“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” – Romans 1:18
I do not like listening to someone slander a friend of mine. I am bothered because such false information about my friend’s character just isn’t true, but it is deeper. To intentionally misrepresent a friend of mine and conjure false facts about them is an attempt to attack and hurt them.
Reader, I am certain you are familiar with slander. Either a friend of yours or you yourself have been a victim. Now think about God’s reaction to being misrepresented by His creatures with the intention to injure His reputation and to assault His character. Humans actively suppress the truth of God in their active and willful rejection of Him.
To claim morality is relative is to claim God’s character as shifty, to accuse God of not revealing Himself enough while hating what God has revealed of Himself, then marginalizing God as simply a religious icon while pursuing your own pleasures and defining your own life’s purposes while simultaneously rejecting your Creator’s purposes for creating your life.
Yet, God’s wrath is not simply an unbridled emotion, but His perfect, holy character responds to our sin and unrighteousness in such a way. It is an injustice to allow creatures to reject His purpose for them while the minds He created are used to deny Him and the mouths He created to praise Him are used to chatter untruths about Him.
The wrath of God may very well be a rare doctrine to write about or even think about, as the idea haunts us as fallen creatures. Yet, everything about God is lovely and beautiful. In Exodus, Moses received the two tablets written by God’s hands only to discover at the base of Mount Sinai the people worshiped a golden calf. Moses broke the tablets in anger. The people had already committed idolatry. Yet, Moses received new tablets from God, and Moses said of God’s character, He is merciful and gracious, faithful, abounding in steadfast love, forgiving, and “slow to anger” (Exodus 34:6).
God is no hot head, but He is perfectly good and just. He must punish sin. When Israel worshiped the golden calf, God told Moses all about it on top of that mountain. He said, “Let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them” (Exodus 32:10). The wrath of God burns and consumes idolatry. Yet, Moses stepped in. Why does Your wrath burn? Turn from Your burning anger. Remember Your covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants. And God relented from destroying the people (Exodus 32:11-14).
God has every right to burn with anger over your sin. Sin of marginalizing Him to religious indifference while passionate about your own pursuits. Sin of thinking about and speaking about something of God that isn’t true. Sin to thinking your life belongs to you as if you do not have a Creator or He is not good enough to rule over you as a good and gracious King abounding in steadfast love.
Jesus Christ is a greater Moses. Though we have broken God’s laws and provoked Him to burn with an anger that consumes, Jesus stepped in. Jesus took on flesh and became the curse of a lawbreaker for us (Galatians 3:13). As Isaiah prophesied, Jesus was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; “upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). All this as we hid our faces and esteemed Him not (Isaiah 53:3). Jesus took the wrath of God and satisfied His burning anger as our propitiation (I John 2:2).
God who has every right to burn with anger against me a sinful rebel has forgiven me in Jesus Christ and has justified me by faith alone in Jesus alone. You are invited to turn away from suppressing the truth of God in your unrighteousness, from living a life ruled by rejection of God’s character and rebellion to what God says is good, and turn toward our God who is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6).
Look only to Jesus, friend, and find the truth of who God is, and believe Him.
Heavenly Father, my prayer is to stir in the hearts of these readers. Stir a sorrow over sin and over using our minds and mouths in wicked ways, chattering untruths about You. Stir a joy that our Creator is merciful and gracious, though burning with wrath against sin, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Stir in us an unceasing rejoicing that Jesus Christ died to save sinners from Your burning wrath, inviting us to delight in You now and forever. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
