IS THE GOD OF WRATH A HUMAN CREATION?

Today, it is common to hear people say:

·       God is unadulterated love. God is too glorious to hate anything or punish anyone. When religion claims that God hates and punishes, it is because they have created their god in the likeness of themselves. Instead, God is above all such pettiness.

Alongside of this belief is another troubling set of beliefs. Western society denies that the criminal is accountable, guilty, and deserving of punishment. Here are some reasons for this:

1. We are just a product of our nurture and nature.
2. We lack freewill and could not have acted otherwise.
3. If the wrongdoer had simply been loved enough, he wouldn't have committed his crimes. Consequently, the fault is with the parents and society.
4. We are more likely to regard ourselves as compassionate and as a "good and worthy person" when we don't seek justice and the punishment of the wrongdoer. 
5. Along with this, we might be more engaged in wrongdoing than the previous generations, especially sexually and relationally, and no longer experience the righteous indignation at the sight of others' wrongdoing.
6. Moral relativism, the denial of moral absolutes, has become the reigning religion of the West. This has deprived justice of a firm moral foundation upon which to render judgments. Although judgments are still rendered, they are rendered more on the basis of tradition and expedience than conviction.

Of course, there are numerous verses that claim that God hates sin and that His wrath is against the unrepentant. For example:

·       For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.  For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse…Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! (Romans 1:18-25 ESV)

Yes, God also punishes, but it seems like His chosen method is simply to allow us to reap what we have sown – karma, if you’d prefer. He allows us to pursue our own course of destruction.

However, almost no one listens to the Scriptures in the West. As one acquaintance commented, “We have grown beyond that.” So instead of citing Scripture, let me try to reason this out with you:

1.    If God doesn’t punish, then we too shouldn’t punish. We should open the prison doors and allow our children and students to go without discipline, or anything that is painful. I had been dismissed from subbing at one school because I stated to the administrator in front of the class that “This class has been a greater disciplinary problem than others.” I was informed that it was wrong to have said this. Interestingly, the administrator had little problem in punishing me, even in front of the class.

2.    If God doesn’t hate rape, why should we bother to intervene if God regards everyone in the same way!

3.    Indulgence is wrongly associated with love. However, love, the concern for the other person’s welfare, might require that we warn or even censure. One student confessed that she had consistently indulged her gay friends, going with them to the clubs. However, she now regrets that she didn’t oppose their lifestyle, as she stood by and watched many of her friends die of STDs.

4.    Love and the administration of justice are inseparable. To love is to pursue justice; to pursue justice is to love our neighbor. To not hate rape, bullying, and kidnapping is to not love. To be permissive of injustice is to hate our neighbor. This is why the Lord had ordained the justice system (Romans 13:1-4).

5.    We destroy our youth by teaching them that they are not accountable and that they will not suffer because of their misdeeds. This should be obvious. When, instead, they are “raised” by their lawless peer group, they too become lawless.

6.    We also destroy society with such teachings. According to historians Will and Ariel Durant, this reorientation might pose a real threat to our civilization:

·       Caught in the relaxing interval between one moral code and the next, an unmoored generation surrenders itself to luxury, corruption, and restless disorder of family and morals...At the end of the process a decisive defeat in war may bring a final blow, or barbarian invasion from without may combine with barbarism welling up from within to bring the civilization to a close. ("The Lessons of History," 1968)

Since the sixties, our pleasure-seeking thinking has been accompanied by the great growth in the incidence of crime in the West, its resistance against hating evil, and its economic stagnation. However, it is important to observe that the success of the West had been predicated on Biblical values.

Can any people thrive once it abandons these values? However, the arrogance of this age refuses to humble itself before the lessons of history. It believes that it is living in a new age where the old lessons no longer pertain. However, history has made it abundantly clear that when a society forfeits justice, its people feel compelled to take justice into their own hands – not a desirable prospect.