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Ron Writes

Does the wrath of God bother you? Do you ever feel that you need to apologize for God’s wrath? 

In Scripture God makes no excuses for His divine wrath as if it was a flaw upon His character. In fact, if you look in a concordance, you’ll find that anger, fury and the wrath of God are mentioned more often than His love and tenderness. Wrath is a result of God’s perfect holiness. Because He is holy, He hates sin. Because He hates sin, His anger burns against the sinner. Indifference to sin would be a moral blemish. As Arthur Pink writes, “The wrath of God is His eternal detestation of all unrighteousness.” It is the balance of God’s perfect attributes, as the Hebrew writer declares, “you have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness” (Heb. 1:9). 

The OT prophets declared God’s wrath, “The Lord takes vengeance on His adversaries, And He reserves wrath for His enemies. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power. And the Lord will by no means leave the guilty unpunished” (Nahum 1:2-3). How can you explain the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, Nadab and Abihu, Achan, the destruction of Jerusalem, the fall of Israel and Judah and so many other terrible things without an understanding of God’s wrath? History declares the wrath of God. Don’t mess with God! God is fierce! They got what they deserved.

By no means is wrath merely an OT topic. The character of God doesn’t change with the covenants. When Jesus came, His first public act in Jerusalem was to make a whip and chase people out of the temple (Jn. 2). It’s a dramatic scene. What a way to begin a ministry. Jesus was expressing His holiness. 

The cross loses its meaning without an understanding of God’s wrath. To fully appreciate the Good News, you need to begin with the bad news. We preach the Good News because “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (Rom. 1:18). 

When a person gets what he deserves it’s called wrath. It’s justice! When he doesn’t get what he deserves it’s call mercy. When a person gets what he doesn’t deserve it’s called grace.