R.C. Sproul, a famous reformed (Calvinist) theologian, said:
We always say the Cliché, ‘God Hates the sin, but he loves the sinner.’ That’s nonsense! The Bible speaks of Him abhorring us, and that we’re loathsome in His sight, and He can’t stand to even look at us…[i]
In his sermon “God Hates the Sin and the Sinner,” Reformed Pastor Tim Conway explains how he views the gospel:
What Scripture tells us is that all of mankind are children of wrath. We are objects of the hatred of God by nature. We don’t deserve His love… God is not unjust to hate mankind. Because mankind is a hateful thing by nature. It ought to be hated[ii]
John Piper’s answered:
It is just not true to give the impression that God doesn’t hate sinners by saying, ‘he loves the sinner and hates the sin.’ He does hate sinners.[iii]
Reformed-Baptist Mark Driscoll:
God’s anger at sin and hatred of sinners causes him to pour out his wrath [on Jesus][iv]
Reformed Baptist pastor C.J. Mahaney:
Who killed Jesus? The Father. The Father killed the Son. Feel God’s love for you revealed in Isaiah 53:10. He crushed his son for you! He crushed Him! He bruised him! He punished him! He disfigured him! He crushed him! With all of the righteous wrath that we deserved. That’s what the Father did. So great was His love.[v]
Wyatt Graham, a director of The Gospel Coalition,[1] defines the gospel in this way:
Jesus bore divine wrath at the cross for our sake, and so protected us from it. This act implies that God hates humans since he would have poured wrath upon humans if not for the work of Christ’s cross.[vi]
Likewise, David Platt, a famous reformed-Baptist preacher, explains the gospel in this way:
Jesus was pulverized under the weight of God’s wrath––as he stood in our place…How can God show both holy hatred and holy love toward sinners at the same time? This is the climactic question of the Bible, and the answer is the cross. At the cross, God showed the full expression of his wrath.[vii]
Reformed-Baptist pastor Mark Driscoll also explained that:
God’s anger at sin and hatred of sinners causes him to pour out his wrath [on Jesus][viii]
Reformed pastor John MacArthur also adds:
We must remember, however, that sin did not kill Jesus; God did. The suffering servant’s death was nothing less than a punishment administered by God for sins others had committed.[ix]
God put his own Son to death? That is precisely what Scripture teaches.[x]
In his sermon, “Jesus sweats blood,” founder of Mars Hill Church, reformed-Baptist pastor Mark Driscoll, explained the gospel to his church:
See, at the cross of Jesus, there is hatred for Jesus and love for us…on the cross, the wrath of God was poured out on the Son of God. To say it another way, Jesus took the cup on the cross and drank every single drop of the wrath of God, and he endured it. This was physical, emotional, spiritual, mental suffering to a degree that is incomprehensible.[xi]
Another famous reformed-Baptist preacher, John Piper, in his book “The Pleasure of God in Bruising the Son” wrote:
Jesus was not swept away by the wrath of uncontrolled men. He was bruised by his Father. Why? To resolve the tension between the Father’s love for his glory and his love for sinners.[xii]
In his other book, Piper wrote:
The ultimate answer to the question, who crucified Jesus? is: God did. It is a staggering thought. Jesus was his Son. And the suffering was unsurpassed. But the whole message of the Bible leads to this conclusion.[xiii]
Wayne Grudem, a reformed scholar at Phoenix seminary, explains his view of the gospel:
God the Father, the mighty Creator, the Lord of the universe, poured out on Jesus the fury of his wrath: 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.[xiv]
Another reformed scholar, Dan Wallace, quotes Grudem and adds:
At the cross the fury of all that stored up wrath against sin was unleashed against God’s own son.[xv]
Trevin Wax of The Gospel Coalition argues:
God killed Jesus. I know that might sound harsh and it is, indeed, hard to wrap your mind around. But it’s true. God the Father sacrificed his Son. He killed his Son in order to spare us His righteous wrath.[xvi]
Reformed Baptist preacher, Paul Washer, says in his explanation of “how the believer is saved” that it is:
Because of what God did to Him: He crushed Him under the full force of His wrath against us…The Father takes the knife, draws back His arm, and slays His Son…[xvii]
Nick Batzig, Reformed pastor of The Gospel Coalition wrote:
Is it right, in any sense whatsoever, to say that the Father was angry with the Son when He punished the Son in our place and for our sin…He made the Son the object of His just displeasure and anger as the representative who stood in our place to atone for our sin and to propitiate God’s wrath.[xviii]
God the Father crushing, torturing, and killing God the Son means that the Triune God committed a cosmic suicide. As part of a devotional in a popular magazine for Christian women, it indicates exactly that:
God tortured His son and Himself to release the bondage and grip of sin on His creation.[xix]
Platt based his claim on the gospels’ “cup”:
The “cup” is not a reference to a wooden cross; it is a reference to divine judgement. It is the cup of God’s wrath. This is what Jesus is recoiling from in the garden. All God’s holy wrath and hatred toward sin and sinners, stored up since the beginning of the world, is about to be poured out on him, and he is sweating blood at the thought of it…At the Cross, Christ drank the full cup of the wrath of God, and when he had downed the last drop, he turned the cup over and cried out, “It is finished.” This is the gospel.[xx]
Washer explains the “cup” to have been when Christ was
Crushed under the wrath of His own father…all the wrath of all mighty God was going to be hurled upon Him and crush Him to pieces…His own father crushed Him.[xxi]
David Platt explains:
To be a Christian is to realize that in your sin, you were separated from God’s presence, and you deserved nothing but God’s wrath.[xxii]
Reformed-Baptist pastor and member of “The Gospel Coalition,” Thabiti Anyabwile, explains that:
Spiritual wrath from the Father, occurs deep down in the very godhead itself. We dare not speculate lest we blaspheme. But something was torn in the very fabric of the relationship between Father and Son…the ancient, eternal fellowship between Father and Son was broken as divine wrath rained down like a million Soddoms and Gomorrah’s. In the terror and agony of it all, Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”[xxiii]
All quotes were taken from my new book: ‘The “Gospel” of Divine Abuse’ where I deal with these and other quotes and doctrines.
[1] The Gospel Coalition is considered the online hub of Calvinism.
[i] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqAuvdEtbCk
[ii] “God Hates the Sin and the Sinner – Tim Conway“, YouTube, Sep 18, 2018.
[iii] John Piper, “God Loves the Sinner, But Hates the Sin?“, July 30, 2013.
[iv] https://realfaith.com/what-christians-believe/jesus-propitiation-substitute-sins
[v] C.J. Mahaney, “The Cross: A Meditation on Jesus’ Atoning Death.” May 29, 2006. New Attitude Conference; Louisville, KY. Available at https://vimeo.com/5289815, at minute 48.
[vi] Does God Hate People? WyattGraham.com, April 18, 2020.
[vii] David Platt, Sep 24, 2011 speech, Desiring God 2011 National Conference.
[viii] https://realfaith.com/what-christians-believe/jesus-propitiation-substitute-sins
[ix] John MacArthur, “Sin Didn’t Kill Jesus, God Did,” Crossway, 28 March 2018.
[x] John MacArthur, “Who Killed Jesus?” Grace to You, 10 July 2009.
[xi] Mark Driscoll, “Jesus Sweats Blood”, realfaith.com
[xii] John Piper, The Pleasure of God in Bruising the Son, March 8, 1987.
[xiii] John Piper, The Passion of Jesus Christ (Wheaton: Crossway, 2004), 11. For a helpful response to Piper, see Zach Hoag, “3 Reasons God Did Not Kill Jesus (But Jesus Still Had to Die,” http://zhoag.com/3-reasons-god-did-not-kill-jesus-but-jesus-still-had-to-die/.
[xiv] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), page 574.
[xv] Dan Wallace, Professor of Greek at Dallas Theological Seminary: “An Excruciating Gift – Daniel B. Wallace”, YouTube, Feb 19, 2019.
[xvi] Trevin Wax, “Who Killed Jesus?” The Gospel Coalition Blog, 20 March 2007. Accessed January 2021.
[xvii] Paul Washer, The Gospel’s Power and Message (page 192, 194)
[xviii] “Love and Anger at the Cross?” Nick Batzig, January 6, 2019. Reformation21.org
[xix] Living Better 50 Magazine, April 14, 2021 devotional.
[xx] David Platt, Radical, pg. 34-36.
[xxi] Paul Washer – Gethsemane
[xxii] David Platt, Follow Me: A Call to Die. A Call to Live. 2013. P. 49
[xxiii] Anyabwile, What Does It Mean for the Father to Forsake the Son?
