Wrath of God (1)

Many modern people have a problem with the wrath of God. They find it hard to understand how a God who is loving and good can demonstrate such terrible wrath. They have a similar problem with the cross. Many cannot understand why Jesus had to die. Why could God just not forgive those who have sinned, without the need for Jesus to die. Many Christians ignore this issue and just stick to the New Testament, because they cannot reconcile the character of Jesus with the way God seems to be portrayed in the Old Testament.

Translation issues are one reason, but another important reason is that God will not give the enemy any glory that he does not deserve. The scriptures do not give a full description of the devil’s operations, but just gives enough information for us to understand what we are up against. God’s unwillingness to give glory to evil, means that the activity of evil is often understated in the scriptures, especially in the Old Testament. The actions of the evil one often described as the wrath of God.

Humans invited evil into the world when they sinned against God. By submitting to devil, they gave him authority over the earth and allowed him to work out his evil purposes on earth. Evil became part of the normal situation on earth.

God broke back into the world by establishing a covenant with the children of Israel and placing them in their own land. This covenant made it possible for God to shut out the forces of evil and bless his people. Blessing became normal in the land of Israel, but only while the people were faithful to God. This was the basis for the curses and blessing described in Deuteronomy 28 and 29. While they trusted and obeyed God, they would experience the blessing that he promised. If they rejected God, they would come under the curse.

The curse had two sides.

1. God is holy, so he must remain separate away from sinful people. When the people fell into sin without repentance or sacrifice, God had no choice but to withdraw from his people, and his blessing went with him. Seeing his people desert him for evil, and having to leave caused God great pain. Their unnecessary sin really upset him. This is the wrath of God.

2. By rejecting God, the people of Israel lost the protection of his presence. They moved from the place of blessing to a situation like the rest of the world, where the powers of evil are free to do their will. With God shut out of the land, the powers of evil were free to come back in and work their evil tricks. The curses were a description of what the powers of evil would so if they regained access to the promised land. This is the curse of evil.

God did not want to give glory to evil, so he rarely describes the second side of the curse. The scriptures use the term the “wrath of God” to describe the outworking of the curse, even though the forces of evil are the ones doing the harm. The problem with this is that God gets blames for a lot of stuff that is not directly his doing. He is happy for this to happen, because he would sooner take blame for or stuff that he has not done, than give glory to the powers of evil.

Describing the works of the devil as the wrath of God is legitimate, because this is the other side of the curse. The evil occurs because God hates sin, and has to draw back from it. The evil happens because he has withdrawn his protection, so it is correctly called the wrath of God. He takes responsibility, because the curse is the consequence of his character. God decided to create spiritual beings with the freedom to rebel and become agents evil. He takes also takes responsibility, because he created them, but they are direct cause of the evil on earth.