BY HUNTER GREENE
“It hurts me more than it hurts you.” These were the most hated words of my childhood as my parents always seemed to remind me that my misbehavior and the spanking that immediately followed also inflicted pain upon them. I couldn’t believe it. How in the world does it hurt them when my behind is getting blistered for doing something dumb? However, the older I get the more this statement makes sense. I do not yet have children of my own, but having had the opportunity to hold baby cousins and minister to hundreds of small kids at church camp, there is a pain that one must first internalize and deal with before disciplining a small child.
I think this parent-child relationship serves as a beautiful metaphor for the attitude with which God “disciplines” us. I think we far too often talk about the wrath of God as a negative concept, but in reality, it must naturally be positive for God is Love (1 John 4:8). Because God is Love, then everything that God chooses to do in the world and in our lives is good and for our well-being.
Thus, the assumption that God’s wrath is retributive is not helpful. Retribution is essentially the idea that one must receive payback or vengeance for wrong doings. Retribution is generally how we deal with evil in our world. If someone wrongs me, then I must get revenge in order to punish the perpetrator. Retribution is also how our own criminal justice system works. When one breaks the law, they must be punished for doing so. They must pay back the state and society for the wrong they have committed. While retribution makes us feel that justice is being pursued, we should take great caution in projecting our vengeful assumptions upon God.
In Romans 1, Paul tries to explain what God’s wrath looks like. Starting with verse 18, the passage reads, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness … Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts … And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.”
Paul uses an important phrase in the passage to define the wrath of God: “God gave them up/over.” Therefore, God’s wrath is simply God giving us the desires of our “vain imaginations” and “foolish hearts.” We must see that God’s wrath is not retributive, but rather, it is consequential. God knows, and has always known, that sin is its own consequence. In the book of Genesis, we see that once humanity rebels from God’s good and perfect will that sin corrupts human hearts and those who were once designed to be stewards of God’s good creation have now went out into the world to dominate, devour, and destroy.
The point of Jesus is that He shows us exactly how to escape God’s consequential wrath through inviting us to live and think like Himself, the embodied will of God. God’s wrath looks at us in our evil ways and wicked hearts and says, “Okay…your will be done then.” It is a terrifying thing to think that God will give us exactly what we want. But God has sent Jesus into the world that we may escape consequential wrath by praying as well as living the prayer of Matthew 6:10, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” Simply, we escape the damaging consequences of sin (both institutional and individual sin) by imitating the life of Christ who knew no sin.
Paul knows that salvation is only found in freely following Christ, which means that God still gives us what we want even if it isn’t Jesus. In Romans 2:1 (which should always be read together with Romans 1), Paul writes, “Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.” I agree with Paul. I think it is time the Church quit being so concerned about the world being under God’s wrath and start getting serious about how we Christians are still invoking the wrath of God in our lives and congregations. Sin is a serious matter. So serious in fact, we should probably deal with our own before we go about saving the world.
(The Solution Column is provided by Pastor Brandon Young of Harmony Free Will Baptist Church, Hampton, and Associate Hunter Greene.)