The Wrath of God  

Scriptures: Romans 2:5-10 “⁵ But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. ⁶ God “will repay each person according to what they have done.” ⁷ To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. ⁸ But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. ⁹ There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; ¹⁰ but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. ¹¹ For God does not show favoritism.

God is love (1 John 4:16) The LORD is merciful and gracious, Slow to anger, and abounding in mercy.  (Psalm 103:8) and with everlasting love, He loves us, with His lovingkindness, He draws men to Himself. (Jeremiah 31:3) Generally speaking, The Bible usually  mentioned two dimensions such heavens and earth, good and evil, day and night, light and darkness, natural and spiritual realms and circumstances such as birth and death, joy and sorrow, peace and war  and all of these are in conflicting events, meaning their places were in opposite directions,  like love and hate. But God’s wrath and God’s love are not in opposition to each other. However, how can we justify the fact that God loves sinner but hate the sin?

From the very beginning God established principles in the form of His laws or commandments. He told Adam the day you eat from that tree you will surely die (Genesis 2:17), and so Adam did, and the result is disobedience that leads to sin and eventually death. And because of that, as the Bible says” We are all sinners (Romans 6:23) and been subjected to, we were by nature deserving of wrath. (Ephesians 2:3) since then, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men (Romans 1:18)

Again, we have to understand that God is love and He is not a God of wrath. His wrath is a secondary attribute, not His nature. So what then is the wrath of God?

• God’s wrath is not angry retribution against those who have offended God. It is not like our human anger but rather it is his righteous judgment against those who do evil.
• His steady, unrelenting and uncompromising antagonism to evil and all its forms and manifestations (John Stott)

In the Old Testament, the wrath of God is a divine response to human sin and disobedience, oftentimes it deals with sin of Idolatry Deuteronomy 9:7-8 “Remember! Do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. ⁸ Also in Horeb you provoked the Lord to wrath, so that the Lord was angry enough with you to have destroyed you.

We have read in the Bible,

In the New Testament, in the book of Revelation 16 “Go, pour out the seven bowls of God’s wrath on the earth.”  Reading through the Scripture, we find it as fearsome and terrifying. I would say it is much frightful than experiencing natural disasters like earthquake, storms and floods or volcanic eruption.

We have heard many sermons and preaching about God’s love and we seldom talk about God’s wrath. Why is that so?  Well for the start, Sometimes it is because we find it’s uncomfortable to talk to unbelievers how a loving God who loves sinner, will allowed them to be punish for their sins. Also we don’t want to be misunderstood as being judgmental.

Nevertheless, to deny the wrath of God is to deny His holiness, our sinfulness, the presence of the demonic in creation, in this world. Throughout the Bible, we find this divisions between God’s wrath directed towards unrepentant sinners and His protecting love towards His own people.

• In the days of Noah, God sent floods to destroy the inhabitants of the Earth but rescued Noah and his Family by instructing him to build an ark together with every pair of animals, they were spared from destructions.
• Lot and his two daughters were also spared from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah
• . Egypt is destroyed by the plagues while the descendants of Abraham are delivered.
• How the Lord drives out many nations to make a place for the Israelites to possess the land, because of the wickedness of these nations thatthe Lord your God drives them out from before you, and that He may ^[a]fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (Deuteronomy 9:5)

God’s wrath is reserved for those who are in rebellion against him!

How then can we escaped God’s wrath?

Romans 5:8-9 “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

Because all sin demands justice and all sin will be judged, God sent Jesus to take all the wrath and judgement of sin on him.

“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:5-6)  God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus” (Romans 3:25-26)

John 3:36 “³⁶ He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”

For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thessalonians 5:9