God's Wrath Through Love

In this article, I will attempt to show that God’s wrath is His love, that He demonstrates His love through His wrath. It is because God is loving that He is wrathful. We have covered some of this teaching previously in this series as well as in the hell teaching series, so I will not repeat all that information here. But as a short summary, we can see this truth in the fact that there is love within the Trinity for the other members so that to sin against one member is to provoke the zeal of another member. In God’s love, He is a Jealous God; and in His jealousy, He punishes sin. In these two things, we can see God’s retributive wrath. We also spoke of God’s governmental wrath in punishing for the good of all His creatures and for the future good of the world. This is done out of love for us and it is remedial and restorative in nature as a loving father for his children. Then in God’s consequential wrath, God uses the absence of His grace to teach people the right way. God allows people to go down the wrong path which leads to their own hurt so that they may be humbled and see the error of their ways so that they might turn back to God. Sometimes God allows our own choices to be a penalty unto ourselves and will not punish us more since the afflictions inherent to the sin are punishment enough. But at the end of the day, if we choose to reject God, He will not force us to be in heaven with Him because He is a loving God and will respect our free choice. For this reason, those who reject Him will suffer the fate of His eternal absence forever, which is death. Life is not an option because only in God’s presence is there life and in God’s governance, no sin will be allowed into heaven since He is going to make all things pure. But for those who don’t want that purity and showed no effort to obtain it, they will not be worthy to enter into the kingdom of God. Only friends are allowed into God’s house but those who want nothing to do with God are no friends at all.

It may be helpful to view God’s wrath as His love with two different directions—Corporate and Personal. Corporate has to do with God’s transcendence and God’s governmental nature as ruler over the universe and His nature as God and from this, He has wrath for sinners. Personal has to do with God’s imminence, His Fatherly and friendly nature that He desires to interact with us. Here are some charts below.

God’s Wrathful Love as Corporate:

• Judge

• Governor

• King

• Creator/Life

• Warrior/Lion

• Law Enforcer

• Executioner

• Father

• Jealous God

God’s Wrathful Love as Personal:

• Father

• Savior/Healer

• Friend

• Jealous God

• Creator

• Holiness

Now, let’s look at these in more detail.

God’s Wrathful Love as Corporate

Judge

• The guilty are punished

• God’s judgement is without partiality

• He doesn’t play favorites

• People are accountable to their level of knowledge and whatever unjust things they have done despite any good they have done in the past

Governor

• God makes things work for everyone and maintains order

• He must suppress the sin pandemic which corrupts everyone and causes so much suffering

• He allows certain people to suffer so that their hearts are humbled and softened to turn away from evil and turn to God

• Acts 17:26-27 “From one man he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live. He did this so that they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us” (CSB)

• God makes the rules and sets the standards

• He moves the world in the direction that is best for His kingdom and subjects

King

Law Enforcer

Creator / Life

• God is angry when His creation corrupts and perverts itself

• He desires to restore people back to who they were created and intended to be

• What He has created and granted life to, He can take away

• Without the presence of God’s life there is death

Warrior / Lion

• God will uphold His moral order

• Laws must be maintained for society to function

• Curses are also upheld because they are legally binding

• If the law is never enforced, then warnings against evil are merely empty threats and if that were true and the governed people find that out, would anyone be motivated to follow the law?

• The penalty for sin is death

• It is unjust to let the guilty go unpunished

• Those who are stubbornly obstinate and rebellious cannot be purified through the fire and so they will instead be burned up

• The devil and the kingdom of darkness is God’s enemy

• Evil must be destroyed

• He must defeat the devil and all evil to maintain control of heaven permanently to prevent future rebellions

• Those not worthy will not make it into heaven (Mt 10:37-38; 22:8)

• Where is your heart towards God and people? Can you get along with people and are you humble? Or would you become the next Lucifer in heaven to rebel against God? Would you sin and ruin heaven for everyone else? Heaven would not be heaven if sin were there. Jesus said that it is the pure in heart that will see God (Mt 5:8) and Hebrews says to strive for the peace and sanctification without which no one will see the Lord (Heb 12:14).

Executioner

Jealous God

Father

• God is the father over all creation and He allows people to make their own free-will choices to accept Him and live in His house or reject Him and live in sin, destroying themselves in a foreign land like the prodigal son. But the invitation is always there to come back

• God the Father is love in His very nature—that’s why He’s called Father—it’s a familial term. But His love as a Father is so good and so pure and so holy and so fierce that it is overwhelming. To those who let the light of God’s love in to purify them, God’s love is a cleansing fire. But to those who have shielded their hearts from God’s love because of their refusal to believe in Him and resist the cleansing process, the fire of God’s love will consume them, overwhelm them, and they will be completely undone in God’s holiness so that they cease to be. This will happen at the final judgement when all their deeds of darkness will be exposed and this will be made known to them in the light of God’s perfect love and words of truth. They will utterly regret the choices that they have made having been so evil against such perfect love, and having neglected so great a salvation. But their hearts, being so weak as they are, having endured no process of sanctification to cleanse their evil, will be burned up and scorched like certain plants that are unfit for the sun’s rays. Their condemnation from the sword of God’s mouth, is their final judgement and consequential punishment

Jealous God

• Being a jealous God, He must keep the truth and preserve the truth so that all the ends of the earth may be saved. There is salvation in no one else but Jesus who is One God because only life is in Jesus. This means that God must punish and eliminate idolatry and idolaters because they spread lies and deception that keep people away from the life of God. The Lord used Israel and displayed many signs and wonders for Israel so that His name would be made known throughout the earth so that people could believe in Him so as to be saved. The Lord also punished many idolatrous nations, including Israel when they turned to idolatry because those things led people away from faith in God and their rebellion had come very close to the extinction of faith in Yahweh from the face of the earth. Therefore, to preserve His name, He had to act and take control of the situation by pouring out His wrath. Otherwise, what salvation would be left for the world? The truth had to be preserved that there is only One God

• God has legitimate reasons for hating idolatry and the sins that lead His people away from Him. God desires to have a people for His own possession to make His name known throughout the earth, take back the nations which the devil stole, and reclaim His inheritance which is rightfully His

• God is appalled at the thought that we would trade His perfect love, goodness, and grace for lesser unworthy things, which is like playing in a manure pile while we could be enjoying a day at the beach

• Jesus, who died for the world, jealously desires that the world should come to Him and to love the Father who gave His only Son for them because He is worthy of our hearts and devotion

• God is jealous in His wrath to preserve the name, dignity, and devotion of the Trinity. In this way, His love is not self-seeking but selfless

God’s Wrathful Love as Personal

Father

• From the Father comes love, discipline, and rebukes to His children. His desire is to teach us and mold us into the fullness of who we are meant to be

• His love is holy and pure for our good

• “Be the fullness of what you can be with My love and support”

• “Don’t harm yourself. Don’t destroy yourself. I want the best for you”

Savior / Healer

• Salvation offers: love, joy, and peace. To reject this is to suffer the absence of all love, joy, and peace. But Jesus came that we may have life and have it more abundantly

• The presence of suffering, anguish, and trials can lead people into recognizing their need of a Savior and that only in Him can they find all good things. God turns His face away and leaves people to deal with life without Him so that they might become desperate and seek after God and perhaps find Him. It is a process of emptying and purging away of the dross so that they come to the end of themselves to be cleansed and molded into a useful vessel so that they can be healed

• “I want you to live, be healed, set free, and blessed; to be set free from sin, death, and the devil”

Friend

• Friendship works both ways; otherwise, it’s not friendship

• “I want a relationship with you but I don’t have anything in common with evil; for there is no evil in Me. I want you to become like Me so that we can really know each other and be best friends forever! There are so many fun things we can do together in heaven and the earth that I am about to renovate but if you don’t want to be my friend, or turn away from the things that grieve My heart, then we have nothing in common and I won’t force you to be with Me. You’re invited to My party but if you’re drunk on sin, you’ll miss the plane when it boards. I’m here to help you and tell you the truth even though it hurts. Stop pursuing the things that are destroying your life. Let Me know if you change your mind. I’ll be waiting”

More information could be added to these lists but those are my thoughts about the subject so far. Essentially, these lists get down to God’s motives for His wrath. God’s motive for punishing or killing people is not His wrath or anger. His motive is love for humanity, the Trinity, and justice. Wrath is the administration or execution of His justice. So, from God’s love comes His justice, anger, and wrath against sin. However, when people die and go to hell, it is the natural consequence of their own evil deeds; and without Christ’s sustaining life, there is death.

• God made us for Himself and designed us for His presence. He jealously desires our hearts. God likes us and wants us. He jealously desires our affection. He will do what He must to convince us of His love and goodness so that we will love Him. He hates to see us suffer. Jesus suffered for us on the cross so that if we put our faith and trust in Him, we can live an eternity free from suffering

Creator

• “I’m here to restore all things and to reverse the curse to bring back Eden for the enjoyment of all”

• “I created you for so much more than what this life has to offer”

Holiness

• Let the light of His love into your heart and it will bless you. Refuse to let it in and it will overwhelm you and burn you up. There is no darkness in heaven. There is no sin. Choose this day whom you will love and serve