The idea of God as a
“cosmic watchdog’ who will punish us is entirely unacceptable to Western
thinking.” We ask, “Don’t we have a right to be the captain of our own ship?
Indeed, this reality has become unacceptable in affluent
societies, where “God” has become irrelevant, even repugnant. As a result of
this repugnance and wanting to cater to the tastes of the prevailing society,
the Western church has succumbed to silence about a God-of-wrath. He is now
presented as just love. In Noborderland:
Finding Amazing Grace in a Dark and Dying World, Tom Graffagnino has
appropriately written:
·
The coddled Western church of bright lights and
high performance has hit a snag. Social and cultural “relevance” has elbowed
holiness, righteousness, and repentance off the auditorium stage. The gospel of
grace and the necessary bad news that must necessarily precede it have become
increasingly and noticeably absent in our comfort-driven, “Me first,” “Me Too,”
and “Have it Your Way” world. (Credo
House Publishers, 167)
Consequently, the Church has largely rejected the
fire-and-brimstone message. But should it be this way? Perhaps the highest form
of love requires us to make others feel comfortable rather than condemned by an
unsettling sermon? But what if our comfortable lives have insulated us from
both the truths of God and even our spiritual well-being? Citing Michael
Horton, Graffagnino claims that this is the very thing that has been happening:
·
We must be stripped of our fig leaves in order
to be clothed with Christ’s righteousness so we can stand in the judgment of a
holy God. The question is whether the aim of ministry today is to tear off our
fig leaves so we can be clothed with Christ or to help us add a few more.
(Ibid.)
Sadly, much of ministry is comfort-directed, aimed towards
making us feel more comfortable about ourselves than about the Gospel of Jesus.
Instead, according to Graffagnino, preaching must embrace “tough love” so that
we might enter into God’s love. It must serve as a “double-edged sword” to
penetrate to the core of our sin and rebellion to release us into the real
comfort, the comfort of the Gospel.
Must we first understand and perhaps even taste the wrath of
God before we can appreciate the rescue of God and His great sacrifice to bring
us into an eternal relationship of love? Must we first understand from what we
have been saved in order to appreciate what we have been saved to? Without this
duel understanding, the things of God’s Gospel will remain as foolishness to
the unspiritual (1 Corinthians 2:14) and even to us who do not regularly feed
upon both the wrath and the rescue of God. The reality of God’s wrath
elucidates many needful truths:
God’s wrath upon
Jesus informs us of His love in a more profound way than anything else could.
Jesus’ horrible death on the Cross proved that God could not be a sadist or a
master deceiver. Such people would not sacrifice themselves for us:
·
but God shows his love for us in that while we
were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been
justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of
God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his
Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. (Romans
5:8-10)
I had undergone such suffering for several years that I couldn’t shake the idea that God might be a deceiving sadist who had created us for His perverse entertainment. However, the revelation of Jesus talking upon Himself the wrath that we all deserved finally convinced me otherwise. Sadists wouldn’t sacrifice themselves.
God’s wrath serves as a poignant declaration and reminder that He detests sin and must punish it:
·
[Jesus] whom God put forward as a propitiation
by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness,
because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was
to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just
and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Romans 3:25-26 (ESV)
God had forborne our unpunished sins. This one sin Offering
not only demonstrated God’s love and propitiated (satisfied) His nature, but it
also demonstrated His severe righteousness. This should impress upon us the
fact that any sin is detestable before God. Nevertheless, His forgiveness is
limitless. I, therefore, literally need to fear God, even as I entertain the
wrong thoughts, even proud seductive thoughts. In this sense, the wrath and
righteousness of God are needful, in the same way that the fear of falling off
the edge of a building is also needful.
It is argued that, if God is all-powerful, He should have
been able to forgive us without killing His Son. However, God is not robotic.
He has a nature by which He must live. His righteous nature requires
satisfaction (propitiation) for sin.
If this sounds unreasonable, just think of a friend who
tells you, “Whenever I see yellow flowers, it fills me with anxiety.” You might
think that this is petty. You might even try to explain it away as merely the
product of a biochemical reaction, but this would miss the point – she feels
anxious at the sight of yellow flowers. Therefore, buying her yellow flowers
would understandably be regarded as callous. In light of this, we just have to
accept this about our friend. If we are willing to accept our friend’s
reactions, how much more so must we accept the immutable God’s self-disclosure
that He must punish sin!
If God’s wrath is real, people need to be warned:
If God’s wrath is real, people need to be warned:
·
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you:
sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is
idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. (Colossians 3:5-6;
Ephesians 5:6; 1 Corinthians 6:7-11)
It also seems that we already have intuitive knowledge of
God’s wrath, even if we choose to deny it:
·
Though they know God’s righteous decree that
those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give
approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1:32)
If we didn’t have this knowledge of God’s wrath, we would
simply be able to laugh-off such a “fairy tale.” But, instead, humanity hates
God because they correctly sense that they deserve His wrath and deny this awareness
with many forms of self-promotion.
The threat of God’s
wrath promotes reform. King Josiah had been ignorant of the Lord until the
Book of the Law had been found and brought to him. He therefore directed his
priests:
·
“Go, inquire of the LORD for me, and for the
people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been
found. For great is the wrath of the LORD that is kindled against us, because
our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that
is written concerning us.” (2 Kings 22:13)
The knowledge of God’s wrath resulted in great reforms
(Ezekiel 22:20-22).
God’s wrath is also
just and freeing:
·
since indeed God considers it just to
repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are
afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with
his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not
know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will
suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the
Lord and from the glory of his might, (2 Thessalonians 1:6-9)
We cannot deny God’s justice without also denying our own
desires for justice and retribution. If we choose to believe that such a
concept is beneath human dignity, then we should reject all forms of justice
and punishment – police, prisons courts, fines, and school and parental
sanctions. Instead, if we are willing to believe that we require sanctions,
then we should not criticize God for His use of sanctions or His righteous and
holy nature.
We need his wrath, because His promise to bring wrath and
justice frees us up to simply love and to not take justice into our own hands,
even unforgiveness:
·
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not
curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in
harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.
Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought
to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends
on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but
leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I
will repay, says the Lord.” (Romans 12:14-19)
We are enabled to love and to forgive because we have
entrusted our desires for vengeance to God. To some extent, He manifests His
wrath and vengeance through the criminal justice system (Romans 13:1-5).
The prospect of God’s
wrath should provoke our prayers, evangelism, and acts of love towards the
objects of His wrath. Daniel had prayed for Israel because they deserved
the wrath of God:
·
“O Lord, according to all your righteous acts,
let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy
hill, because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem
and your people have become a byword [a curse word] among all who are around
us.” (Daniel 9:16)
We need to regard others through our spiritually opened eyes
to see their horrid fate and be moved to compassion. I pray that God would give
us all such an awareness. (Me too!)
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