God of Wrath

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men….” (Romans 1:18, ESV).

I wrote that I was reading Adolf Schlatter’s commentary on Romans, and I was struck by his handling of this verse. I read his comments a few days ago, and then this morning, separately, read Romans 1 again. In the back of my mind were Schlatter’s comments, and as I read this morning, they made sense.

I used to take this verse, and the rest of the chapter, to mean that God was showing wrath towards humanity. This probably wouldn’t surprise most unbelievers,  because they think that’s what “fundamentalist” Christians believe; and when they use the label “fundamentalist” they throw in groups of people who are, in fact, not at all fundamentalists. But the churches I grew up in were gracious bodies led by gracious (and somewhat iconoclastic) pastors. They preached about wrath and hell and God’s final judgment; but this was balanced with preaching about the love of God for all humanity (in high school, I couldn’t figure out why we were stereotyped as Christ-haunted, Bible-thumping killjoys—the people I went to church with weren’t like that).

How has God revealed his wrath? I used to think (like most people) that it was in the “acts of God,” the  cataclysms and disasters that rocked the earth with no warning; and in wars and depressions—the man-made catastrophes. I would read these into Romans, as if I were instead reading Revelations—the “Revealing” there was the revealing here. Yet, at the same time, I came up against Jesus’ words to Nicodemus:  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through him. This puts two things at odds:  Active judgment vs. active salvation. How can you have both?

The New Testament makes clear that, for the most part, God is not now actively judging the earth—that’s a future event. He is now at work saving rather than condemning humanity. Yet his wrath is also being revealed. What can that mean? If “the day of God’s wrath” is an unknown, future day—if Christ is not condemning, if God is not willing men to perish—if the time for judging the world of its sins has not yet come—then how is God’s wrath being revealed?

Paul, as it turns out, seems to have a somewhat different view of how God’s wrath acts now than I had. First, God’s wrath is shown in that God “gave [humanity] up . . . to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies. . . .” (Rom. 1:24). He further “gave them up to dishonorable passions” (1:26) and “to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done” (1:28). This isn’t just about sexual immorality, though that’s where Paul starts; a debased and dishonorable mind includes covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, slander, gossip, pride, ruthlessness—even disobedience to parents. When God took away his restraining hand and allowed us to wade (not sink; we were choosing to go there) deeper into sin, he revealed his wrath. And men and women received the natural—but also supernatural—fruit of their sins. In letting us have our own way, letting us give free rein to the cruelty and the greed that lurked in us, God was judging the world with a punishment greater than the natural calamities that we call “acts of God.”

But God was also showing his wrath toward unrighteousness in another way. He showed it at the Cross, through the death of his Son. There, God showed what he thinks of unrighteousness. He showed that he hates it; that he will do whatever it takes to get rid of it. The Triune God did not balk at taking sin upon himself (as the Son) so that he might deal it the blow that would kill it. This is the second, and the greatest, way in which God’s wrath was revealed from heaven against unrighteousness. Grace shows what God thinks of sin:  He hates it so much that he will do whatever it takes to save us from it. Any message about the wrath of God has to include the Cross as God’s act of wrath; a message that sees God’s wrath only as calamity now, and Hell in the afterlife, is telling only half the story.

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God is Good, All the Time. . . Unfortunately

I wrote in my Dec. 29 post that Larry Crabb's book had gotten me to think about the goodness of God. We easily, in the comfort of a good worship service, respond to the pastor's line "God is good" with the refrain, "All the time." When he says, "All the time," then on cue we answer:  "God is good." And this is true. But not in the way we mean, or want it to be true.

If I say, "God is good," what do I mean? And when God says He is good, what does He mean? Are we on the same page? Are we talking about the same thing? Frankly, a close reading of the Bible makes it plain that we are not. Because the God of the Bible isn't always what I think of as good.

And yet, God is good--all the time. He is good because He never lies, not about Himself nor about what we are like. He is good because He always forgives the one who repents, no matter how heinous or despicable that person's deeds. He is good because He is merciful in equal measure to all who come to Him. He is good because He is always faithful to His words and to His character, and because He will not endure evil. . . not even in His Church. Especially not in His Church. This is what it means to say that God is good all the time:  That He never varies from this.

Whatever is good reflects the character of God. This means truthfulness even when it puts me in a bad light, and forgiveness and mercy when I would rather wound in turn the one who wounded me, and keeping my word no matter what it may cost me.

What do I count as good? Getting what I want is good. Being safe is good. Being wealthy is good. It's good to be sought out as a wise man, to be called "gifted" and "anointed." In other words, when we get down to it, selfishness is good. Christlikeness is painful and therefore is not good. Not that I would actually say this. But it describes the way I think and live.

In The Chronicles of Narnia, one thing is said of Aslan again and again:  "He's not a tame lion." Or, as Mr. Beaver puts it:  "Of course He's not safe. But He's good." So I have a choice between safety and the goodness of God. Not always, of course; sometimes they are the same thing. But in a fallen world, God does not promise to keep me safe in the way I wish He would. He only promises to make me like His Son. In all things, God works for the good--not for the comfort--of those who love Him.

In our hearts, there's something that responds to that. There's something that wants to throw off the fear of true goodness and where it may lead; there's something that wants to follow no matter what the danger, no matter the cost. That something is the Spirit of God, Who impels us to follow Christ. We are ready to let God look into our hearts, show us the root of our fear, and put it to death. The truth is, we know that we won't be safe in being safe. We are only safe in Christ.