Delivered from God’s Wrath

“…and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”

(Ephesians 2:3)

Is there any sense in which it may be said that those whom God has purposed to save and Christ did save by His death on the cross, were at one time children of wrath? The answer is, ‘No!’

The Scripture says that we were ‘by nature’ children of wrath but that is different from stating that we are children of wrath. By nature we all deserve God’s wrath and certainly share the same sin nature inherited from our father Adam. However, those whom God has chosen, redeemed and therefore saved, were always objects of Mercy and not wrath. Romans 9:22-23 makes a clear distinction between those who are vessels of wrath and vessels of Mercy. Just as tares never become wheat and goats don’t become sheep, so vessels of wrath are forever so and vessels of Mercy have always been such, by God’s eternal Sovereign Grace, “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our LORD Jesus Christ...” (1 Thessalonians 5:9)

It wasn’t to make God merciful that Christ died on the cross. Rather, it was because, in Love, God elected and predestined a people to salvation, Ephesians 1:4-5. Christ came and paid the required ransom in His death, so that God might be just (justified) in loving, saving and showing Mercy to His elect, Rom. 3:26.

This is what the LORD Jesus accomplished! Although the elect are all born into this world deserving of God’s wrath and until the cross, were under the legal condemnation of God’s law, the Bible declares that the LORD Jesus Christ met all the requirements of God’s law and justice that His forbearance of those in the Old Testament is now ratified in the death of the LORD Jesus and His full forgiveness, Grace and love toward the elect since the cross is justified, even before they are brought by His Spirit to Christ through Faith, Romans 3:25. As one old writer so plainly puts it, “So, all the elect were considered in Christ, Who by His death, did free all the elect from this fall of sin and death; so as since Christ’s death, none of the elect are under that state of wrath or curse, nor indeed could possibly be.” Because it was then that Christ redeemed them from under the law, Gal. 4:4-5.

Some may object, citing John 3:36: “...he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." However, this verse does not support the notion of God’s wrath being on someone until they believe. If you consider the entire verse together, it is contrasting those who do believe because they have been given everlasting life in Christ, versus those who will never believe because they have been and will always be under God’s wrath. They were never objects of Mercy.

To be an object of Mercy is to be chosen of God the Father in electing grace and to be redeemed, justified, sanctified and reconciled by the death of Christ and in time brought to repentance by the Spirit’s calling out unto Christ through Faith, 1 Peter 1:2. By elect, he means, singled out of the world and separated unto God in effectual calling, as 1 Corinthians 1:1: “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God...” is, eternally designed unto life, according to, or out of, that free grace and love that God did from before time ordain to them and executed in effectually calling them to Christ through the shedding of His blood unto death. The obedience of Christ to God was ordained by God the Father for their justification before Him.