Have we missed the point on the 'Wrath of God'?
THESIS: Rather than being a character trait of God the Father, The
'Wrath of God' is a manifestation of Satan
The First Witness -
Numbering Israel
The Second Witness - Saint Paul and St John
The Third Witness -'The day of the Lord'
The Fourth Witness - Logic
The Fifth Witness - Personal knowledge of God
The Sixth and Star Witness - The Cross
of Christ
The First Witness - Numbering
Israel
The Old Testament identifies the Wrath of God with Satan in 2 Samuel 24
verse1, and 1 Chronicles 21 verse 1.
Again the ANGER OF THE LORD was aroused against Israel, and he moved
David against them to say 'Go number Israel and Judah'. 2 Samuel 24:1
Now SATAN stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel. 1
Chronicles 21: 1
Are there other witnesses to support this premise of a link between Satan and
the Wrath of God?
The Second Witness - St Paul and St John
Don't St Paul's letters legitimise the 'Wrath of God' in the New Testament……And
didn't Paul clearly identify Satan as the enemy?
Well, yes and no.
And this is the interesting point. St Paul truly experienced a major paradigm
shift from his Old Testament wiring following his conversion on the Road to
Damascus, (more so than most Jerusalem based Christians) but that's not to say his
paradigm shift was complete.
For example, Jesus was clearly opposed to cursing, (See Luke 6:28, 9:55 etc)
and whilst Paul affirms this principle in Romans 12:14 "Bless those who
persecute you: bless, and curse not." He still thought it appropriate
to invoke the odd 'anathema' or Curse in his writings.
Furthermore, on reading St Paul, one could be forgiven for thinking that
Satan continued to act as a useful Agent or Deputy in God's economy.
1 Corinthians 5:5 To deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the
flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
2 Corinthians 12:7 And lest I should be exalted above measure by the
abundance of the revelations a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger
of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.
1 Timothy 1:20 Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered unto
Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.
- Destroying the flesh to save the spirit,
- preventing pride, and
- teaching heretics not to blaspheme.
Could wrath make more noble claims than this?
If you want to legitimise 'the Wrath of God' based on Paul's witness, I
believe you must also accept the legitimacy of Satan too!
St John
St John was once referred to as one of the 'Sons of Thunder', and was rebuked
by Jesus for wanting to call down fire on a city who refused to receive Jesus. 'You
do not know what spirit you are of!' Luke 9 verse 55
John mentions wrath once in his Gospel:
John 3:36 He that believes in the Son has everlasting life: and he who does
not believe the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him.
This does not legitimise the 'Wrath of God', quite the opposite. It is merely
a statement of present tense fact. Those who reject the Son continue to abide
under the hand of Satan.
Those St Paul refers to in 2 Corinthians 4:4 - where 'the god of
this world' has blinded the minds of those who do not believe
The book of Revelation is another matter. Assuming John wrote Revelation we
will see in the next section how our thesis holds up against this second
mainstay of 'the Wrath of God' in the New Testament.
The Third Witness -'The day of the Lord'
In the Judeo-Christian scriptures, the 'day of the Lord' is a recurring
metaphor. It is a time of wrath and cruel terror. It is the time of the 'Wrath
of God'.
The recurring metaphor is accompanied by recurring motifs. These include
- the coming of Elijah the prophet
- earthquake
- the sun becoming dark,
- the moon becoming like blood, and
- the stars fading or falling from heaven
Joel 2:10 - 11 The earth quakes before them; the heavens shall
tremble: the sun and the moon grow dark, and the stars diminish
their brightness: … for the day of the LORD is great and very terrible.
Who can endure it?
This passage was quoted by Peter in Acts 2:20:
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood,
before the coming of the great and notable day of the Lord comes
And in Revelation:
Revelation 6:12 -13 And I looked when he opened the sixth seal, and, there
was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of
made of hair, and the moon became like blood. And the stars of heaven
fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a
mighty wind….. 6:17 For the great day of his wrath has come, and who is be
able to stand?
Jesus speaks of this 'day' in an interesting manner in Matthew 24 and Mark 13
Matthew 24:29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be
darkened, and the moon will not give her light, and the stars shall fall from
heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
Mark 13:25 And the stars of heaven will fall, and the powers that are in
heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the
clouds with great power and glory.
Interesting in that He does not go on to say He will come with wrath. He
instead speaks of gathering his children.
Matthew 24:31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet,
and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of
heaven to the other.
Mark 13:27 And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his
elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost
part of heaven.
It is now important to give a little more attention to the 'Stars falling
from heaven'.
The 'Stars' metaphor is a recurrent theme in scripture as well, Stars refer
to Angels, and falling Stars refer to Satan and his Angels.
There is another passage in Revelation repeating the Satan cast out of heaven
motif
Revelation 12:7 - 11 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels
fought against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did
not prevail , nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great
dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, who deceives
the whole world: he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with
him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, Now salvation, and strength,
and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ have come, for the
accuser of our brothers has been cast down, who accused them before our God day
and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of
their testimony; and they did not love their lives to the death.
Interestingly, we see do indeed see Wrath depicted after the stars have
fallen and the sun has gone dark, and whose wrath is this?
Revelation 12:12 Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them. Woe
to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto
you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.
The Fourth Witness - Logic
Is God a free agent?
Yes, unless you consider Wrath is a part of his character. The Wrath of God
is not a free dynamic in relation to Sin. This 'Character trait' acts totally
deterministically and is reactionary in response to sin. Its actions are only
'softened' or 'countered' by other contradictory 'character traits' such as
mercy or compassion.
This 'Character Trait' theology gives God something of a split personality,
suffering a dichotomy and conflict within himself. God's freedom begins to look
a lot like our own familiar human condition, where we constantly struggle with
incompatible or contradictory desires and/or needs.
Whilst acknowledging this internal conflict, Christians adhering to the
'Wrath' as a Character Trait theory would nevertheless generally acknowledge
that God's love ultimately triumphs over his wrath. Interestingly, this is an
important point to address for partial redemption adherents, ie Christians who
do not acknowledge God's desire and capacity to reconcile all to himself - and
who believe in hell as a place of torment for the eternally damned.
Many Partialist Christians consider it quite possible that more humans will
perish in eternal hellfire than will be reconciled to God - and this of course
begs the question of whether wrath or love ultimately triumphs in eternity.
Love may triumph for some, where wrath triumphs for others. To rework an Old
Testament taunt at King Saul's expense: God has gained his millions, but
Satan his tens of millions.
Those who believe Wrath is a character trait of God that continues into
eternity have a real problem on another level.
If God is a Trinity and his life is a coinherent and perichoretic flow where
each member of the Godhead, Father Son and Holy Spirit live within each other,
and share in the eternal and infinite giving of and to each other, what happens
to God's wrath in his most fundamental existence? If the love flows in infinite
freedom between father Son and Holy Spirit, what happens to the wrath etc.?
Does God really have a part of his Character that he must always hide from
His loved ones? To whom can He reveal his wrath if there is no sin in eternity
to justify the manifestation of such Wrath?
This is why the early Church Fathers (The Cappadocian Fathers) who formulated
the doctrine of the Trinity leaned to Universalism.
For those who understand that the Wrath of God is external to Him, God's
redemption of humanity is not the result of an internal struggle. It is a
whole-hearted free (non-determined) act within the context of his love. The
virtues are all free agencies, and they are all exercised freely.
Those who reject the Augustinian view of the Redemption as partial, know that
once God has sorted out the sin issue 'The Wrath of God' ceases to exist. Wrath,
Sin, and Death are indeed a doomed Trinity!
A God of Wrath is a temporal God.
The Fifth Witness - Personal knowledge of God
Jonathan Edwards (1703 - 1758) the American Calvinist and Philosopher took
the doctrine of 'the wrath of God' as a Character Trait of the Father to its
bizarre logical conclusion, and expressed it in his Revival meetings.
I submit that anyone who knows God, would consider the following to be out of
step with our knowledge of Jesus Christ (who revealed the Father's heart to us),
and our experience of the Holy Spirit.
The following are some excerpts from Edwards' sermon 'Sinners in the
Hands of an Angry God':
The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present; they
increase more and more, and rise higher and higher, till an outlet is given;
and the longer the stream is stopped, the more rapid and mighty is its
course, when once it is let loose. It is true, that judgment against your
evil works has not been executed hitherto; the floods of God's vengeance
have been withheld; but your guilt in the mean time is constantly
increasing, and you are every day treasuring up more wrath; the waters are
constantly rising, and waxing more and more mighty; and there is nothing but
the mere pleasure of God, that holds the waters back, that are unwilling to
be stopped, and press hard to go forward. If God should only withdraw his
hand from the flood-gate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery
floods of the fierceness and wrath of God, would rush forth with
inconceivable fury, and would come upon you with omnipotent power; and if
your strength were ten thousand times greater than it is, yea, ten thousand
times greater than the strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in hell, it
would be nothing to withstand or endure it.
The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or
some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked:
his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of
nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear
to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his
eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended
him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is
nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment.
It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last
night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed
your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have
not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand
has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone
to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure
eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea,
there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this
very moment drop down into hell.
. -- And you, children, who are unconverted, do not you know that you are
going down to hell, to bear the dreadful wrath of that God, who is now angry
with you every day and every night? Will you be content to be the children
of the devil, when so many other children in the land are converted, and are
become the holy and happy children of the King of kings?
….O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great fumace
of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are
held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as
much against you, as against many of the damned in hell.
You shall be tormented in the presence of the holy angels, and in the
presence of the Lamb; and when you shall be in this state of suffering, the
glorious inhabitants of heaven shall go forth and look on the awful
spectacle, that they may see what the wrath and fierceness of the Almighty
is; and when they have seen it, they will fall down and adore that great
power and majesty.
OK this might be one man's God, but Jonathan Edwards does not speak for me.
What sort of character would such a God be building in his children where they
consider it bliss that they spend eternity worshipping God as they watch 'the
awful spectacle'.
I do not interpret the passage eye has not seen nor has the ear heard what
God has prepared for those who love Him in this way.
What pleasure would you get in seeing a child you once knew suffering such
torment, and knowing this torment would continue forever? I submit the enjoyment
of such suffering it is not a characteristic I would want to imbue in my
children. What sort of worship is it that is inspired by that?
I worship God because He is wholly good, and He did not hold back his own
life but He Himself chose to take on the very stuff in question - Wrath.
Worship in heaven will be a celebration of the triumph of the Cross, and an
infinite enjoyment seeking out the height and depth of the awesomely wonderful
and good nature and character of God.
The Sixth and Star Witness - The
Cross of Christ
Returning to the 'Day of the Lord' metaphor, there is another motif we have
not yet addressed, and that is the coming of Elijah prior to that day.
Malachi 4:5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of
the great and dreadful day of the LORD:
Matthew 17:10 - 13 And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then do the
scribes say that Elijah must come first? Then Jesus answered them and said,
Elijah is truly coming first, and shall restore all things.
But I say unto you, that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him,
but did to him whatever they wished. Likewise the Son of man is also about to
suffer at their hands. Then the disciples understood that he spoke to them of
John the Baptist.
As Zachariah had prophesied at John the Baptist's birth:
Luke 1:17 And he shall also go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah,
to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the
wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
So the inference here is that the day of the Lord is in fact also understood
in terms of Jesus first coming, 2000 years ago.
Luke 10:18 And Jesus said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from
heaven.
And indeed we do see the 'wrath of God' associated, and I would submit,
primarily associated with Jesus first coming.
Matthew 26:39 And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed,
saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless
not as I will, but as You will.
Jesus drank the cup of the 'Wrath of God' for us at the Cross, and in so
doing destroyed the power of the Devil.
It was not his Fathers wrath he drank and experienced. His words to the
Father after drinking the cup were the anguish of separation from His Father not
anguish at the Fathers wrath on him.
So whilst the scriptures go on speaking of the Wrath of God as if were that
the Father gets angry, God shows us a totally different picture in the Cross.
As Trinitarian Christians we believe that Jesus is the eternal Son of God,
God the Son. And even as the Father and the Son are one, so if the Father had
wrath on Sin, wouldn't the Son also have had the same wrath?
How was the Son's wrath dealt with on the cross?
It is truly God who has taken the wrath upon himself, and not in a
schizophrenic way. There was no internal struggle within God where his mercy was
crippled by his wrath until he could 'take it all out' on Jesus.
God is eternal. He dwells in a realm beyond time where there is no evil. Evil
has never invaded that realm and never will. God invaded the corrupted realm
with a view to resolving our corruption through redemption.
If evil never invaded the eternal realm, there could be no consequent
corruption or damage to the character and personhood of God, as inferred in the
scriptures in the closing paragraphs of this paper.
What we see is only God's separation from the realm corrupted by evil.
We need to gaze at the Cross to see through heaven to our God. He is a God of
infinite love. Not a finite love we understand from a non-critical reading of
the Judeo-Christian Scriptures and the transference of humanity's own internal
struggles onto the Holy One.
Like Wrath, all the following negative aspects of the so-called 'Character of
God' as outlined in the Old Testament, and sometimes followed by New Testament
writers are not part of God, they are not eternal, they are dependent on sin
for their very existence:
- Anger, Fierce wrath, fury, Exodus 32:10, Psalm 88:16 1 Samuel 28:18 2
Chronicles 29:10
- Cursing, Leviticus 26:15 ff
- Scorn, derision, Psalm 2:4 Psalm 59:8 Ezekiel 23:32
- Jealousy, Exodus 20:5 Ezekiel 23:25
- Revenge, Deuteronomy 32:35
- Authoring a racist Justice System weighted towards men, and dehumanising
slaves Numbers 5 11- 31, Ex 21:21
- Returning evil for evil, able to be provoked, Deuteronomy 32:21
- Non-specific and disproportionate retribution, Leviticus 26:18 & 27-28
Exodus 20:5 2 Samuel 24:10, Including on children, Psalm 137:9.Isaiah
13:16-18
- Genocide, Deuteronomy 2:34
- Hatred, revulsion, Psalm 78:59 Psalm 106:40
- Humiliating and shaming, Jeremiah 13:25-26 Jeremiah 23:39-40
- Utilising violence Deuteronomy 32:42
- Cruelty, Job 30:21 Isaiah 19:4 Isaiah 13:9 Jeremiah 30:14
- Dealing in terror and death, Leviticus 26:16 Deuteronomy 32:25.
Surely these are the Stars cast out of heaven. They certainly do more than
fade where there is no sin to sustain them.
In conclusion
Some people find it hard to reconcile Jesus who is seen as good, with the
Father who is seen as something of an ogre who is acknowledged as good only out
of fear. But this is all wrong. God is One, and is Good, and God is only Good.
It was the Father whose heart Jesus displayed when he rescued the woman
caught in Adultery from a certain death, a death proscribed by the Law He
allegedly wrote. If the Character of the Father as defined by Jesus who said 'He
who has seen me has seen the Father' differs from the character of the Old
Testament God, remember that prior to the coming of Christ no one had
seen God.
John 1:18 No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in
the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
The only interface between God and our separated realm was 'heaven'. Satan
and his Angels were a part of the heaven that all humanity interacted with until
the coming of Christ. All humanity includes the Old Testament Heroes and
Authors.
Jesus said in Matthew 7:16 You shall know them by their fruits. Do men
gather grapes of thorns, or figs from thistles?
In the same way we can know our God. The Holy Spirit is truly God, and the
fruit of the Holy Spirit are all virtues. See Ephesians 5 verse 9. Love Joy
Peace Patience Kindness Gentleness…..
God bless you!
Andrew
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