Marriage: God's Showcase Of Covenant-Keeping Grace Series

Or to put it in terms of last week’s message: The key to being naked and not ashamed (Genesis 2:25), when, in fact, a husband and a wife do many things that they should be ashamed of, is the experience of God’s vertical forgiving, justifying grace bent out horizontally to each other and displayed to the world.

The Coming Wrath of God

Briefly, let’s see the foundation for this truth in Colossians. We will start with Colossians 3:6, “On account of these the wrath of God is coming.” If you say, “The last thing I want hear about in my troubled marriage is the wrath of God,” you are like a frustrated fisherman on the western coast of Indonesia on December 26, 2004, saying, “The last thing I want to hear about in my troubled fishing business is a tsunami.” A profound understanding and fear of God’s wrath is exactly what many marriages need, because without it, the gospel is diluted down to mere human relations and loses its biblical glory. And without it, you will be tempted to think that your wrath—your anger—against your spouse is simply too big to overcome, because you have never really tasted what it is like to see an infinitely greater wrath overcome by grace, namely, God’s wrath against you.

The Removal of God’s Wrath

So we begin with the wrath of God and its removal. Now go back with me to Colossians 2:13-14, “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him [Christ], having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.”

Those last words are the most crucial. This—this record of debt that stood against us—God set aside, nailing it to the cross. When did that happen? Two thousand years ago. It did not happen inside of you, and it did not happen with any help from you. God did that for you and outside of you before you were ever born. This is the great objectivity of our salvation.

The Record of Debt Cancelled at the Cross

Make sure you see this most wonderful and astonishing of all truths: God took the record of all your sins that made you a debtor to wrath (sins are offenses against God that bring down his wrath), and instead of holding them up in front of your face and using them as the warrant to send you to hell, he put them in the palm of his Son’s hand and drove a nail through them into the cross.

Whose sins were nailed to the cross? Whose sins were punished on the cross? Answer: My sins. And Noël’s sins—my wife’s sins and my sins—the sins of all who despair of saving themselves and trust in Christ alone. Whose hands were nailed to the cross? Who was punished on the cross? Jesus was. There is a beautiful name for this. It’s called a substitution. God condemned my sin in Christ’s flesh (Romans 8:3). Husbands, you cannot believe this too strongly. Wives, you cannot believe this too strongly.

Justification Goes Beyond Forgiveness

And if we reach back and draw in here all our understanding of justification from Romans we can say more. Justification goes beyond forgiveness. Not only are we forgiven because of Christ, but God also declares us righteous because of Christ. God requires two things of us: punishment for our sins and perfection in our lives. Our sins must be punished and our lives must be righteous. But we cannot bear our own punishment (Psalm 49:7-8), and we cannot provide our own righteousness. None is righteous; no, not one (Romans 3:10).