Romans 5

Romans 7-10:  For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.
  8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 
 

This is about as harsh as you can get. God looked at us, and he didn’t see wayward children, or pitiful lost causes. He saw enemies. We may want to gloss over that, but if we do, we miss the majesty of God’s forgiveness. When he chose to push anger away and bring compassion near, it wasn’t like me forgiving my daughter after she lied to me. It’s more like me choosing to love and adopt into my family an ISIS member who beheaded my own daughter.
Yes, our sin was that bad. But against the dark backdrop of our sin, the glory of the gospel stands out in stunning contrast. This is why Donald Grey Barnhouse says that there is no greater wonder in the universe than the love of God for us. We see God choose love over wrath, and we can only say, “I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene, and wonder how he could love me–a sinner, condemned, unclean.”
We need not, we dare not, water down the wrath of God. For without knowing God’s wrath, we would never know the amazing depths of his love. --JD Greear

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