For
the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in
unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in
them, for God has shown it to them. (Romans 01:18-19, NKJV).
God
reveals Himself as an emotional Being. He has feelings and expresses
them, and because we are made in His image, we are emotional beings,
as well.
Yet,
it would be a mistake to presume that we fully understand what or how
God feels, in much the same way that it would be a mistake for a
young child to presume the same about his or her parent. There is a
depth of experience and being that the child is simply not equipped
to plumb.
Along
this line of reasoning then, there is at least one very prominent
emotion of God that we barely know - His wrath.
Do
not mistake human wrath for divine wrath. Humans tend to have
outbursts of wrath. These are impulsive eruptions of anger that are
entirely based on circumstance and are always harmful. The Bible
unequivocally condemns such explosions and summarizes their effect by
denouncing their impact:
So
then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to
speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the
righteousness of God. (James 1:19, 20, NKJV).
God's wrath, in contrast,
is neither impulsive nor circumstantial. It is based entirely on His
character and is directed against only one thing, although that thing
is huge and has far-ranging consequences. Its target is sin.
God's wrath is His
inevitable and settled response to all things that are in antipathy
(opposed) to Him. It is His wrath that will, one day, cleanse all of
Creation from that which is not of Him, and until that day, it is His
love that delays that final act of Judgment.
It is God's righteous
wrath that makes His mercy that much more miraculous and astounding.
It is His wrath that makes His grace that much more measureless.
In fact, if we
understand, at least in part, the vehemence and power and
comprehensiveness and righteousness of His wrath, we will that much
more appreciate His patience in allowing time for our repentance from
sin, and the unimaginable lengths He has gone to in making that
repentance possible through faith in the sacrifice of His own Son on
the Cross.
It is God's chosen
response to His wrath that makes His justice available, for in His
wrath against sin He ordained the penalty of sin – eternal death –
while, in His mercy, providing His Son as a vessel to contain that
wrath.
However incomprehensible
it may be to us, God appointed His Son to suffer the consequences of
our rebellion. He has made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that
we might become His righteousness in Him.
His wrath demands our
eternal punishment, since we, in rebelling against Him and His
eternal goodness, rejected His gift of eternal life. By His design,
the only alternative remaining to us is the torment of eternal death.
As the one is unknowably
blessed, its opposite is unthinkably severe. We cannot therefore
fully comprehend His kindness until we more fully comprehend what His
kindness protects us from – His wrath.
Now the world hates God,
partly because it has an instinctive understanding of its
accountability to Him, and of the fact that we are rightful targets
of His judgment. It alternately dismisses Him as a figment of
collective imagination, thinks of Him condescendingly as the
sin-excusing “Man upstairs”, or pictures Him as a bloodthirsty
God of petulant vengefulness.
Obviously, He is none of
those things, but is a holy, righteous, loving and patient Being with
all power and knowledge. He is all that is good, and nothing that is
bad. Scripture describes Him as someone in whom there is no variation
or shadow of darkness.
His purity and goodness
annihilates all that is impure and evil. By definition, to be in any
state of opposition to Him is to be subject to that judgmental
destruction.
And I believe that the
most needful component in understanding God's wrath is to place it in
the context of His deferring that judgment until the time of His
choosing is fulfilled. That deferral, that containment, that
temporary refusal to pour out that which would destroy evil forever
is what He has described in His Word as His wrath.
In postponing Judgment,
He has altered the otherwise instantaneous cause and effect of sin
and cleansing, and is storing up the consequences of mankind's
rebellion. He has named that trove of judgment, wrath, and will
release it onto a Christ-rejecting world when the time is right,
because to do otherwise would be to make His goodness and mercy a
lie, and to undermine the purity and immutability of His love.
Without choice their
could be no love, without Hell no Heaven, and without the judgment of
God's wrath, there could be no everlasting life in His presence.
Do not fear His wrath for
yourself, daughter, for Jesus has taken it upon Himself in your
place, but fear it for the sake of the unbelieving world, and look
upon unrepentant sinners as doomed prisoners of their own willful
ignorance, destined for the fires of Outer Darkness.
Your job as an ambassador
of Christ is to see them as He sees them, and by your love, show them
His, so that they might also come to repentance and live.
Love,
Dad
