DO WE NEED THE WRATH OF GOD

 

The idea that we deserve wrath is unacceptable. Why? We ask, “Don’t we have a right to be the captain of our own ship? The idea of “God” as a “cosmic watchdog’ who will punish us forever is entirely unacceptable.”

 

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 become silent 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 and eternal 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.)

 

After eating the forbidden fruit, the one prohibition of God, they covered their sin and guilt with mere fig leaves. Today our fig leaves are our accomplishments and other forms of self-righteousness that cover up our shame. 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 Grafagnino, preaching must embrace “tough love” to 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.

 

Mustn’t we first understand 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 deserve 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 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. Consequently, I delight in the fear God as I entertain the wrong thoughts, even proud seductive thoughts:

·       And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth… (Isaiah 11:3–4)

 

Along with the Messiah’s “fear of the LORD,” I too only want God’s thoughts and ways and not my own. 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 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 changeable 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:

 

·       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 fight 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 had 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 to be moved to compassion. I pray that God would give us all such an awareness. (Me too!)

 

Unfortunately, many today have adopted beliefs that discount wrath:

 

1.     Universalism: All will be saved.

2.     There are many ways to be saved without faith in Jesus.

3.     We are no more than the product of our environment.

4.     We are bereft of freewill and are not accountable.

5.     The “oppressed” are not accountable. They are merely the product of oppression.

6.     Since God is love, He cannot be punitive. 

 

Tt  There are other reasons that we require a high esteem for wrath and righteousness. It provides us the justification for tough love. Without it, much of society has adopted indulgence as the definition for love. We have become defenseless against our need for others to love us and have sacrificed the need to speak truth in love.