God's Retribution Wrath

In this lesson, we will be covering different ways God’s wrath and justice are displayed. God’s justice and wrath are basically two sides of the same coin. His justice is what the law is and the punishment that is due from the law and then His wrath is how that justice is executed and displayed. Because of this, I will often use these two words interchangeably. I’ve done my best to make this subject as simple as possible by reducing the terms of God’s justice into just three. Many theologians have all kinds of words they use to explain God’s justice like: Remedial, communal, distributive, general, legal, and so on. We won’t be getting in depth with all those because I think it just muddies the waters. For the most part, I think we can understand God’s justice and wrath when we put them into three categories. Because I’m a pragmatic theologian, I just don’t see the use to expand the list. So how is understanding the methods of God’s justice and wrath relevant? Well, it’s relevant for understanding atonement theories since various atonement theories emphasize different aspects of God’s justice needing to be met. You may believe or not believe a certain atonement theory based upon your views of God’s justice. For more info on that, I will refer you to my other article on Introduction to Atonement Theories. However, this articles’s emphasis will be less on atonement theories and more on defending and explaining what God’s justice is and how it is enacted. From all the years that I’ve been a Christian as well as all the research I’ve done looking at different branches of Christianity, I’ve come to certain conclusions about those forms of Christianity. That is, some people may emphasis only one aspect of God’s wrath to the exclusion of the others while other Christians may completely eliminate a certain aspect of God’s wrath that seems to be Biblical. This lesson will journey through why that might be and how it is we have come to such varying perspectives in Christendom. How we end up seeing these things will influence the way we see God’s character and God’s heart. Which as a result, will greatly influence the way that we relate to God and how we relate to other people.

In referring to God’s wrath and justice, there are three categories that I came up with. However, sometimes these categories overlap and multiple types of wrath can be displayed at the same time. These categories of wrath are: Direct, indirect, and absent. Retributive wrath is direct. Governmental wrath is indirect. Consequential wrath is God’s absence which is the natural consequence apart from God’s life. Here they are in list format:

Direct – Retributive (e.g. Sodom being destroyed)
Indirect – Governmental (e.g. Babylon punishing nations)
Absent or Natural – Consequential (e.g. Romans 1 & natural death)

Let me explain these more in depth:

Retributive Justice: I will use this term to describe the justice and punishment directly handed out by God. Key words and phrases that go along with this are: retribution, revenge, vengeance, and directly paying back each person according to their deeds. It is also a term used in reference to offending God by sinning against Him. God’s retribution would be dealt out to punish people for this offense against God’s honor and goodness. Just think of it like God is a perfectly just judge up in heaven and He needs to punish people according to their crimes to maintain His honor and justice. Otherwise, He would not be a just judge. The idea is that God as Judge will judge people according to the full extent of the law because that is what they deserve and that is what is just.

Governmental Justice: I will use this term to describe humanity’s offense against God’s law, moral order, and moral governance to preserve the common good, to demonstrate the seriousness of sin so that we avoid it, and to preserve the dignity of His name among all creatures and the hosts of heaven. In addition, a very important aspect of governmental justice is that God’s punishments have a restorative and remedial nature. The key idea with governmental justice is that God isn’t directly punishing us—the law is. But the law is ultimately for our good and that’s what God wants for all His creatures. So, when people are punished, it’s nothing personal—it’s just business… What I mean to say is, your punishment may be for the well-being of someone else or some other nation, or it may be for your own good because God cares about you, or your punishment may be necessary to uphold the law and moral order in the grand scheme of things. Governmental justice can also be referred to as Public justice or Communal justice which includes commutative justice, distributive justice, and legal/general justice, remedial justice, and restorative justice. However, I generally prefer the term Governmental justice because it makes the most sense and sums up all of these terms together. Just think of this as God is a governor up in heaven ruling the earth and needs to keep everything running smoothly and keep the kingdom going in the direction that He wants it to go for His good purposes, for the good of everyone, and for your own benefit. He is the most loving governor though so we can trust Him that He is doing the right thing even if it may not feel or look right to us from our short-sighted perspective.

Consequential Justice: I will use this term to describe how God deals out His justice and punishment indirectly. While public justice is once removed from God’s direct interaction, consequential justice is even further removed from God’s direct intervention. This could also be called the wrath of God’s abandonment. God withdraws His sustaining grace so that creatures are left to themselves and their own devices in accordance with the path that they have freely chosen in the opposite direction of God who is the source of all life, light, love, and peace. That is, the path they have chosen is death both physically and spiritually and to die, suffer, and disintegrate they shall. If you could imagine what the earth would be like if it got too close or too far away from the sun, it would either freeze over or burn up from the intense heat or lack of heat from the sun’s rays. In the same way, when we enter into God’s presence with evil inside us, the light of God is too much for us and we might die from it. Or, if we go far away from God in our evil, the result is death because God is the source of all life and energy. Therefore, the problem is not God in what He does or doesn’t do to us. Rather the problem is us and where we are in relation to God.

The Eastern Orthodox Church really emphasizes this consequential type of wrath, though they don’t specifically use that term. As far as I know, no one uses these terms that I’m speaking of here except for retribution. For the Orthodox though, they focus on God’s law as more of a natural, physical, or metaphysical law of the universe like gravity for example or if you touch a hot stove, you will get burned. That’s how it’s viewed in the Old Testament when certain people got too close to God’s presence when they shouldn’t have and they suffered a natural consequence as a result of that encounter. On the other hand, those who emphasize God’s retributive justice, they see this as more God’s holiness and a violation of God’s moral law and disrespecting God as the reason for why those people died when encountering God’s presence. These are two opposing perspectives of God’s justice and usually either one or the other is taught. I don’t recall ever hearing both of them being taught together.

Interestingly, governmental justice seems to be almost completely neglected in some Protestant circles like the Reformed Calvinists and probably the Catholics to some degree as well. They tend to focus on God’s retribution almost exclusively. For them, sin is always viewed as a direct offense to God which is deserving of His retribution and that’s why He punishes sin. On the other hand, the Methodists and Eastern Orthodox Church seem to reject the idea of God’s retributive justice and instead emphasize governmental justice and consequential justice. So what we find then, is that a major difference that splits these denominations apart is really, how they see God’s justice and wrath and how they come to interpret that from the Bible and from tradition. The battleground lies with this one question: Is God’s wrath retributive? How we answer this question and what our concept of God is has major implications to how we see the doctrine of salvation and what atonement theories we adopt. The reason being, if our sin and God’s retribution for our sin is the major problem that we must overcome to be saved, then our view of atonement and reconciliation with God will reflect that. This also effects what we think the solution is in how to be reconciled to God. Throughout this article, I want you to keep in mind this question: For what reason is God wrathful? The nature of this question goes hand in hand with what God’s wrath is. The what and the why are very relevant. However, our main focus here will be on the what. Specifically, the what kind.

Another aspect we will explore in our study is not just which forms of wrath God displays but which ones are emphasized and how much are they emphasized? It’s possible to believe in all three forms of God’s wrath but which ones are the main focus? Or should they all have equal focus? What do you think? Let’s explore this subject further. I will begin to defend all three of these views as much as possible beginning in the New Testament and then we’ll work our way into the Old Testament. Is God’s justice and wrath retributive, governmental, or consequential? And are these views defensible? Let’s find out.

Romans 1

First, let’s look at Romans 1:18 which says, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” To reveal also means to uncover, to make known. The source or direction from which this wrath comes or is made known is from heaven. Because it is (1) the wrath of God and (2) it comes from heaven, it clearly seems to be God’s retributive wrath. That is, God seems to have a very active role to play in this. We might even support this assertion that a reason or motive behind God’s wrath being revealed is that these people did not honor God or give thanks to God as verse 21 indicates. The whole context of the passage also emphasizes a departure from worshipping and representing “the glory of the incorruptible God” (v. 23) and instead worshipping idols and committing self-idolatry. The context strongly indicates that God cares about people worshipping Him and that when they choose to foolishly not worship Him or give Him thanks for all the good that they have been blessed with, this is when God’s wrath will be revealed. Because of their sin, we then have the reason for why their judgment comes and it is the “therefore” in verse 24 which says, “Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.” Then we have the conjunction “For” to begin the next verse as a further reason for why God’s wrath was revealed to them and it says, “For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” From the perspective of retribution, we could say that God wants us to worship Him and when we don’t, He punishes us. Now Reformed theologians would see this passage as “God’s wrath of abandonment,” so retribution certainly isn’t the main focus here for them. I just want to make that clear. But I’m just doing this thought experiment to see the most retribution possible in this text for the sake of argument. So, let’s talk about God’s consequential wrath now.

Three times within this chapter, it says that “God gave them over…” (1) “in the lusts of their hearts to impurity,” (2) “to degrading passions,” and (3) “to a depraved mind.” We see then that this punishment of God’s wrath is not something that is given to these people but something that is taken away. God, who “upholds all things by the word of His power” (Heb 1:3), stops upholding some of those things. He withdraws some of His sustaining grace to these people because that is exactly what they want because they don’t want God. So God’s basically like, “Do what you want. I’m not going to stop you. I’m not going to prevent you. I’m not going to frustrate your plans for sinning. I’m going to allow you to go down the path of depravity because that’s what you want in your own free-will.” What we also see here is that this is a progression towards depravity. They don’t start depraved but the more they ignore God and pursue their rebellion against Him, God gives them over to it more and more until they receive a depraved mind from their sinning. We could say that this is a natural consequence from rejecting God since God is the source of all life. To reject Him and run away from Him through choosing sin and worldly philosophies will result in death and the disintegration of life. Therefore, God’s wrath here is consequential. The penalty of their sins is what they punish themselves with. Verse 27 speaks about people who practice homosexuality and burn with passion for one another and then it says that they receive “in their own persons the due penalty of their error.” This is like how the Apostle Paul says, “whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life” (Gal 6:7-8). Put simply, what you put in is what you get out. The wrath and penalty here then is natural consequence. A few examples of this consequence are that the passions become insatiable and there are certain diseases that are contracted through this sexual perversion. In this way, you could say that they make their lives hell.

Then in verse 32 it says, “and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death …” So, they knew the regulations of God’s law or they knew the right thing to do but refused to do it. They knew that their actions would result in death or that their actions were deserving of death as their punishment. The word “worthy” in the Greek could mean “weighing,” “befitting,” “congruous,” or “deserving.” Because of those various definitions, this verse could go either way. It doesn’t necessarily prove retributive justice and nor does it prove consequential justice. Both retribution and consequential justice can be seen in this entire passage but the overall theme is definitely about consequence and I think it’s possible to see consequence as the natural penalty for sin in this passage without the need for retributive justice. But I don’t say this dogmatically. It is only an observation.

As for God’s governmental justice, this passage reveals nothing specific regarding God’s benevolence or any reason why this wrath would be enacted to uphold God’s moral order. Actually, it seems to degrade the moral order of society rather than be a means to purge evil. However, there is a sense that this could turn out to a positive end later on because sometimes people need to suffer more and come to the end of themselves before humbly yielding to Jesus Christ for salvation. An example of this remedial purpose is in 1 Corinthians 5 where someone in the church was committing incest which was very shameful and unfathomable to think that such a thing would happen among Christians but it did nonetheless. So then Paul in his Apostolic authority writes to the church and says, “I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (v. 5). There was a purposeful intent in this situation for removing this unrepentant person from the church to keep the church pure and to have this person experience the absence of God’s life and the destruction of sin so that he would decide to change his mind and turn back to God. Paul says virtually the same thing in 1 Timothy 1:20 as a result of two people who had rejected keeping their faith and a good conscience. He said, “Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, so that they will be taught not to blaspheme.” Some of us have prideful and foolish hearts and that needs to be broken out of us so that we can be reconciled to God. From these passages, we see that the purpose of God’s consequential and governmental wrath is ultimately restoration. We would do well to keep that in our minds whenever we have doubts thinking God might abandon or forsake us. Even if He hypothetically did, the intention would be for our good and He will always have our good in mind. As Romans 8:39 says, nothing can separate us from the love of God. Just to be clear, God will never abandon born again believers. However, we have the choice of abandoning Him and in that choice, we propel ourselves further away from God’s life and grace and receive the natural consequence of our sin. For these reasons, it would be best to scrap the term, “the wrath of God’s abandonment,” which I learned from the Reformed tradition. That term just seems to confuse things because no human being is ultimately abandoned until they reach hell. All people on earth partake in some measure of God’s good graces. For this reason, we’ll just use the term “consequential wrath.”

2 Thessalonians 1:6-10

For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, 7 and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, 8 dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, 10 when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed—for our testimony to you was believed.

This passage reveals that people who persecute and oppress Christians will be repaid for their deeds and it is a fitting repayment. Those who have afflicted you, they themselves will receive affliction as their punishment. This affliction will come to them when Jesus returns and Himself deals out retribution for those who don’t know God and for those who know God but decide not to follow Him through a life of faith in the good news of Jesus. In addition to this, there is a price to be paid for their evil and rebellion and that is the penalty of eternal destruction away from the presence of God. As we have discussed in previous articles, the penalty of eternal destruction is annihilation because all people will cease to be apart from the sustaining life of God’s presence. I am not of the opinion that the fitting repayment of those who afflict me is suffering and torture without end for eternity. You tell me, is that what you desire for all the mean kids who bullied you in school when you were a kid or who made nasty comments to you while you were an adult? Do you desire unending suffering for them as a penalty to the suffering they caused you? If you do, I am really concerned for the state of your soul. If you don’t, and if Paul didn’t, but rather wished himself to be accused if it were possible to save his brethren, then why would Paul say here that the punishment would only be just for God to do this? By saying it is just, he would be saying that is it right and fitting as something that is equal for equal punishment. But eternal conscious torment is not equal affliction for those who afflict you or anything on the same scale. The affliction Paul is speaking here is either the present life before the last days, or the eschatological day of the Lord when Jesus returns and pours out all the bowls of wrath on the earth. Or, for those who are in mental anguish awaiting their sentence of judgement while in Hades and perhaps even the judgement itself, the dying process. Anywhere along this line of progression people can receive just penalties for their sins committed in this life. Then at the end they will receive capital punishment since in their own free-will they decided to reject God and therefore reject immortality.

To me, there really seems to be retributive justice and consequential justice here. I don’t see how someone could say retribution isn’t here while the very text uses the word “retribution.” It even mentions Jesus as the one who deals out this retribution. So, let’s see what the Greek word for “retribution” is here. It can mean “vengeance,” “punishment,” “vindication,” or “justice.” There are only nine uses of this word in the New Testament so that doesn’t give us much to work with so let’s examine the Septuagint to see how they use this word in the Old Testament. In the Septuagint, it’s mostly translated as “vengeance” and “punishments.” So, that’s pretty consistent. The context of those verses are about God repaying people for the evil that they have done.

The strongest parallel for God’s retributive justice where He directly acts which uses this same word from the Septuagint is Exodus 12:12 where God says, “For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments—I am the Lord.” This is a very direct act of God. Certainly not just consequence. God is actively punishing in this situation. However, it is not exclusively retribution either because the purpose of the punishment was to cause Pharoah to let God’s people go free from their oppressive slavery and away from Egypt. There was a strong governmental aspect to this. God acted out of compassion to save His people as Nehemiah 9:9 says, “You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, And heard their cry by the Red Sea.” But then verse 10 says, “You displayed miraculous signs and wonders against Pharaoh, his officials, and all his people, for you knew how arrogantly they were treating our ancestors. You have a glorious reputation that has never been forgotten” (NLT). In this verse, we see that another motivation for God judging Egypt was how arrogant they were so this was also about retribution. The Israelites had also been unjustly enslaved by Egypt because they were becoming very numerous and Pharoah was afraid of them. For this reason also, Egypt would need to be punished.

As a result of all these thing so far, I really cannot see how someone like Brian Zahnd interprets the book of Revelation as Jesus merely coming back to conquer the world with love as if the double-edged sword is just Jesus speaking the gospel message of love and then if they refuse the message, they all will eventually die by natural consequences from their own destructive practices that has nothing to do with Jesus coming to bring retribution. Sure, you can claim the book of Revelation is super allegorical like a Roman play or something but to strip all retribution from it makes absolutely no sense, especially considering that we have this passage here in Thessalonians that isn’t a book of symbols and metaphors and it clearly tells us what Jesus is going to do when He comes back—He’s going to punish people.

Now, I did have a vision or vivid imagination not too long ago when I was in a heightened spiritual state. So I can share some things about that. You can take it or leave it. Test it. I’m not saying it’s true or I believe everything about it but there is certainly some valid truth behind it if you’re willing to receive it. I envisioned the future and the 144,000 were chosen. They were kids because God wanted the children to be His messengers because He loves the little children. Right after they were chosen and sealed, they were given supernatural powers and they could transform themselves into animals and insects if they wanted. A war was going on, a physical war, and so the kids went to battle and fought off the invading armies with their animal claws, teeth, and fire breath. When the invading army was subdued, they went out on the streets and met people. The kids were so full of the love of God that they were glowing in their smiles and they radiated extreme joy. They were telling people that Jesus loves them. What would happen is that either those people would let the light of God’s love into their hearts and be saved or they would close off their hearts to that love and would collapse dead on the spot as they were overwhelmed by the love that was so pure that the darkness of their hearts could not hold it back. The children were literally conquering the world for the kingdom of God with their cuteness. They were slaying their enemies with love. They were saving or killing people with their laughter. No one could stay on the fence any longer. It was a day of reckoning for the whole world. Behold, both the kindness and severity of the Lord.

Like I said though, it’s not necessarily going to happen that way, but I hope it does. Regardless, I do expect to see retribution in the future, plagues and natural disasters, and fire raining down from heaven as the book of Revelation talks about and also 2 Peter 2:4-10; 3:3-9 and Jude.

Jude 1:5-7

Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by fire and brimstone raining down from heaven (Gen 19:24). And why were they destroyed? God gave the reason, saying, “their sin is exceedingly grave” (Gen 18:20). This is the very example that we are given to imagine what God’s wrath will somewhat resemble in the last days. This means that the punishment of fire at the end of the age either on earth or in the lake of fire, will probably be literal fire. Now, I don’t believe this is talking about the Lake of Fire as I’ve explained in previous articles. Regardless, this will be retribution, just as Sodom and Gomorrah was retribution. God will directly be involved in this punishment as the Judge over all the earth and He will be the one executing this punishment, even as He executed the punishment of the flood that covered the whole earth and destroyed everything. In the last days, the moon, sun, stars (the heavens), and the physical earth will be destroyed by fire. But the earth won’t be completely destroyed, just cleansed with fire, physical fire; and this will happen while people are still living on it.

Read Matthew 24 again sometime and notice how it talks about the sun being darkened and the stars falling from the sky and the flood being given as an example of people being taken away in judgement and then when the Son of Man returns, people will be taken away in judgement. Then at the end it mentions the wicked slave being cut into pieces. This is in your Bible guys, I don’t see how anyone can be called a theologian and just skip over all of these judgment passages as if they don’t exist. God may come back in great love and compassion and we can pray for that but there will certainly be many judgements, that we know for sure.

2 Peter 3:10-13

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.
11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! 13 But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.

This passage literally says, the heavens, the earth, the elements. They will be burned up. It’s clearly talking about the physical elements, material matter. And if we cross reference this with the book of Revelation, we see this, “Then the angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar, and threw it to the earth; and there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake. 6 And the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound them. 7 The first sounded, and there came hail and fire, mixed with blood, and they were thrown to the earth; and a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up” (Rev 8:5-7).

So what do we see here? Someone might say fire is just symbolic. Well, how can it be symbolic in this context? Especially since the result of this fire is burning up the earth, the trees, and the grass? And then there is hail, thunder, lightning, and an earthquake—all natural or supernatural acts of God. Here, the angels are doing the work from God’s direction even as God used His angels to destroy Sodom. It is a physical cleansing of the earth by fire even as the great flood was a cleansing of the earth by water.

Now there is a slight possibility that we could take the book of Ezekiel to interpret the trees as people. But even if we do that, the people will still die from God’s judgment against them so that doesn’t help the case of those who refuse to acknowledge that God is coming back to punish and with vengeance. Also, if we look at what was in the censer that was thrown down to the earth to cause the fire, it had incense in it which were the prayers of the saints. And what were the prayers of the saints? Revelation 6:10 tells us, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” The believers who were being martyred were crying out for justice, for God to punish those who had caused them such great affliction. Now their prayers were finally being answered and God was avenging them. God was making things right and purging the world from evil to bring in His eternal kingdom of perfect righteousness and all the angels and the saints were in agreement with God’s righteous judgements and praised the Lord for it (Rev 16:4-7; 19:1-7).

Very early on in church history, we have the Nicene Creed and the Apostle’s Creed which both say that Jesus will come again “to judge the living and the dead” (Acts 10:42; 2 Tim 4:1; 1 Pet 4:5). So, it’s probably not a good idea to create new versions of Christianity which say that Jesus isn’t going to come back to judge.

If you want to bring this around full circle, you can read the beginning of Romans two. But I think we have covered enough of God’s retributive justice for now. God’s governmental and consequential justice were only covered a little bit so we’ll have to talk about those more in the next lesson. It will be an important lesson because God’s wrath isn’t only retributive. We don’t want to be unbalanced and unhealthy here. So, stay tuned.

Key words for retributive justice that you can look up in a bible concordance: Wrath, penalty, vengeance, revenge, retribution, fury, anger, punish, repay, judge, judgement, account.