Everyone knows that "God is love." Everyone knows that God is a nice guy; He's just got a bad rap. He doesn't want to hurt anyone. He only wants you to be happy. Still, some people keep coming up with this "Sinners in the hands of an angry God" kind of stuff. God angry? Come on! Who makes this stuff up?
David did, for one. David wrote, "God is a righteous judge; and God is angry with evildoers every day." (Psa 7:11) Ouch! Every day?
"Come on, now, that's the Old Testament. We know God was an angry God in the Old Testament." Well, no, that's not accurate, but let's look at the New Testament. Paul did, too. According to Paul, the gospel reveals the righteousness of God (Rom 1:17). That's good, right? Except it reveals God's righteousness first by revealing God's wrath. "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) Oh, that's not so good. God has wrath? Toward whom? Toward people. What people? People who are ungodly and unrighteous, who "by their unrighteousness suppress the truth." Well, that can't be good.
"Okay, but that's Paul. You can't always trust Paul, right?" Well, yes, you can, but let's move on. Jesus said, "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him." (John 3:36) First, there is unavoidable "wrath" in that sentence. We can't deny it's there. Second, notice the duration. It "remains," which requires first that it was there and second that it continues.
So, who makes up this stuff about a God of wrath against sinners? Well, apparently, God does. Apparently it's biblical. Apparently even Jesus believes it.
Look, you can do the happy dance all you want. You can work on fluff and imagine pink unicorns and figure God's not really that miffed about sin and all, but if you do, you do to your own peril because God's Word is quite clear on the subject. Even at the end, it's is Christ who is described as the One who distributes God's wrath (Rev 19:11-16).
So you may think that someone is making up this "angry God" stuff and He's really a pussycat, a tame lion. The Bible disagrees and the consequence of being wrong on this topic is nowhere near tolerable. Since Christ is described as the One who assuages God's wrath (Rom 3:25; 1 John 2:1-2; 4:10) when received by faith, perhaps it would be best to take this claim at face value and receive Christ as the solution. Simply denying the clear claim that God is angry with sinners doesn't make Him less angry with sinners. And doing so when the solution is offered free for the asking makes no sense at all.
Addendum
I just came across this and it fed into this discussion, so I thought I'd add it. According to James, "Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all." (James 2:10) That is, one "peccadillo" is biblically the equivalent of violating it all. There is a very real sense of this in Scripture since the singular rule is "love" -- specifically "love God with all you are" and "love your neighbor." Paul writes, "Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the whole law." (Rom 13:10) (See also Gal 5:14.) Thus, a single infringement is a total violation. More importantly, the single infringement all humans are guilty of is the violation of "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." (Matt 22:37) You can quibble over "Is a lie worth eternal judgment?" or "I never committed adultery" but all humans have violated the greatest commandment. There are, therefore, no "small crimes."
6 comments:
Please note: "I don't believe in this kind of God" (or the like) is not the same as "That's not what it says." "I don't think that's what God is like" is not the same as "That's not how the Bible says it." Which, of course, is why "The Bible says ..." is never going to convince those who are not convinced that the Bible is God's "breathed out" Word -- accurate and authoritative. But I wasn't writing this to convince anyone. I was simply writing it to point out that it's not some fiction built by medieval clergy to scare little children into being good. It's from God's Word.
When I quote the Bible in giving a biblical truth to people who lean left, I am accused of bibliolatry, rather than thinking for myself. Everyone decides for himself what is true and what is right and to say that absolutes come from a book, written by fallible humans is nothing more than putting your life under the heels of its boots. What they don’t realize we are slaves to something, either the slaves to righteousness, or slaves to sin. As you have said, it is better to listen to God’s message He has given to us rather than listen to our own distorted view of man and the God we have created in our own minds.
So many like to believe they're right with God, that they do not give Him cause to be angry (don't get to hung up on my wording here) and in doing so, they rationalize or ignore behaviors that will or may result in God's wrath. They believe that their acceptance of Christ puts them in God's good graces while continuing in behaviors that are clearly prohibited, while believing those behaviors are no big deal nor something about which God has much care. Ignoring that part of Scripture which consistently refers to God's wrath as a real thing leads to this risky view of their own future. I cannot forget that God does indeed have His limits and am very concerned about my sinful proclivities. If I have any doubts about the morality of a desire, the thought of God's wrath pushes me to avoid indulging that behavior until I can determine its morality. It's part of dying to self and putting Him first...as bad as I am at doing so to perfection.
Ron, I agree. I've always been amazed that the so-called "freethinkers" don't realize that they deny themselves the freedom to think about the possibilities or probabilities of God and, so, enslave themselves. But, then, we have deceitful hearts and don't know it, right?
"They believe that their acceptance of Christ puts them in God's good graces while continuing in behaviors that are clearly prohibited."
Yes, Marshal, even though Scripture says, "The one who says, 'I have come to know Him,' and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." (1 John 2:4)
Stan,
Wow, you’ve been put in your place. Heaven forbid that you argue something insane like taking what scripture says at face value. It’s clear to the majority of humans who’ve ever lived that you shouldn’t simply assume that “wrath” actually means “wrath”, or the God gets angry about every disobedient thing humans do. Clearly the argument from numbers shows God really only gets angry about the things that the vast majority of humans agree are worthy of God’s wrath.
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