We need to wrestle with the fact of God’s wrath. I do not wish to wrestle with the idea of God’s wrath or anger so that we can better handle our own. I dealt with that many years ago in research done at Fuller Theological Seminary while in a class on Job. I was one of several students who was asked to present my research to our class. In the lecture I proposed that God’s wrath was part of his character. To this I got several visceral responses. As is common in many Christian circles, some chose not to believe that a loving God can also be a wrathful God. My response simply was that Scripture shows that God is wrathful, as well as merciful and loving, and that I cannot dismiss any of those Scriptures.
Read this passage of Scripture as an example.
“Is it not revealed with Me, sealed in My treasuries?
Mine is vengeance and retribution at the time when their foot will falter,
for the day of their catastrophe is near, and future events are rushing at them.”
When Hashem will have judged His people,
He shall relent regarding His servants,
when He sees that enemy power progresses, and none is saved or assisted.
He will say, “Where is their god, the rock in whom they sought refuge,
the fat of whose offerings they would eat,
they would drink the wine of their libations?
Let them stand and help you! Let them be a shelter for you!
See, now, that I, I am He—and no god is with Me.
I put to death and I bring life, I struck and I will heal,
And there is no rescuer from My hand.
For I shall raise My hand to heaven and say, ‘As I live forever,
if I sharpen My flashing sword and My hand grasps judgment,
I shall return vengeance upon My enemies
and upon those that hate Me shall I bring retribution.
I shall intoxicate My arrows with blood and My sword shall devour flesh,
because of the blood of corpse and captive,
because of the earliest depradations of the enemy.’”
O nations—sing the praises of His people,
For He will avenge the blood of His servants;
He will bring retribution upon His foes,
And He will appease His Land and His people.
~Deuteronomy 32:34-43
(The Tanach – Stone Edition)
Theology is dangerous—making the same presumptions that Job’s friends did—in that I can feel that I know enough to tell you something about God! When we do theology, we think we might be representing God’s cause, as Elihu did in the book of Job. We must be careful with our motives for wanting to define, explore or explain God’s wrath.
So, what is my motive? I am hard after knowing my God. I want to explore all aspects of him, to know him better, to love him more, to be able to wrestle with who he is in all the ways we can this side of Heaven. One of the theological images in my life is that God is a like a diamond—many faceted, marvelous and terrible in his beauty. As a diamond turns, the observer can see facets that they have never seen before. It is at that revelation that an observer can choose to explore that facet or choose to ignore it. I choose to explore the facet of God which includes his wrath—no matter how uncomfortable that could get.
This discomfort smacks up against our culture’s humanism. The evidence of God’s wrath takes us humans decidedly out of the center of the universe. The question is put to us repeatedly, “If God is a loving God, how could he allow (insert a particular struggle)?” That is terribly unnerving if we think that God’s whole purpose for existing is simply to create us and then let us be. Letting us be is precisely not part of what God’s purposes are for humanity. As we will explore, God’s wrath is often withheld—to our great sorrow. But it is also unleashed for particular ends. But to what end?
God’s wrath is stored up for its appropriate use. The Apostle Paul wrote in relation to God’s wrath in Romans 1:20. “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” (NIV) Without excuse. Since we can know God’s qualities—even some pagans acknowledge a single source of creation—why can we not know, or decide we cannot know, that he has a greater purpose for us than letting us build legacies that attempt to leave him out of the picture and ultimately lead to death?
If we can come to terms with God’s character and his purposes for our lives, then we can understand, acknowledge and accept his wrath. This is no more poignantly displayed than in the life of King David and the consequences of his sin of adultery with Bathsheba and David commanding the death of her husband (2 Samuel 11-12:25). In brief, Nathan the prophet had confronted David and David had confessed his sin—taking another man’s wife, taking that man’s life, but greater still, despising the word of the Lord and doing evil is God’s eyes (12:9). Nathan described the consequences of David’s forgiven sin.
“Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own. This is what the Lord says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight. You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’” (12:10-12, NIV)
Only then did David come to terms with the justifiable wrath of God. And then he submitted to it. Nathan went on to describe the first of David’s terrible consequences. The child of his lust would be taken in death. David does not defy God any further, but he pleads for the life of this child through prayer and fasting. Seven days later that tiny life was gone.
We must be cautious here to assign any person’s death, or any other tragedy, only to the working out of God’s wrath. We can admit that living in a fallen world has many consequences that may not be particular to one person’s sin. However, we must remain open to the reality that some of our tragedies are in direct consequences to our sin. The Holy Spirits guides us into all truth and will help us through it if we confess our sins, as David finally did. The sooner the better, though! Read James 1 and take to heart and action 1 John 1:9: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." God’s love, forgiveness and mercy are always close at hand!
David’s servants were baffled by what happened next.
Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.
His attendants asked him, “Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!”
He answered, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.” (2 Samuel 12:20-23, NIV)
Here we see no shaking of the fist at God, no rebellion, no defiance, not even loud mourning—for that was spent. Here we see a man acknowledge the act of wrath carried out by the God he loves. The child may have suffered for a short time, but then that child was taken into the bosom of the God who loved him and loved David. From that point forward, David lived the best way he knew in relation to God’s wrath and in relation to God’s mercy. Marked for the remainder of his days with the sorrows that come as the consequences of sin, David continued to grow in his understanding and love of the God who had plucked him out of field to become a king. And out of that growth came great and humble leadership, as well as deep and passionate worship of his God.
It does become quite humorous or provoking when you begin to read what some others have written about the matter of God’s wrath. Some try to tame it and make it just a sorrowful and uncomfortable thing. Others latch on to it to justify their own rage and speak, blasphemously, for God. Still others completely avoid it because it is too difficult a subject—perhaps from the horrors of human wrath used against them. Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary defines God’s wrath in this way. “The Scriptures use various terms to express God's emotions that are in contrast to his love for, pleasure in, and satisfaction with his people.”[1]
This brings us to some important questions about this particular definition, and perhaps our own misunderstanding about God’s wrath.
· Why is God’s wrath in contrast to his love?
· When does God get angry?
· How does he express his anger?
· When does he relent from his wrath?
· Is his love demonstrated in his wrath?
I propose that God’s wrath is indeed one of his qualities. A quality is a distinctive attribute or characteristic possessed by someone or something. Its synonyms are: feature, trait, attribute, point, aspect, facet, side, or property. For, as the Apostle Paul lays out in Romans, without this essential quality the lost would be forever lost.
In God, Man and Salvation, the authors give readers a taste of reality from the ancient Biblical prophets. “The prophets do not speak of the ‘attributes’ of God as a systematic theologian would. Abstract nouns are almost nonexistent in biblical Hebrew. Rather, the Old Testament abounds in verbs and active participles when it speaks of God. Not only are terms such as ‘omniscience,’ and ‘immutability’ lacking in the language of the Old Testament, the ideas themselves are largely foreign in Hebrew thought. In their place are rich and meaningful descriptions of God in action.”[2] (Author’s emphasis added.)
Slow
Forbearing
Longsuffering (not impulsive)
Swift and sure in its execution
Jealous
Personal and specifically directed (not capricious)
Merciful
These descriptions, if taken seriously and thoroughly throughout the whole of the Bible, give us a decidedly un-human understanding, for God’s wrath is not ours. It is not capricious, self-centered, cruel, vindictive or unjustifiable. William Greathouse wrote that “the manner in which Paul places the wrath of God against his ‘righteousness’ in v. 17 and uses the dynamic term revealed in both cases suggest that wrath represents something in the attitude and purpose of God. As there is a positive outgoing of divine love and mercy in providing salvation for men [and women], just so there is a positive outgoing of divine displeasure at sin.”[3]
When Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome, he brought up this important quality of God in order to lay out one of the key features of the Gospel. After his introductory remarks, filled with words of love and encouragement to non-Jews and to Jews, he writes: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” (1:16-17) Paul then launched into one of the premier defenses of the Gospel as represented through the demonstration of God’s wrath.
It is important now to come to terms with the work of righteousness both by God and in us. We’re going to depend on David Ackerman’s concise exploration of this topic.
The gospel is the revelation of the righteousness of God. Righteousness, a key theme of the
Letter [to the Romans], describes standing before God innocent of sin. It is also the right actions one lives out in obedience to God’s commandments. Paul connects these two ideas together in his phrase, “the obedience that comes from faith” (1:5; 16:26).
There are two primary ways to understand this phrase. First, righteousness is a characteristic of
God. God is right and does what is right. God’s righteousness is revealed in salvation offered
through Christ. Those who trust in Christ are forgiven of their sins and guilt before the law, and
righteousness is “imputed” (credited) to them. Second, God provides righteousness as a gift to those who believe who not only have a right standing but actually become righteous (Phil. 3:9). This righteousness is “imparted” (given) to them through the Holy Spirit to live in holiness (6:19).
The way to experience this transformation is by faith from first to last (literally, “through faith for faith”). Righteousness comes by believing in the gospel and leads to growth in grace into
Christlikeness. Paul quotes a phrase from Habakkuk 2:4 and, in essence, brings the two parts
together: The one who has been made righteous will grow into righteousness living.[4]
Paul is very deliberate, both in 1:1-17, to include everyone who is a believer. This inclusiveness is one of the other key marks of the Gospel—it is for everyone! Therefore, if we live by faith, we not only experience the righteousness of God, we are enabled to be righteous. What good news!
And then, Paul leaps into the subject of the wrath of God. This may have been a jarring thing to hear when listening to this letter for the first time. Wait! I thought we were talking about all that wonderfulness! What’s this?!
In Romans 1:18-20 we read: The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
What may have immediately jumped to the listeners’ minds was their Roman culture filled with idolatry, rampant sexual freedoms, and vast disparities in power and wealth. Nero was in the early days of his reign as emperor at this time in the Roman world. He had not yet reached the horrifying extremes of debauchery and violence he later demonstrated by burning Christians. But the cult of the emperor was increasing, the culture of Rome was filled with all kinds of excesses in the arts, sport, idolatry and wickedness. Even though Paul had not yet been to visit them, the reputation of Rome was wide-spread. I can almost see them nodding their heads in agreement that indeed they were living in wicked, wicked times.
But perhaps they needed some ways to understand their ungodly neighbors’ behavior. Did they wonder, as we do today, why people would be so deliberate in their sins? Articulating the revelation of God to everyone would help them to understand the absolute rebellion that many in their culture lived in. Indeed, it would help them to understand how great a grace they themselves had experienced and from what they had been delivered and why there was such a cost to Jesus Christ on that cruel cross! Paul declared that there were no more excuses about being raised in a bad culture, or being completely unaware, or being caught off guard that there was a power over the entire creation! Everyone knows! Many of the Greco-Roman gods were capricious, unpredictable, cruel and violent without reason. Now Paul teaches these believers that God, who is constant, reasonable, full of mercy, loving, forgiving and long suffering, has been revealed in such a way that no one has an excuse!
Everyone can know and does know God. It is really whether or not they choose to submit to the one, true God whose ways are above our ways, whose love is so vast that it allows sin for a time to lead them to his mercy and offers a way out, a way up, a way forward into his marvelous light! What power and might over the darkness! This is the glory of the Gospel.
But Paul is intent on articulating the outcomes of living outside of God’s revealed grace and mercy. He doesn’t let anything slide. Here he reflects the reality of God’s wrath coming out of his great love and care for his creation—seeking, always seeking, the redemption of his creation, even when they defy or ignore him. If the world would only heed God’s ways, they could be freed from the present and coming wrath! A. Berkeley Mickelson wrote: “The reason that righteousness is important is because man does not have it.”[5]
Read Romans 1:21-32.
Paul is a call-it-as-he-sees-it preacher. There is no soft-peddling of the issues or the sins. Straight up here’s his list of the darkened ways of the lost.
Not worshipping God
Futility in thinking
Foolish and dark hearts
Claiming to be wise
Idolatry
Sexual impurity (both heterosexual and homosexual) and the physical consequences of wrongful uses of the body
Accumulating lies vs. the truth
Depraved minds
Wicked
Evil
Greedy
Envious
Murderers
Strife-makers
Deceitful
Full of malice
Gossips
Slanderers
God-haters
Insolent
Arrogant
Boastful
Inventors of evil
Disobedient to parents
Unfaithful
Loveless
Merciless
Dismissing of death
Approving of others who do these things.
No wonder God is wrathful towards them! William Greathouse continues: “Because God is God, His wrath is a terrible reality. But wrath is not hate.”[6] Then he quotes Burton Throckmorton: “Hate opposes love; wrath is the form love takes with those who oppose it. Hate is unjust; wrath is just. Hate seeks to destroy; wrath forgives. So when Paul says that the wrath of God is being disclosed along with His righteousness, he is saying that God is offering acquittal, but that those who refuses to accept it are condemned.”[7] Is not this reality seen in the very personal experience of Saul on the road to Damascus with the Light of the World? Saul, so dedicated to destroying the Gospel, by the darkness of his own clouded mind, was brought up short by the wrath of God in blazing, blinding light and the life-changing voice of Jesus saying, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4-5) This encounter of God’s wrath transformed the belligerent Saul into the Apostle Paul who wrote this impassioned letter to the Romans that declares the full Gospel of Jesus Christ!
So, what is that we have learned about God’s wrath. Can we look at it closely now, not turning away to avoid discomfort? Are we humbled that we have been saved from it? Are our hearts so broken for the lost in our world that we pray more effectively for those who are under God’s wrath today? The hope is that by seeing as much of God as we can that we will walk in deeper faith, humbly acknowledging our continual need for him, and interceding more powerfully for those around us so that they too will avoid God’s wrath, one of his many qualities.
© M.R. Hyde 2021
Bible Challenge
Read each of the Scriptures below that use the specific Hebrew or Greek words for God’s wrath. (This is not a thorough list of Scriptures related to this subject, but a good starting place.) Write about or talk with others about your responses to these passages.
2 Peter 2:9
Ezekiel 25:17
Galatians 5:19-21
Hebrews 10:26-31
Isaiah 26:21
John 15:6
John 3:36
Matthew 10:28
Matthew 7:13-14
Nahum 1:2-6
Psalm 7:11
Psalm 75:8
Revelation 19:11-21
Revelation 20:15
Romans 1:18
Romans 12:17-21
Romans 6:23
[2] God, Man and Salvation: A Biblical Theology, p. 149-150.
[3] Beacon Bible Commentary: Vol. 8, Beacon Hill Press, Kansas City, MO, 1968, p. 48.
[4] Illustrated Bible Life, Winter Quarter, The Foundry Press, Kansas. City, MO, 2021.
[5] Wycliffe Bible Commentary, Moody Press, Chicago, IL, 1990, p.
[6] Beacon, p. 49.
[7] Ibid., quoting Throckmorton’s Romans for the Layman (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1961) p.24.
