THE WRATH OF GOD IS FOREWARNED

The wrath of God is not a hidden force waiting to erupt unexpectedly and without warning on unsuspecting victims. In the last chapter we noted that the wrath of God, unlike our angry outbursts, is always forewarned. It is never unexpected and always entirely predictable. Throughout history God has been making it plain for all to see that His anger is aroused when people knowingly transgress His moral law and that those who persist in doing so will one day have to face His wrath - that is, His righteous judgement upon them in accordance with what their deeds deserve.

In this chapter we will consider a number of ways in which God's wrath - in the sense of His uncompromising opposition to all that is evil and the certainty of His judgement upon all who continue in it - has been made known so that we may take notice of it and be forewarned. 

In the sentence of death that hangs over us

God's wrath is revealed in the death sentence that hangs over each of us as a result of our sin. Separated from God, we cannot live forever. This of course is by God's decree (Genesis 3: 17). Every time we mourn the death of a loved one we are reminded of God's righteous judgement on our rebellion and of our need for 'the gift of God' which is 'eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord' (Romans 6: 23).

In the groaning of creation

The 'groaning of creation' (Romans 8: 22) also reveals God's righteous anger. Paul writes: 'For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God' (Romans 8: 20–21). We live in a world that is in 'bondage to decay' as we know only too well. Paul says that this is because even creation itself is under God's judgement. We live in a world that God has decreed will not last for ever. 

Whatever we value in this world may be ours to enjoy for a season but one day it will be gone. That is why Jesus encourages us not to 'store up...treasures on earth' but rather to 'store up...treasure in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal' (Matthew 6: 19-20). Natural disasters, the decaying nature of the world around us and the brevity of life itself are evidence of God's righteous judgement on this world and an urgent invitation to us to set our hearts on the world to come.

In the law of Moses

For the people of Israel, it was through the law of Moses, summed up in the Ten Commandments, that God taught them His ways and set out the standards that He expected from them as His people. As part of this, there were sanctions imposed on those who transgressed the law and a sacrificial system was also established so that the people of Israel could make atonement for their transgressions and avoid being 'cut off from their people' because of them. It was clear both from the sanctions that were imposed and from the sacrificial system that was put in place that God was angry with His people when they disregarded or willfully transgressed the law that He had given them for their good and for their flourishing. 

In the voice of conscience

In Romans 2: 14 Paul refers to Gentiles who do not have the law of Moses, but who nevertheless have God's moral law written on their hearts. This is true of every human being. All of us have a conscience which alerts us when something we are saying, doing or contemplating is morally wrong. Sadly it is possible for us to ignore the voice of conscience and to suppress it for so long that we are no longer able to hear it. The conscience may in this way be damaged or 'seared' (1 Timothy 4: 2) so that it no longer functions as it should. Just as when our skin is burned it loses all sensitivity so that we no longer feel the pain that would alert us to any damage we may be doing to ourselves physically, so when the conscience is seared - as with a hot iron - it loses all sensitivity so that we no longer feel the pain that would alert us to any damage we may be doing to ourselves spiritually.

Sadly, it is equally possible for others through their criticism of us to make us feel guilty for failing to live up to their expectations and as a result of this we may develop an over-sensitive conscience. In this case it is by our failure to meet the standards and expectations that others have imposed upon us rather than by our failure to meet the requirements of the moral law that God has given us that we feel judged and condemned. The gentle, reasonable and loving voice of God has been overridden by the loud, unreasonable and demanding voices of others. 

When it works as it should, however, the conscience acts as an alarm bell, warning us that something we are doing, or thinking of doing, is wrong and that it is against God's good purpose for us. God has given us each a conscience for our ultimate safety, protection and flourishing and it is important that we pay attention to it and keep it in good working order.

In the natural consequences of sin

Sin often brings its own punishment without anyone else having to interfere. When sin first entered the world, the first human beings felt shame (Genesis 3: 7) and fear (Genesis 3: 10) for the first time. Something was wrong and they knew it. Our sense of shame and fear, our sense of alienation from God and from others and the emptiness of our lives without God all point to God's uncompromising opposition to our sin and to the danger of eternal separation from Him if we continue in it.

God designed us for relationship with Him. We cannot experience life as God intended it in any other way. So when we separate ourselves from God, we experience within ourselves the negative consequences of so doing. In the way God designed us as human beings He effectively decreed that that this should be so. It is His way of alerting us to the fact that something is not as it should be 'so that (we) would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him (Acts 17: 27).

We also experience the natural consequences of our sinful actions every time we reap what we sow (Galatians 6: 7). Jacob, the deceiver ended up being deceived by his own sons. Haman himself was hanged on the gallows he had built for Mordecai. The way we treat others often turns out to be the way we ourselves are treated.

In Psalm 7: 11 (CSB) David writes: 'God is a righteous judge and a God who shows his wrath every day.' Commenting on this, Christopher Ash and Steve Midgley write:

'The public and visible demonstration of the anger of God does not wait for the last judgment. There is a real sense in which God demonstrates his wrath day by day in human history. Psalm 7 helps us to understand how this might be in its vivid depiction of the self-destructive nature of evil: 'Behold, the wicked man conceives evil, is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies. He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made. His mischief returns upon his own head and on his own skull his violence descends' (7: 14-16). The defeats that evil inflicts upon itself are evidence of the anger of God; they are displays of God’s wrath.'1

In the moral chaos of our world

Further to this, according to Paul, God's wrath is being revealed in what is happening in society and in the world around us because 'God has given (those who suppress the truth about Him) over to shameful passions' (Romans 1: 26 GNT). 

'Moral disorder, the terrible mess that we human beings make of God’s world, is evidence that God is rightly angry with human sin. Paul develops this argument in the second half of Romans 1, from verse 18 - and as we read on, we see a terrible catalogue of disordered desires. We know God is rightly angry with sin, says the apostle, because of the moral chaos of a messed-up world.'1

In this verse Paul is not talking about all human beings. He is not suggesting that all of us suppress the truth about God. He is contrasting those do so with those in Romans 2: 7 who 'by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality'. He is saying that when people refuse to acknowledge the truth about God that is plainly revealed in nature and in conscience, and persist in rebelling against Him, God in His wrath effectively abandons them to their sinful passions, withdrawing His protection and restraint from them so that they can see for themselves where their sinful passions lead and experience the bitter fruit of indulging them. 

When God allows us to experience the consequences of indulging our own sinful passions, or when we see the consequences of others doing so in the world around us we become aware of what life apart from God is actually like. In this way the moral chaos and disorder of our world is God's way of alerting us to the deadly consequences of our sin and pleading with us to repent and to turn back to Him. 

The language of God 'giving people over' to something or someone is often used in connection with His wrath in the Old Testament and we shall explore this idea further in a later chapter. But it strongly suggests that God's wrath is not so much about Him inflicting anything on those who have offended Him as it is about Him allowing them simply to suffer the consequences of their own choices. God does not willingly inflict death and destruction upon anyone; we bring it upon ourselves by the choices we make. The wages of sin is death. It is not God who pays these wages; it is Satan. He is the one responsible for the death and destruction that came into the world as a result of sin. The gift of God, on the other hand is eternal life and it is freely available through Jesus Christ to all who will believe. There is a way that leads to destruction and there is a way that leads to life. The choice is always ours. God's wrath - His unwavering opposition to sin - means that there can be no exceptions. If we choose the way of life, we can be sure that God will be faithful to the promises He has given us in Christ. But if we choose the way of destruction, then we can be equally sure that this is what we will get. But we cannot blame God for this. It is we who in our defiance of Him will have brought it upon ourselves. 

In the institutions of government

The 'governing authorities' have been 'established by God' and have been given responsibility for upholding the moral law. This includes the right, where necessary, to punish wrongdoers. As we have seen:

'In an important passage about governments, Romans 13: 1-7, Paul writes that the ruler 'does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer' (Romans 13: 4 ESV). 'The sword' is shorthand for the just punishments inflicted on wrongdoers by governments, authorities and law courts.

The point here is that when wrongdoing is punished by a human authority, that authority wields the sword of God’s righteous anger. Rulers here, says Paul, are a terror to wrongdoers. And of course in so many ways they are. Unless a society has disintegrated into complete anarchy, if I commit a murder or a theft or grievous bodily harm and am convicted, I expect to be punished. You don’t need a Christian government to do that. How is it that societies all over the world and all through history punish crime? The answer, says Paul, is that they wield the sword of God’s righteous anger. If you have eyes to see, you can see that God is angry, and right to be angry. This is one important way in which the anger of God is evident.'1

In God's acts of judgement

In addition to all this, God's wrath has also been revealed in His many acts of judgement that are recorded for us in the Bible. 'These things were written down as warnings for us' says Paul (1 Corinthians 10: 11).

However, it is important to note that whilst it is true God intervenes in this world and in our lives with what might be described as 'acts of judgement' we must not infer that every hardship we experience - accident, illness or disaster - is an 'act of God'. And we must certainly not infer, as Job's friends apparently did, that every disaster that befalls another person or group is an expression of God's judgement upon them for some specific sin.

Kevin Kinghorn says:

'God’s acts of wrath sometimes involve God allowing a painful event to come our way...but I am not at all suggesting that the pain we experience in life is always or necessarily God’s judgment on us. Suffering in our world is by no means tied directly to a person’s spiritual state. Indeed, Jesus warned against assuming that some instance of pain or misfortune - such as a person being born blind (John 9:1-3) or people dying when a tower collapses (Luke 13:4-5) - can be traced to the sufferer’s particular sins.'2

It was the prophets who interpreted for the people of Israel what God's purpose was in the events that He allowed to happen to them. They knew when they were under God's judgement because He told them so through the prophets. The events themselves could have been interpreted in any number of ways; without the prophets, the people of Israel would not have known what to make of them.

Painful events come our way for a variety of reasons. Most are simply due to the fact that we live in a fallen world. They are due to the 'groaning of creation' and speak of God's judgement generally on our world because of sin but are not necessarily linked to any particular sin that we or anyone else has committed. 

If God has some particular lesson for us to learn through a painful event that we are experiencing, the Holy Spirit will make that plain to us and indeed we should ask Him to do so. If it is linked in any way to some sin that we have committed, He will make us aware of it in order that we may confess it and turn from it. Just as the people of Israel needed the prophets to help them discern what God was saying to them through the circumstances they faced, so we need the Holy Spirit to help us discern what God may be saying to us through the circumstances we are facing. 

Conclusion

God's wrath has not been hidden from us. It has been revealed in the consequences of sin that we experience within ourselves and in our world, in the authority given to state governors to punish wrongdoers and in God's acts of judgement recorded in the Bible. It has been made plain for all to see so that all may have ample opportunity to take notice of it and to 'flee from the wrath to come' (Matthew 3: 7).

Notes

1. The Heart Of Anger by Christopher Ash & Steve Midgley

2. What About The Wrath Of God by Kevin Kinghorn