mercy. Now I want to look to the place where God’s wrath and mercy meet–the cross of Christ. The cross of Jesus Christ is all about God’s holiness. That may seem strange, that a place of blood and suffering and torment would be all about holiness. But the cross answers this question: How can a holy God be reconciled to unholy people? That question demands this one: How can the relationship between a holy God and an unholy people be restored without some gross act of injustice? At the cross we see just how much God values his holiness. We see that God will not violate his own holiness even in order to save the ones he loves. Here at the cross we see wrath and mercy meet. We see both of them in their glorious fullness–the ultimate display of God’s wrath and the ultimate display of God’s mercy. When we look to the cross we see Jesus Christ serving the just sentence of a sinner. There on the cross Christ experiences physical death, so his heart stops beating and his body begins to decay. He also faces spiritual death, spiritual destruction. He is punished by facing the fury of … Continue reading God’s Mercy and God’s Wrath Meet at the Cross