The wrath of God is the emotional element of his opposition to sin. Wrath and anger are how God feels about the rebellion of his creatures.

Most of us would rather skip this one. Stay with it — it goes somewhere you might not expect.

If sin is being at war with God, wrath is God being at war with sin.

Not Detachment, Not Indifference

God’s anger is his emotional response to sin — the response of his holiness and love and righteousness. Given those, his attitude toward sin cannot be detachment or unconcern. It is outrage, indignation, displeasure.

Sin is something God loathes. Wrath is his personal, living, judicial hostility to it. If sin is being at war with God, wrath is God being at war with sin. And note what it isn’t: wrath is ‘aroused in the context of offence … [but] not ill-tempered or irrational.’¹Michael Horton, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way (Zondervan, 2011), 270-271.

We see it first as God’s curse falls on the serpent and then on the ‘ground’ — the created order in which we’d have to live and work (Gen 3:14, 17). Scripture repeatedly calls God ‘slow to anger’ (Exo 34:6; Psa 103:8). It just as repeatedly says he abhors evildoing and violence (Psa 5:5-6), along with robbery, injustice and oppression (Isa 61:8; Amos 5:21).

It’s Meant to Frighten You

God’s wrath is intended to cause distress and fear (Psa 78:49-51). It is supposed to be frightening.

Beyond punishment, the prospect of it is meant to sober up sinful people — to bring them to their senses, to repentance, to seek God’s forgiveness and mercy. Being subject to God’s wrath should be our ultimate nightmare. But even at its most furious (Psa 2:5), God’s wrath

‘is never a spontaneous outburst, but a reaction occasioned by the conduct of man. … [T]he anger of God is not a blind, explosive force … but rather voluntary and purposeful, motivated by concern for right and wrong. … It is an instrument rather than a force, transitive rather than spontaneous. It is a secondary emotion, never the ruling passion.’²Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets (HarperPerennial, 2001 [orig. 1962]), 362-63.

Anger Because of Love, Not Instead of It

Here’s the turn. Biblically informed appreciation of God’s wrath strengthens rather than weakens appreciation of God’s love.

God’s hatred of sin arises from his love for humanity. His wrath is ‘righteous indignation … it is impatience with evil’³Heschel, The Prophets, 363. arising from his love of life and goodness — a love such that anything harming them cannot be tolerated.

Think what the alternative would mean. Indifference would signal a lack of care. His anger is moved by his care; he is angry at anything that threatens what he loves. God’s goodness is such that he must hate evil.

‘For God to be angry is not out of character for him but an expression of his nature in relation to particular circumstances. The God who loves us as his creatures also hates us as sinners who have rebelled against him, because he cannot tolerate us in that condition. The paradox is that he hates us because he loves us.’⁴Bray, God is Love, 141-42.

‘[I]n some ineffable way,’ Calvin wrote, ‘God loved us and yet was angry toward us at the same time, until he became reconciled to us in Christ.’⁵Calvin, Institutes, 2.17.2; 530.

Nobody Is Outside the Reach of It

God’s wrath operates on a global scale, ‘revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men’ (Rom 1:18). Its reach is universal: ‘the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him’ (Ezra 8:22) — a rule without exception (Rom 2:8-9).

We’re instinctively reluctant to take this seriously enough. Yet ‘the church, not to say, the broader culture is most in need of the Biblical teachings with which it is most uncomfortable.’⁶D. A. Carson, ‘The Wrath of God,’ in Bruce L. McCormack ed., Engaging the Doctrine of God (Baker Academic, 2008), 37. The magnitude of God’s outrage is impossible to accept without revelation. Owen saw it clearly:

‘The world is full of confusion, full of tokens of God’s displeasure, full of judgments, full of dread; yet the world understands nothing of all these. Bring these works of God to the word of God, and we shall understand them.’⁷John Owen, ‘The Death of the Righteous,’ a Sermon preached on July 1, 1681, Works, 16:488.

God’s anger at sin is always warranted. Countless verses insist ‘vengeance’ has its place — but vengeance in God is not the revenge we recognise in ourselves, inflicting pain beyond what’s deserved. It’s justice, fair and reasonable, meeting the level of the offence.⁸Thanks to Robert Doyle for clarification here.

Which brings us to why this is good news. God’s anger demonstrates intense regard for right and wrong; wrath signals his objection to whatever is bad or iniquitous. In fact, the wrath of God is

‘the end of indifference! The message of wrath is frightful, indeed. But for those who have been driven to the brink of despair by the sight of what malice and ruthlessness can do, comfort will be found in the thought that evil is not the end, that evil is never the climax of history.’⁹Heschel, The Prophets, 365.

The Creator Is the Judge

Linked to wrath are the practical realities of God’s judgment, seen first as he passes sentence ‘as if from his judgment-seat’¹⁰John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis, trans. John King (Eerdmans, 1948), 1:176. on the serpent, then on Eve and Adam (Gen 3:14-19).

Judgment is an aspect of God’s governance, elemental to his rule. His authority to judge stems from absolute lordship: he is ‘God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth’ (Gen 14:19, 22) and therefore ‘Judge of all the earth’ (Gen 18:25). He is himself the source of justice and guardian of righteousness, because these are inherent to his nature — the ‘foundation of his throne’ (Psa 97:2).

Judgment Means Things Get Put Right

Judgment entails condemnation of what’s wrong and vindication of what’s right, discriminating between guilt and innocence. Its goal is the restoration of equity and harmony: in the face of injustice, God’s judgment is his activity aimed at setting things right.

It’s thoroughgoing, proceeding on God’s complete knowledge, on the scale of each human life and of all history. ‘God’s judgment attends to the heart and to the full circumstances of a person.’¹¹Timothy Bradshaw, ‘Judgment of God,’ in New Dictionary of Theology: Historical and Systematic [NDT], eds. Martin Davie et al (IVP, 2016), 478.

It also demonstrates that sin is not ultimate. ‘Judgment protects the idea of the triumph of God and of good. … Judgment means that evil will be disposed of authoritatively, decisively, finally. Judgment means that in the end God’s will will be perfectly done.’¹²Leon Morris, The Biblical Doctrine of Judgment (IVP, 1960), 72.

And it stresses our accountability and worth. ‘The truth of divine judgment on human wrong is necessary in a moral universe, upholding the goodness of God, respecting the dignity of humanity.’¹³Bradshaw, ‘Judgment of God’ [NDT], 478. In judgment God publicly affirms ‘those values on which the common life of society depends.’¹⁴Oliver M. T. O’Donovan, ‘Punishment’ [NDBT], 717.

That judgment falls both now, in this present life, and ultimately at the ‘day on which he will judge the world’ (Acts 17:31) before ‘the great white throne’ (Rev 20:11-15).

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• 1
  Michael Horton, The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way (Zondervan, 2011), 270-271. ↩︎
• 2
  Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets (HarperPerennial, 2001 [orig. 1962]), 362-63. ↩︎
• 3
  Heschel, The Prophets, 363. ↩︎
• 4
  Bray, God is Love, 141-42. ↩︎
• 5
  Calvin, Institutes, 2.17.2; 530. ↩︎
• 6
  D. A. Carson, ‘The Wrath of God,’ in Bruce L. McCormack ed., Engaging the Doctrine of God (Baker Academic, 2008), 37. ↩︎
• 7
  John Owen, ‘The Death of the Righteous,’ a Sermon preached on July 1, 1681, Works, 16:488. ↩︎
• 8
  Thanks to Robert Doyle for clarification here. ↩︎
• 9
  Heschel, The Prophets, 365. ↩︎
• 10
  John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis, trans. John King (Eerdmans, 1948), 1:176. ↩︎
• 11
  Timothy Bradshaw, ‘Judgment of God,’ in New Dictionary of Theology: Historical and Systematic [NDT], eds. Martin Davie et al (IVP, 2016), 478. ↩︎
• 12
  Leon Morris, The Biblical Doctrine of Judgment (IVP, 1960), 72. ↩︎
• 13
  Bradshaw, ‘Judgment of God’ [NDT], 478. ↩︎
• 14
  Oliver M. T. O’Donovan, ‘Punishment’ [NDBT], 717. ↩︎