Wrath is a word that gets tossed around very carelessly today. It's an archaic term that many don't really understand, no thanks to the colloquial usage of the term which generally means something like, "a long-standing, slow boiling anger that premeditates retribution and may or may not explode in fury."However, I believe that Biblically, Wrath is something much different.
When the "Wrath of God" is talked about, it often conjures up images of an angry, old man in the sky smiting people with lightning bolts and plagues and disasters and even death. But, there's one major problem with that depiction. It's a depiction of a Zeus-like deity, one made in the imago anthropos (image of man) rather than a Jesus-like God. It depicts a very unforgiving Yahweh Who Is just waiting until His Patience wears out to wipe us out. It depicts a deity like Ba'al, the head Canaanite deity and primary tribal enemy of Yahweh (later revealed by the New Testament to be The Enemy).
The Christocentric Hermeneutic
In theological circles, there is a system to interpret Scripture (hermeneutic) known as the Christocentric Hermeneutic (CH). It states that the ultimate and final Truth of Yahweh's Character is revealed in the God-Man, King Jesus. It is supported by the author of Hebrews who states that Christ and His Revelation of God is greater than that of the prophets (Heb. 1:1-3a). This hermeneutic is also based on another one called Progressive Revelation (PR). PR states that Yahweh revealed Who He Is slowly, in increments, over time. Really, if you're a Christian at all, you have to believe this because the Jews in Old Testament (OT) times certainly didn't believe in a Trinity, an exclusively Divine Messiah, or that Salvation would be bought on a cross and not brought by a sword. This means that at any given time, the authors and editors of the OT were writing from the perspective of Yahweh that had thus far been revealed to them. This helps make sense of the violent, warmongering, angry Yahweh in parts of the OT with the Merciful and Forgiving Yahweh of yet other parts of the OT, and the Loving and Pacifist Yahweh revealed in the Person of Jesus in the New Testament (NT). Essentially, read the Bible through the lens of Jesus, and if something contradicts the Yahweh found in Jesus, then study it harder and think about how the Jews culturally would have thought of Yahweh at that point in their history and in how He had thus far revealed Himself.
So, what is Wrath, according to the Yahweh revealed in Jesus? Is it God just waiting for His Patience to wear thin enough to justify Him exploding on us a premeditated plan of supernatural horror? Not at all. When Jesus came, He said, "The Thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy; but, I have come to give Life, and Life abundant," (John 10:10). This is so, so very powerful of a statement. Here, we see Yahweh in the Person of Jesus claiming that He Is the God of Life. In the logic of language (sentential logic), any statement immediately implies its perfect opposite unless otherwise stated. When Jesus says that He Is the Giver of Life, that means He Is not its taker. The God of Life is not the God of Death. Jesus then goes further and states that it's The Enemy who is the Taker of Life, the murderer, the killer, the (g)od of Death. Not only this, but Yahweh is not the One Who steals or destroys either! That, too, is relegated to The Enemy.
Jesus isn't the only one who asserts such a claim. The Apostle Paul agrees with Him. He recalls the rebellion of Korah this way, "Nor should we complain as some of them did, and were killed by The Destroyer," (1Cor. 10:10). Similarly, the author of Hebrews writes in Hebrews 11:28 that it was The Destroyer, not Yahweh, who killed the firstborn, "By faith [Moses] instituted the Passover and the sprinkling of the blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn might not touch the Israelites." Who did Jesus say was the taker of Life, The Destroyer, The Thief? Not Yahweh, but The Enemy.
What, then? Are The Enemy and Jesus in league together? Not at all! That's why he's called The Enemy. Enemies are opposed to one another, not coworkers for the same cause. What are we to make of this, then? The answer, in part, is remedied by remembering a Truth about Yahweh that the Hellenization of Christianity caused us to forget. Yahweh is not just a God of Goodness, and of Life, but He's also the God of order. Page one of the Bible is all about Him bringing order out of chaos. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void," (Gen. 1:1-2). The words for "formless and void" in Hebrew are tohoo va-vohoo which literally means the formless chaos. When Yahweh speaks Creation into existence, He Is bringing order out of chaos. All Mesopotamian gods, including Yahweh and even those as far south as Egypt, were deities not necessarily of good and evil but rather of order and chaos (Yahweh being a Deity of both Goodness and Order). In fact, the Egyptian pantheon was so concerned with order that many of the gods of order seem to be outright immoral and many of the gods of chaos seemed to be morally good.
Why is this important? Because Yahweh's Hand of Order and Life are what sustains the universe, both spiritually and physically. Imagine if Yahweh took that Hand of Protection off of something. This leads us to what His Wrath is. Yahweh's Wrath is Him taking His Hand of Order, or Life, or both, off of an individual or group that has so utterly turned their back on Him that they will not return without a wake-up call...if at all. However, it's not Yahweh punishing anyone. It's Yahweh respecting their free-will decision to follow a path different than His. Basically, He says, "I tried and tried to woo you back to Me, but you don't want Me. If you don't want Me after all this, I'll let you go. I'll let you be and have what you want. But, along with that comes consequences; consequences I protected you from but no longer will since you want to go it alone, without Me." And then, as the Apostle Paul writes, He, "[gives] them up to their desires," and all of the consequences that come with it: spiritual and physical (Rom. 1:24). When Yahweh takes His Hand off of someone, their evil and consequences come crashing back onto them. Their sin cannibalizes itself. They're exposed to the full brunt of their physical and spiritual consequences as Creation and Fallen Powers (The Enemy/Destroyer) rebel against, and rush in upon, them. Remember what God told Adam and Eve: that in taking the fruit they would die, not that He would kill them. This is the natural, cause and effect entropy of sin that He lets run its course.
Picture it like this:
A little child sees the red-hot glow of a stove-top. It's beautiful in their eyes and all they want to do is rush to and touch it. They begin to walk in that direction, never taking their eyes off of its seductive radiance. The child's father, however, is never far from them and sees what's going on. Quickly he rushes to his child and grabs them with his hands.
"Don't touch that," he says gently. "It will hurt you and those around you."
But the child doesn't listen. They insist on having their way and struggle against the father.
"Please, don't fight me on this, little one. I'm trying to protect you from pain and sorrow."
The child, stubborn as ever, still doesn't listen. They fight with the father and continue trying to go towards their goal.
"Stop!" the father commands, more sternly. "This isn't what's good for you; this isn't what I want for you."
But the child still wants to touch the stove. The father, realizing the child will not listen and knowing that he can't wrestle with the child forever, lets go and watches sorrowfully as the child gleefully runs to touch the stove. The child cries out in pain, and runs back to the father.
"I tried to protect you," the father says, working with the child to heal the wound, "but I'm here for you still."
The father didn't force anything bad to happen to the child. Instead, in realizing the child would not listen, gave the child up to their desires and let them have the natural consequences of their choice.
A perfect example of this is The Flood of Noah. Yahweh says, "My Spirit will not remain with mankind forever, because they are corrupt. Their days will be 120 years." Man had forsaken their Maker, and the Maker was ready to turn them over to the consequences of their sins. So, He took His Hand off of them and the chaotic waters, the tohu va-vohu of Genesis 1, returned.
But, if Yahweh isn't The Destroyer, if He didn't directly cause The Flood, then why does He promise to never flood the earth again? First, remember PR. When the author(s) and editors of Genesis put the book together, they were writing from what they knew of Yahweh at the time. If Yahweh here is equating Himself with The Destroyer, but Jesus says that He Is not The Destroyer, then it's likely the Jews were writing of Yawweh from the position that they knew of Him. Secondly, it is characteristic of Yahweh to take responsibility for His Creation, namely us. In the Exodus account, Yahweh says that He will take the lives of the firstborn but then later in Exodus, and in Hebrews, it says that The Destroyer took the lives of the firstborn. More literally, it says the destroying angel. So, it seems that Yahweh is not the one acting, but He takes responsibility for what goes on in His Creation. A third explanation could be that Yahweh took His Hand of Order and Protection off in such a specific way that the Earth flooded. However, these three possibilities are not mutually exclusive. The answer is likely more than one, if not all three. Ancient peoples, and indeed non-Westerners today, did/do not have an "all or nothing" mindset that puts ultimate importance on one assertion.
All such depictions of God's Wrath can be interpreted this way. And why can I say that? Apart from Jesus's Teachings, there is one very important thing that happened in the NT: the Crucifixion of the Warrior God. The Cross begs us a question: What does it mean for the God of Wrath, for the Warrior God of the OT, to be willingly crucified and killed? It is on Cavalry that we see not just the ultimate revelation of God's Love, but also of His Wrath. Jesus on the Cross was not killed by Yahweh-whether in the Person of The Father, The Son, or The Spirit. No, Yahweh did not kill Himself or commit divine suicide. Instead, what did His Wrath on the Cross look like? Yahweh gave Jesus up, turned Him over, to the physical and spiritual consequences of our sins (Rom. 4:25). Jesus was killed by wicked humans, politics, rumors, pride, and empty-religion. That covers the physical. But, something invisible happened in the spiritual realm too.
There is an old Christian belief of what happened on the Cross. It's called the Christus Victor view of the atonement. In this view, while Jesus was on the Cross, The Enemy and its kingdom of spiritual evil had its way with Jesus. They crushed Him and covered Him in their spiritual darkness, each wanting their pound of flesh from the Son of God. Unexpectedly, this is how Jesus was able to defeat The Enemy and free us from the wicked kingdom, not by using The Enemy's tool of violence, but by using The Father's tool of Love and Submission.
On Cavalry, we see what Yahweh's Wrath actually is: being turned over to the physical and spiritual consequences of our sin. And part of that is His momentary absence from us in the cry, "My God, my God! Why have you forsaken Me?!?"
Not every bad thing that happens to you is Wrath, however. The Book of Job is proof enough of that. Sometimes, in fact many times, it's The Enemy wreaking havoc in your life solely because he is full of malice and cruelty and hatred.
When one accepts Jesus, we are no longer under Wrath but rather it takes on a lesser form called Discipline. True Wrath is only reserved for those who consistently choose to derive their life from anything but its Source, all the while His heart breaks as He cries out, through tears, "Child! Child! How often I wanted to gather you to Myself, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, yet you were not willing! Look, your life is left to you tohu va-vohu." And now, those who lie in the Graves of Wrath can vindicate God rather than accuse Him. But that's not the end of the story! Wrath is not eternal; He will rush out to meet the returning Prodigal with arms wide open, tears of happiness down His Face, and offer His provision and protection once again.
Here is a great sermon on the topic.
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