As I’ve been thinking about gratitude to God this Thanksgiving season I’ve found myself frequently thanking Him for His promise of final justice and for His righteous wrath against evil. I realize this isn’t the sort of thing one might normally mention around the Thanksgiving dinner table or even write about on the heels of a holiday gathering. After all, the holidays are a time when we usually reflect on the more pleasant aspects of life in fellowship with God and others. Even so, the promised future justice of God is a profound blessing and a beautiful act of perfect Fatherly love.
Evil must be stopped
I don’t have to tell you that the world is suffering through a reign of darkness that seems to go from bad to worse every year. On a global scale there is great political unrest, people groups are targeted for genocide, dictators strive for more power, and wars and rumors of war abound. In the United States political scandal has become the new norm, and media bias has crippled our ability to have healthy dialogue as a society. Terrorism is now a normal threat, and mass shootings are reported at alarming rates. In terms of social politics and moral standards of living, we’ve never been more divided. Families are being destroyed by pornography, infidelity, addiction, and even political dialogue! The drug crisis is out of control; suicide and depression rates are skyrocketing, especially among our young; human trafficking continues to flourish, and babies are being slaughtered in the name of “women’s rights” Unquestioned entitlement is the cry of the people, and the gender confusion crisis continues to escalate—not to mention the growing lack of biblical faith among us and the rapid growth of false religion! There is no denying that people are lovers of self rather than lovers of God, and there is no denying that these realities touch all of our lives in some form. No amount of ribbons or festivities can hide the reality that we still live in a time when sin reigns on earth.
“I’d rather not think about God’s wrath.”
I realize God’s wrath is something that we may find ourselves wanting to ignore. We, of course, feel fearful and sorrowful for our loved ones who have yet to trust and bow the knee to our Lord and Savior. However, when we ignore the matter of God’s wrath, we tend to try to divorce it in our thinking from His perfect nature. I believe this is dangerous because it leaves room in the mind to question God’s goodness. I would submit to you that the better option is to consider His wrath in light of His attribute of simplicity.
We have to remember that all of God’s attributes exist together, and they inform one another. If God is perfect and God is love, than we can know that He loves perfectly, and if He loves perfectly than even His wrath is informed by His perfect love; it is not arbitrary or unjustified. While it may be hard for some to understand how God’s punishment for sin and His love exist together, we have to know that a Holy God cannot be indifferent to sin, and we must not forget that in His great mercy He has graciously made a way of escape. God is good and can be trusted; just because our loved ones may not yet be believers doesn’t mean that they will not come to saving faith in the future—for that we must pray!
I want to try to move our thinking away from what God’s wrath brings up in us as we worry about those we love, and I want to look instead at how God’s just wrath against sin is His loving perfect answer to the very evil that keeps those loved ones deceived. We cry out to God on behalf of our loved ones because the prince of darkness has darkened their minds against truth, and the world has built up fortresses against God where the lost are made to feel comfortable in their unbelief. It is precisely this kind of evil that God will one day repay with vengeance, and for that we can rejoice!
Does God have Wrath?
To begin with, it’s important to acknowledge that God does, in fact, have wrath against sin. In Adventism I often heard that God is not a “God of wrath”, He is a “God of love” (pitting His attributes against each other). I will never forget hearing one Adventist pastor say that a “loving god would not direct his wrath at his son or at anyone!” while arguing against the blood atonement of Christ. I have also heard Adventists describe the blood atonement of Christ as “divine child abuse”. These ideas about God reveal a gross misinterpretation and misapplication of Scripture—if not the blatant demonic slandering of the Lord God Almighty!
To put to rest the question of whether or not God directs wrath at anyone, or whether or not Jesus took the wrath of God to pay for human sin, all one must do is look to the unerring words of Scripture (John 3:36; Romans 1:18; 2:5; 3:4-6, 25-26; 5:9; 12:19; Ephesians 5:6; Hebrews 2:17; Revelation 5:2-6,9,10; 14:10; 15:1). The Bible does not stutter on the issue; the wages of sin is death—but the gift of God is eternal life! From Genesis to Revelation we see how God demanded shed blood for the remission of sin. In the life of Christ we learn how God fulfilled His own demand to reconcile all things to Himself!
God’s Great Provision was NOT child abuse!
While God’s holy wrath demands a payment for sin, He also predetermined to make that payment on behalf of mankind. God the Son took a body of flesh upon Himself, becoming a man—Jesus of Nazareth—and was born under the law according to the will of God. He lived a perfect life, revealing God to humankind, teaching, preaching, healing, and calling His sheep into the fold. Then, through the predetermined plan of God, Jesus went to the cross as an innocent lamb and was slain for the sins of all who would believe. As our propitiation, He paid our debt by becoming sin, thereby causing us who believe to become the righteousness of God. Jesus was buried and resurrected on the third day as the first-born from the dead. The power of His resurrection has caused His people to be born again to a living hope and an un-perishing inheritance. Through the work of Christ we are forgiven, adopted as sons, transferred out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of the beloved Son, placed in the family of God, and sealed by the Holy Spirit who works in us to sanctify us and transform us into the image of Christ. God took upon Himself the punishment for our sins to make us right with Him and lavished on us far more blessings than we can begin to grasp with our finite minds! When one understands that the Lord Jesus is God, and that God Himself saved us from His wrath, they cannot call this perfect act of love “divine child abuse”!
The Culpability of Recklessly Passive Parenting
On the contrary, I would suggest that the presentation of the Father that Adventist doctrine puts forth fits the profile of a reckless and negligent father. We do not have a father who would send his son to earth with risk of failure and the loss of the existence of God and all life. We do not have a god who could have failed and didn’t know if he would! We do not have a weak god who is helpless to deal with evil because he’s bound himself to respect human free will. We do not have a father who abandons his children by withdrawing his presence rather than disciplining them with truth and consistent love whenever they wander. We do not have a father who turns his face from us in indifference when we cry out to him because we’ve not yet met a standard of living. We do not have a god who awaits his trial before the universe to answer the accusations of evil, and we do not have a neglectful, passive father who by his inaction permits us to suffer alone, or one who is so passive aggressive he does not clearly explain what he demands from us in Scripture, thus requiring instead the visions of a woman to tell us what he really wants.
No, The Sovereign Author of Life predetermined His successful plan of salvation from before the foundation of the earth with no risk to His eternal existence and no question concerning the end result! The omnipotent God of the Bible is not passive and cannot be neutralized! He does not relinquish His power to intercede at the false alter of human free will! The God of the Bible will never answer to evil! He has clearly, sufficiently, and completely revealed His will for us through the life and teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ and needs no editor or additional prophet to clarify a mythical hidden requirement for salvation.
Furthermore, our Father— who is not a passive parent— will not be mocked but will discipline His children whom He loves to lead in truth. Even in our stumbling He does not abandon us to suffer alone but comforts us in our affliction, dwells with us in our daily living, mercifully intercedes for us in prayer, and loves us through His body the church.
Our God is not slow to act, but He is patient in His anger. Our God, in love, and in His perfect timing, will demand an account for all the evils of mankind and will pour out a measure of His wrath upon the godless. He will by no means let the guilty go unpunished. He sees the murdering of the innocent, the wars and crooked politics of mankind, the systematic brainwashing of false religion and social politics. He sees all forms of vile and covert abuse; He sees all injustice, cruelty and neglect and has special punishment for those who suppress and twist Biblical truth. Not a single incident will go unpunished. Either it will be paid for at the cross of Christ, or by those who have refused to bow the knee.
The accusation that a God of wrath would be a child abuser is merely another example of the gaslighting we see inside of cultic mind control, for it is the reckless passive parent who stands by and does nothing in the face of evil, and who intentionally places his children in harm’s way, who is culpable of that very evil!
So, why does evil seem to prosper?
Do you sit with Asaph and ask God why evil men prosper (Psalm 73)? Do you question the goodness of God because of what you’ve endured at the hands of evil? If these are thoughts you struggle with, I plead with you to not forsake the study of Scripture, for it’s only there that your questions about God will be answered.
I’m coming to believe that as evil is exposed, its last great attempt to regain footing in our mind seems to be to question the goodness of God in the light of our suffering. It’s then that we must run hard away from the lies generated in grief and right into the embrace of Scripture! Go there and search hard after the truths about God’s character and see that our God knows, He sees, He is with us in our suffering, He is compassionate, and what we have endured will not go unpunished! He will rise up! He is merciful and full of loyal love for His own and He is zealous for His holy name!
After Asaph had grown weary in his questioning God he went into His presence, and God revealed truth to Asaph about the end of evil men. Asaph saw his accusing heart and confessed his ignorance before God, repenting and confessing the truth about God while rejoicing in His mercy and faithfulness.
When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.
Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
For behold, those who are far from you shall perish;
you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.
But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord God my refuge,
that I may tell of all your works. (73:21-28)
He will rise up!
So, as we work through our own struggles or walk with others through theirs, or as we hear ongoing headlines of violence and various forms of human evil, we must remember that we know how all this ends. God has won! May we thank God for His soon coming justice, and may we in humility bow in gratitude to Him for not only being holy and just, but for also being the justifier of those who believe so that we can stand before God as His children! And may we not neglect to pray for those who must still come to faith and escape the wrath of God against all the unrighteousness of man!
As I’ve been pondering God’s just wrath, I’ve enjoyed listening to the encouraging words of Andrew Peterson as he sings about how one day God will rise up against the unrighteousness of men and will make all things right. Let’s rejoice together in our great defender and protector—our Perfect Father, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and His indwelling Spirit—our God! †
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