An Angry God

The pastor is preaching on Romans and I noted something new as he was preaching ... not that he said, but that Scripture says. The text is Romans 1:18 and following. But Romans 1:18 begins with a "for," so we can't forget the link. The topic is the Gospel in general (Rom 1:16) and, at this point, how it reveals God's righteousness (Rom 1:17) in particular. "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.(Rom 1:18). God's righteousness, revealed in the Gospel, includes "the wrath of God." Now, we don't generally consider "wrath" to be "righteous," but you know it can be. Paul wrote, "Be angry and do not sin ..." (Eph 4:26) because there is sinful anger and ... there is anger that is not sinful. Thus, the "wrath of God" revealed in the Gospel is righteous anger, wrath for the right reasons.

What, exactly, is God angry about? He's angry, in general, "against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." Paul uses two terms. What's the difference? Ungodliness is evident. It's not being godly. It's the lack of the proper attitude and actions toward God. Unrighteousness, then, is the lack of righteousness. That is, it's the lack of the proper attitudes and actions in terms of what is right. It is immorality of all kinds, the wrong attitudes and actions toward people and ourselves. Both versions of sin -- ungodliness and unrighteousness -- make God righteously angry. But it's more specific, isn't it? It's toward men of those two types who "suppress the truth." It's not, then, merely the attitudes and actions toward God and our fellow beings; it's the effect. They suppress the truth. Paul specifically says they suppress the truth "by their unrighteousness." (That's the new thing I saw.) How is that? Look around. In the 1950's, our society was quite different. We had little divorce, little sexual immorality, little crime, relative to today. But we shifted. We introduced "no fault divorce" and "free love" and "if it feels good, do it." And, incrementally, as new levels of divorce and immorality and such became "normal," they shifted farther. The "normal" moved until we reached the point that "homosexual" and "transsexual" are classified as "normal" when they never would have before. We traded a 10% divorce rate for a 50% divorce rate. We exchanged self-sacrifice for others for "I'm getting all I can get." Life in the 1950's is not lionized; it's ridiculed and even disdained. Divorce is expected, marriage is down, we're killing babies in the womb and applauding it. A boy can be a girl ... if he feels like it. And anyone who says different is evil ... the new "unrighteousness." Why? Because our unrighteousness of the previous decades suppressed the truth. Now we barely know what that is. Now Pilate would be the sage of the day: "What is truth?" (John 18:38).

One last, important question. What truth? What truth is suppressed by our unrighteousness? What suppressed truth makes God righteously angry? "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them" (Rom 1:19-21). The very specific truth that is suppressed by our unrighteousness and ungodliness is ... the truth about God. Paul says the same thing in chapter 3 when he writes, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom 3:23). Sin here is irrevocably linked to falling short of God's glory. And God's glory is absolutely essential and absolutely inviolable. Who God is is so important that He "has shown it to them," so that "they are without excuse." And "Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened" (Rom 1:21). There is a sense in which God doesn't believe in atheists. That is the truth suppressed that makes God righteously angry. That is the bad news about humans. We suppress the truth about God and we earn God's righteous wrath in our faulty relationship with Him and our sinful actions and attitudes towards him and each other. That is what make the Good News so good -- God has a remedy that is both just (right) and gracious and merciful.