God's wrath

647 god's wrath The Bible says: “God is love.” (1. Joh 4,8)He has decided to do good by serving and loving people. But the Bible also points to God's wrath. Yet how can someone who is pure love also have anything to do with wrath?

Love and anger are not mutually exclusive. Therefore we can expect that love, the desire to do good also include anger or resistance to anything hurtful and destructive. God's love is consistent and therefore God resists anything that opposes his love. Any resistance to his love is sin. God is against sin - he fights it and will eventually eliminate it. God loves people, but he displeases sin. However, "displeased" is far too mild to put it. God hates sin because it is an expression of hostility to his love. This makes it clear what is meant by the wrath of God according to the Bible.

God loves all people, even sinners: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Röm 3,23-24)Even when we were still sinners, God sent his Son to die for us, to redeem us from our sins (from Röm 5,8). We conclude that God loves people, but hates the sin that harms them. If God were not inexorable towards everything that is against his creation and his creatures and if he were not opposed to a real relationship with him and his creatures, he would not be unconditional, comprehensive love. God would not be for us if he were not against whatever stands against us.

Some scriptures show that God is angry with people. But God never wants to cause people pain, but wants them to see how their sinful way of life harms them and those around them. God wants sinners to change to avoid the pain that sin causes.

God's wrath shows when God's holiness and love are attacked by human sinfulness. People who live their lives apart from God are hostile to his path. Such distant and hostile people act as enemies of God. Since man threatens all that is good and pure that God is and for which he stands, God resolutely opposes the way and practices of sin. His holy and loving resistance to all forms of sinfulness is called "God's wrath". God is sinless - he is a perfectly holy being in and of himself. If he did not oppose man's sinfulness, he would not be good. If he were not angry with sin and if he did not judge sin, God would admit to the evil deed that sinfulness is not absolutely evil. That would be a lie, because sinfulness is completely evil. But God cannot lie and remains true to himself, as it corresponds to his innermost being, which is holy and loving. God resists sin by placing persistent enmity against it because He will remove from the world all suffering that is caused by evil.

End of enmity

However, God has already taken the necessary steps to end the enmity between himself and the sin of humanity. These steps flow from his love, which is the essence of his being: “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1. Joh 4,8)Out of love, God allows his creatures to choose for or against him. He even allows them to hate him, although he opposes such a choice because it harms the people he loves. In fact, he says "no" to their "no." By saying "no" to our "no," he affirms his "yes" to us in Jesus Christ. "This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." (1. Joh 4,9-10).
God has taken all necessary steps at the highest cost of himself that our sins be forgiven and erased. Jesus died for us, in our place. The fact that his death was necessary for our forgiveness shows the gravity of our sin and guilt, and shows the consequences that sin would have on us. God hates the sin that causes death.

When we accept God's forgiveness in Jesus Christ, we confess that we have been sinful creatures, opposed to God. We see what it means to accept Christ as our Savior. We accept that as sinners we were alienated from God and in need of reconciliation. We acknowledge that through Christ and his work of redemption, we have received reconciliation, a fundamental transformation of our human nature, and eternal life in God as a free gift. We repent of our "no" to God and thank him for his "yes" to us in Jesus Christ. Epheser 2,1-10 Paul describes the path of man under the wrath of God to becoming the recipient of salvation through God's grace.

God's intention from the beginning was to show his love for humanity by forgiving the world its sin through God's work in Jesus (from Eph 1,3-8The situation of humanity in its relationship to God is revealing. Whatever “wrath” God may have had, he also planned to redeem humanity even before the world was created: “But redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or spot. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but revealed in these last times for your sake.” (1. Petr 1,19-20)This reconciliation does not come about through human desires or efforts, but solely through the person and redemptive work of Jesus Christ, performed on our behalf. This redemptive work was accomplished as "loving wrath" against sinfulness and for us as individuals. People who are "in Christ" are no longer objects of wrath, but live in peace with God.

In Christ we humans are saved from the wrath of God. We are profoundly changed by His work of salvation and the indwelling Holy Spirit. God has reconciled us to himself (from 2. Kor 5,18He does not desire to punish us, for Jesus bore our punishment. We thank and receive his forgiveness and new life in a genuine relationship with him by turning to God and turning away from everything that is an idol in human life. “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” (1. Joh 2,15-17)Our salvation is God's salvation in Christ – "who saves us from the wrath to come." (1. Thess 1,10).

Through Adam's nature, humanity has become God's enemy, and this hostility and distrust toward God brings about a necessary countermeasure from the holy and loving God—his wrath. From the very beginning, God, out of his love, intended to end the wrath caused by humanity through the redemptive work of Christ. It is through God's love that we have been reconciled to him through his own redemptive work in the death and life of his Son. "Now that we have been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, now that we have been reconciled, how much more shall we be saved through his life!" (Röm 5,9-10).

God planned to remove his righteous anger against humanity even before it arose. God's anger cannot be compared to human anger. Human language has no word for this type of temporary and already resolved opposition to people who oppose God. They deserve punishment, but God's desire is not to punish them but to deliver them from the pain that their sin causes them.

The word wrath can help us understand how much God hates sin. Our understanding of the word wrath must always include the fact that God's wrath is always directed against sin, never against people, because He loves them all. God has already acted to ensure that His wrath against humanity is complete. His wrath against sin ends when the effects of sin are destroyed. "The last enemy to be destroyed is death." (1. Kor 15,26).

We thank God that his anger ceases when sin is conquered and destroyed. We have assurance in the promise of his peace with us because he overcame sin in Christ once and for all. God has reconciled us to himself through the redemptive work of his Son, and thereby stilled his anger. So the wrath of God is not directed against his love. Rather, his anger serves his love. His anger is a means of achieving loving purposes for all.

Because human anger rarely, if ever, fulfills loving intentions to a limited extent, we cannot apply our human understanding and experience of human anger to God. If we do, we commit idolatry and imagine God as a human creature. Jakobus 1,20 makes it clear that "man's anger does not do what is right before God". God's wrath will not last forever, but His unwavering love will.

Key verses

Here are some important scriptures. They show a comparison between God's love and his divine anger as opposed to the human anger we experience in fallen people:

"For the anger of man does not produce what is right in the sight of God." (Jak 1,20).
“In your anger do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.” (Eph 4,26).
“I will not, in my fierce anger, destroy Ephraim again. For I am God and not a man, holy in your midst; therefore I will not come in anger to destroy.” (Hos 11,9).
“I will heal their rebellion; I will gladly love them; for my anger has turned away from them.” (Hos 14,5).
“Where is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the guilt of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever, but delight to show mercy.” (Micha 7,18).
"You are a God who forgives, is gracious, merciful, patient, and abounding in love." (Neh 9,17).
“I hid my face from you for a moment in my anger, but with everlasting mercy I will have compassion on you, says the Lord your Redeemer.” (Jes 54,8).
“The Lord does not cast out forever; but he may grieve, and then according to his great goodness he will have mercy. For he does not afflict and grieve people from his heart. … Why then do people murmur in life, each one about the consequences of his sin?” (Klagelieder 3,31-33.39).
“Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “or rather in their turning from their ways and living?” (Hes 18,23).
“Rend your hearts and not your garments, and return to the Lord your God! For he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and relents from punishing.” (Joel 2,13).
“Jonah prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord, this is what I thought while I was still in my own country. That is why I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that you are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and that you relent from sending disaster.’” (Jona 4,2).
“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness; but he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2. Petr 3,9).
«Fear is not in love, but perfect love drives out fear. For fear reckons with punishment; but whoever is afraid is not completely in love »(1. Joh 4,17 last part-18).

When we read that “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him,” (Joh 3,16-17)Then we should understand from this very act that God is "angry" against sin. But in his destruction of sinfulness, God does not condemn sinful people, but rather saves them from sin and death in order to offer and grant them reconciliation and eternal life. God's "wrath" is not intended to "condemn the world," but to destroy the power of sin in all its forms, so that people may find their salvation and experience an eternal and living relationship of love with God.

by Paul Kroll