Reasons for God’s Wrath – Its Reality (Part 1)

Romans 1:19

¹⁹ because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, ²¹ because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. ²² Professing to be wise, they became fools, ²³ and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. ²⁴ Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves,

(Verse 19) - The head of the department of evangelism for a major denomination in America said, “We don’t need to evangelize the people of the world who have never heard the message of salvation. We only need to announce to them that they’re already saved.”

That leader reflects what has, over the past few decades, been the rising tide of universalism, the belief that, because God is too loving and gracious to send anyone to hell, everyone ultimately will go to heaven. If that were true, there obviously would be no place for judgment in the proclamation of the gospel. Just as obviously there would be no place for biblical evangelism, as the person just quoted contends.

Some years ago, an article in The Times of London reported that fourteen church study groups in Woodford looked at the Old Testament psalms and concluded that eighty-four of them were “not fit for Christians to sing”. They reasoned that the wrath and vengeance reflected in those psalms was not compatible with the Christian gospel of love and grace!  We’ll not take the time to point all of the mistakes that that kind of theology suggests to us, suffice it to say that it begins with a disregard for the Word of God as God’s Revelation!

But Scripture makes clear that justice, wrath, and judgment are as much divine attributes as are love, mercy, and grace. In chapters 27-28 of Deuteronomy more than fifty verses detail God’s judgment on those who violate His commandments. In response to Jeremiah’s plea for vengeance against his enemies, God said,

“Behold, I am about to bring a calamity upon this place, at which the ears of everyone that hears of it will tingle. Because they have forsaken Me and have made this an alien place and have burned sacrifices in it to other gods that neither they nor their forefathers nor the kings of Judah had ever known, and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, a thing which I never commanded or spoke of, nor did it ever enter My mind; therefore, behold, days are coming,” declared the Lord, “when this place will no longer be called Topheth or the valley of Ben-hinnom, but rather the valley of Slaughter. And I shall make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and I shall cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hand of those who seek their life; and I shall give over their carcasses as food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth.” (Jer. 19:3-7)

Isaiah declared, “Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, cruel, with fury and burning anger, to make the land a desolation; and He will exterminate its sinners from it” (Isa. 13:9). Nahum testified that “a jealous and avenging God is the Lord; the Lord is avenging and wrathful. 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” (Nah. 1:2-3).

As was noted in the previous devotional, lest some think that God’s wrath and judgment are primarily Old Testament concepts, it should be noted that the New Testament has equally vivid portrayals of those divine attributes. When a group of Pharisees and Sadducees came to John the Baptist for baptism, he dismissed them with the scathing words, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matt. 3:7-8). A short while later he said of Jesus, “He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. And His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (vv. 11-12). On a later occasion John told some enquiring Jews, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36).

Jesus was God incarnate and therefore love incarnate, but He spoke more about judgment and hell than anyone else in Scripture. He probably spoke more about those truths than everyone else in the New Testament combined. The Sermon on the Mount is replete with warnings about divine wrath and judgment. “I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court,” Jesus said; “and whoever shall say to his brother, ‘Raca,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever shall say, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go in to the fiery hell” (Matt. 5:22). “And if your right eye makes you stumble,” He said, “tear it out, and throw it from you; for it is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off, and throw it from you; for it is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to go into hell” (vv. 29-30). He declared that “the sons of the kingdom [unbelieving Jews] shall be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (8:12).

As He sent out the Twelve to witness in Israel, Jesus told them, “Whoever does not receive you, nor heed your words, as you go out of that house or that city, shake off the dust of your feet. Truly I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city” (Matt. 10:14-15). Later during that same time of instruction He said, “Do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul; bur rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (v 28). He warned the multitudes “that every careless word that men shall speak, they shall render account for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned” (Matt. 12:36-37; cf. vv. 41-42; see also 13:40, 49; 16:26; 18:34-35; 22:13; 23:33; 24:50-51; 25:26-30).

Paul declared that it is because of “the fear of the Lord [that] we persuade men” (2 Cor. 5:11). In other words, it is because of God’s fearful judgment on unbelieving mankind that we should be motivated to witness to God’s provision of escape through Jesus Christ. Luke reports that when Paul began to speak about “righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix [the governor] became frightened” (Acts 24:25). Paul warned the Ephesian church: “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 5:6). The same apostle warned unbelievers: “Because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God” (Rom. 2:5; cf. vv. 8-9, 16).

The author of Hebrews declared, “For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries” (Heb. 10:26-27). “For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth,” the writer says later, “much less shall we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven” (12:25).

In his vision from Patmos, the apostle John heard an angel warn unbelievers, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or upon his hand, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; and they have no rest day and night” (Rev. 14:9-11).

The New Testament ends with the somber warning from the Lord Himself:

Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices lying.… I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God shall add to him the plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book. (Rev. 22:14-15, 18-19)

People today, as in times past, deny that God is wrathful, and those denials come in two basic forms. One teaches such ideas as soul sleep, the notion that an unbeliever simply goes into eternal sleep at death, without suffering any sort of conscious punishment. The other form of denial is universalism, which teaches that ultimately God will save everyone. But both of those heresies directly contradict God’s Word.