Summary
Love, Justice, Wrath
After a political debate, candidates' representatives gather in the "spin room" to round off rough edges and frame what was said in the most favorable light. When it comes to God, we are often tempted to play the spinner ourselves—softening attributes that don't suit our sensibilities so the Almighty better matches our preferences. The attribute most often spun is the wrath of God.
Scripture refuses to let us do this. At the end of John 3, two declarations stand side by side: "The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him" John 3:35-36. Just a few verses earlier comes the most beloved word of the gospel: God so loved the world that he gave his only Son John 3:16. Love and wrath are not pitted against each other; they are spoken in the same breath.
The Bible plainly says that God is love 1 John 4:8, and it just as plainly speaks of his wrath. "We are consumed by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed" Psalm 90:7. "Because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience" Ephesians 5:6. When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in flaming fire, he inflicts vengeance on those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel 2 Thessalonians 1:7-8. Jesus himself speaks of the reality of hell. Sin does not merely disappoint God; it angers him, because he is just and cannot wink at it.
The spin sounds plausible: "I don't believe in a God of wrath, only a loving God." "A loving God could never permit hell." "In the end everyone will be saved no matter what they believe." Such talk produces an almighty who bears little resemblance to the Creator, and words about him that bear little resemblance to his Word. The spin even reaches our self-portrait—dropping the word sin because, surely, people are basically good. Scripture interrupts this flattery and lets God speak for himself.
The deeper truth is what theologians call the simplicity of God: God is one undivided divine essence. We sort his attributes into lanes only because our minds need them sorted. In reality he does not have parts to be played against one another. As one theologian has said, God is as severely just as if he had no love, and as intensely loving as if he had no justice. You cannot pit his wrath against his love, or his justice against his mercy.
All of this is explained at the cross. God rescues us from our sin and delivers us from his wrath without compromising his justice. Sin must be punished, for a God who shrugged at sin would not be just. So the just God lays the punishment upon his Son. The wrath falls not on us but on the spotless, sinless Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ; and the empty tomb is the Father's validation that the sacrifice has been accepted. Love, justice, and wrath are not rivals. They meet, and are revealed together, at Calvary—as taught in “Love, Justice, Wrath” 7-31-22.
Video citations
- “Love, Justice, Wrath” 7-31-22 — You open your Bible, please, with me. For our study this morning to the third chapter of the gospel of John. You'll find that if you're using a Pew edition on page 82 of Holy Scripture, the third…