Things they cannot sing

There is a new kind of Christian today that does not believe that Jesus was our substitute who satisfied the wrath of God on the cross. As we were singing some wonderful songs yesterday in church, I couldn't help but feel sorry for these new kinds of Christians, because they cannot sing the majority of the songs we sing on Resurrection Day. Or maybe they just sing parts of them, and are silent for the verses they don't believe in...

For example, here is one verse they cannot sing...it's the second verse of In Christ Alone:

Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied;
For ev'ry sin on Him was laid—
Here in the death of Christ I live.

By the way, as I was reading an article called The Rise of the Modern Hymn Movement, I learned that the author of that modern day hymn, Keith Getty, "has rejected numerous requests to change this line from the very popular hymn “In Christ Alone”: “And on the cross as Jesus died the wrath of God was satisfied”."

It's a sad thing that many of today's contemporary Christian songs have done just that - substituted biblical doctrine for mushy generic lyrics that could be classified as love songs to one's girlfriend. They want God to be all about love and tolerance, and He is, but that is not the whole picture of the God of the Bible.

As John MacArthur says...

"When is the last time you heard a new song on the wrath of God? Heard one lately? I haven’t.

Just to prove a point in my own mind I have an old Psalter, an old hymnal from the end of the nineteenth century and I pulled it off the shelf and started to go through the hymnal and I found hymn after hymn after hymn on the wrath of God, on the anger of God, on the vengeance of God, on the judgment of God. Hymns that sounded very much like the imprecatory Psalms, where the psalmist is asking God to come down and condemn His enemies. People don’t write hymns like that anymore. People don’t extol the wrath of God. We don’t want to talk about that in our Madison Avenue approach to presenting the message. But we will never understand at all the profound reality of God’s love until we comprehend His hate. That’s why you never even hear the word love until, the fifth chapter. There has to be a‑very clear delineation of what it is that God hates.

And may I add that it is not to say that God doesn’t love, but it is to say that you’ll never understand how great His love is unless you know how great His hate is. I mean, if you understand that God hates sin so profoundly then you will find it all the more amazing that He can love sinners. So that without an understanding of His hate, His love is crippled too in our thinking. Love and grace are favorite terms, are void of meaning if God does not hate."

-John MacArthur, The Wrath of God @ www.biblebb.com

Related:

Penal Substituion by Mike Ratliff
mikeratliff.wordpress.com

~ ~ ~

UPDATE: Here's another song they cannot sing that just came to mind...

I Will Never Be the Same
by Paul Oakley

I will never be the same
Now that I have seen the cross
And how You took upon Yourself
The fullness of the wrath of God
And I may never understand
Just what You suffered in my place
Jesus You who knew no sin
How You were made sin for us

And oh how fierce the Father’s anger
And though You were pierced
All the pain could not compare
So dark was the hour
When all heaven turned its face away
Turned its face away from You
How sweet is Your mercy
As it finds its way to me