"Knowing God" [V]

- God the Judge -

"Do you believe in divine judgment? By which I mean, do you believe in a God who acts as our Judge? Many, it seems, do not. Speak to them of God as a Father, a friend, a helper, one who loves us despite all our weakness and folly and sin, and their faces light up; you are on their wavelength at once. But speak to them of God as Judge, and they frown and shake their heads. Their minds recoil from such an idea. They find it repellent and untrustworthy. But there are few things stressed more strongly in the Bible than the reality of God's work as Judge. [Genesis 18:25; Judges 11:27; Psalm 75:7, 82:8; Hebrews 12:23] Nor is this a matter of a word merely; the reality of divine judgment, as a fact, is set forth on page after page of Bible history."

"When we turn from Bible history to Bible teaching--the law, the prophets, the wisdom writers, the words of Christ and His apostles--we find the thought of God's action in judgment overshadowing everything. The Mosaic legislation is given as from a God who is Himself a just judge, and will not hesitate to inflict penalties by direct providential action if His people break His law. The prophets take up this theme; indeed, the greater part of their recorded teaching consists of exposition and application of the law, and threats of judgment against the lawless and impenitent. They spend a good deal more space preaching judgment than they do predicting the Messiah and His kingdom! In the wisdom literature, the same viewpoint appears: the one basic certainty underlying all discussion of life's problems in Job and Ecclesiastes, and all the practical maxims of Proverbs, is that 'God will bring thee into judgment,' 'God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil' (Ecclesiastes 11:9, 12:14)."

"People who do not actually read the Bible confidently assure us that when we move from the Old Testament to the New, the theme of divine judgment fades into the background; but if we examine the New Testament, even in the most cursory way, we find at once that the Old Testament emphasis on God's action as judge, far from being reduced, is actually intensified. The entire New Testament is overshadowed by the certainty of a coming day of universal judgment, and by the problem thence arising: how may we sinners get right with God while there is yet time? The New Testament looks on to 'the day of judgment', 'the day of wrath', 'the wrath to come', and proclaims Jesus, the divine Saviour, as the divinely appointed Judge. [James 5:9; 1 Peter 4:5; 2 Timothy 4:8; Acts 10:42; Acts 17:31; Romans 2:16; John 5:22, 26 f., 28 f.) The Jesus of the New Testament, who is the world's Saviour, is its judge too."

God as both Lawgiver and Judge. "In the Bible world, the king was always the supreme judge, because his was the supreme ruling authority. It is on that basis, according to the Bible, that God is judge of His world. As our Maker, He owns us, and as our Owner, He has a right to dispose of us; He has, therefore, a right to make laws for us, and to reward us according to whether or not we keep them. In most modern states, the legislature and the judiciary are divided, so that the judge does not make the laws he administers; but in the ancient world this was not so, and it is not so with God. He is both the Lawgiver and the Judge."

"When the Bible pictures God judging, it emphasises His omniscience and wisdom as the searcher of hearts and the finder of facts. Nothing can escape Him; we may fool men, but we cannot fool God. He knows us, and judges us, as we really are."

"[The] Bible's proclamation of God's work as Judge is part of its witness to His character. It confirms what is said elsewhere of His moral perfection, His righteousness and justice, His wisdom, omniscience, and omnipotence. It shows us also that the heart of the justice which expresses God's nature is retribution, the rendering to men what they have deserved; for this is the essence of the judge's task. To reward good with good, and evil with evil, is natural to God. [Matthew 16:27; Revelation 20:12 f.; Romans 2:6-11; 2 Corinthians 5:10] Thus retribution appears as a natural and predetermined expression of the divine character. God has resolved to be every man's Judge, rewarding every man according to his works. Retribution is the inescapable moral law of creation; God will see that each man sooner or later receives what he deserves--if not here, then hereafter... The problem of the psalmist who saw inoffensive men being victimised, and the ungodly 'not in trouble as other men', but prospering and at peace (Psalm 73), is echoed against and again in human experience. But the character of God is the guarantee that all wrongs will be righted some day; when 'the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God' (Romans 2:5) arrives, retribution will be exact, and no problems of cosmic unfairness will remain to haunt us. God is the Judge, so justice will be done."

"The truth is that part of God's moral perfection is His perfection in judgment. Would a God who did not care about the difference between right and wrong be a good and admirable Being? Would a God who put no distinction between the beasts of history, the Hitlers and Stalins (if we dare use names), and His own saints, be morally praiseworthy and perfect? Moral indifference would be an imperfection in God, not a perfection. But not to judge the world would be to show moral indifference. The final proof that God is a perfect moral Being, not indifferent to questions of right and wrong, is the fact that He has committed Himself to judge the world."

"How does free forgiveness and justification by faith square with judgment according to works? The answer seems to be as follows. First, the gift of justification certainly shields believers from being condemned and banished from God's presence as sinners... But, second, the gift of justification does not at all shield believers from being assessed as Christians, and from forfeiting good which others will enjoy if it turns out that as Christians they have been slack, mischievous and destructive. This appears from Paul's warning to the Corinthians to be careful what life-style they build on Christ, the one foundation. [1 Corinthians 3:12-15] 'Reward' and 'loss' signify an enriched or impoverished relationship with God, though in what ways it is beyond our present power to know."

- The Wrath of God -

The Definition of Wrath. "'Wrath' is an old English word defined in my dictionary as 'deep, intense anger and indignation.' 'Anger' is defined as 'stirring of resentful displeasure and strong antagonism, by a sense of injury or insult'; 'indignation' as 'righteous anger aroused by injustice and baseness.' Such is wrath. And wrath, the Bible tells us, is an attribute of God."

"The modern habit throughout the Christian church is to play this subject down. Those who still believe in the wrath of God (not all do) say little about it: perhaps they do not think much about it. To an age which has unashamedly sold itself to the gods of greed, pride, sex, and self-will, the Church mumbles on about God's kindness, but says virtually nothing about His judgment... The fact is that the subject of divine wrath has become taboo in modern society, and Christians by and large have accepted the taboo and conditioned themselves never to raise the matter."

"One cannot imagine that talk of divine judgment was every popular, yet the biblical writers engage in it constantly. One of the most striking things about the Bible is the vigour with which both Testaments emphasise the reality and terror of God's wrath. 'A study of the concordance will show that there are more references in Scripture to the anger, fury, and wrath of God, than there are to His love and tenderness' (A.W. Pink, The Attributes of God, p. 75)."

Is Wrath Unworthy of God? "To some ['wrath'] suggests a loss of self-control, an outburst of 'seeing red' which is partly, if not wholly, irrational. To others, it suggests the rage of conscious impotence, or wounded pride, or plain bad temper. Surely, it is said, it would be wrong to ascribe to God such attitudes as these? The reply is: indeed it would, but the Bible does not ask us to do this... God's love, as the Bible views it, never leads Him to foolish, impulsive, immoral actions in the way that its human counterpart too often leads us. And in the same way, God's wrath in the Bible is never the capricious, self-indulgent, irritable, morally ignoble thing that human anger so often is. It is, instead, a right and necessary reaction to objective moral evil. God is only angry where anger is called for... Would a God who took as much pleasure in evil as He did in good be a good God? Would a God who did not react adversely to evil in His world be morally perfect? Surely not. But it is precisely this adverse reaction to evil, which is a necessary part of moral perfection, that the Bible has in view when it speaks of God's wrath."

The Judicial Nature of Wrath. "God's wrath in the Bible is always judicial--that is, it is the wrath of the Judge, administering justice. Cruelty is always immoral, but the explicit presupposition of all that we find in the Bible... on the torments of those who experience the fulness of God's wrath is that each receives precisely what he deserves... God will see, says [Jonathan Edwards], 'that you shall not suffer beyond what strict justice requires'--but it is precisely 'what strict justice requires', he insists, that will be so grievous for those who die in unbelief. If it is asked: can disobedience to our Creator really deserve great and grievous punishment? anyone who has ever been convicted of sin knows beyond any shadow of doubt that the answer is yes, and knows too that those whose consciences have not yet been awakened to consider, as Anselm put it, 'how weight is sin' are not yet qualified to give an opinion."

We Naturally Choose Wrath. "God's wrath in the Bible is something which men choose for themselves. Before hell is an experience inflicted by God, it is a state for which man himself opts, by retreating from the light which God shines in his heart to lead him to Himself... [The] decisive act of judgment upon the lost is the judgment which they pass on themselves, by rejecting the light that comes to them in and through Jesus Christ. In the last analysis, all that God does subsequently in judicial action towards the unbeliever, whether in this life or beyond it, is to show him, and lead him into, the full implications of the choice he has made. [John 3:18] The unbeliever has preferred to be by himself, without God, defying God, having God against him, and he shall have his preference. Nobody stands under the wrath of God save those who have chosen to do so. The essence of God's action in wrath is to give men what they choose, in all its implications: nothing more, and equally nothing less. God's readiness to respect human choice to this extent may appear disconcerting and even terrifying, but it is plain that His attitude here is supremely just, and poles apart from the wanton and irresponsible inflicting of pain which is what we mean by cruelty." 

The Wrath of God in Romans. "The wrath of God in Romans denotes God's resolute action in punishing sin. It is as much the expression of a personal, emotional attitude of the Triune Jehovah as is His love to sinners: it is the active manifesting of His hatred of irreligion and moral evil. The phrase 'the wrath' may refer specifically to the future crowning manifestation of this hatred on 'the day of wrath' (Romans 5:9, 2:5), but it may also refer to present providential events and processes in which divine retribution for sin may be discerned... God's wrath is His reaction to our sin, and 'the law worketh wrath' (4:15) because the law stirs up sin latent within us and causes transgression--the behavior that evokes wrath--to abound (5:20, 7:7-13). as a reaction to sin, Go's wrath is an expression of His justice, and Paul indignantly rejects the suggestion 'that God is unjust to inflict wrath upon us' (4:5, RSV). Persons 'fitted for destruction' he describes as 'vessels of wrath'--that is, objects of wrath--in a similar sense to that in which he elsewhere calls servants of the world, the flesh, and the devil, 'children of wrath' (Ephesians 2:3). Such persons, simply by being what they are, call down God's wrath upon themselves."

The Revelation of God's Wrath. "'The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold down the truth in unrighteousness' (Romans 1:18, RV). The present tense, 'is revealed,' implies a constant disclosure, going on all the time; 'from heaven', which stands in contrast to 'in the gospel' in the previous verse, implies a universal disclosure, reaching those whom the gospel has not yet reached... To those who have eyes to see, tokens of the active wrath of God appear here and now in the actual state of mankind. Everywhere the Christian observes a pattern of degeneration, constantly working itself out--from knowledge of God to worship of that which is not God, and from idolatry to immorality of an ever grosser sort, so that each generation grows a fresh crop of 'ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.' In this decline we are to recognise the present action of divine wrath, in a process of judicial hardening and withdrawal of restraints, whereby men are given up to their own corrupt preferences and so come to put into practice more and more uninhibitedly the lusts of their sinful hearts."

Deliverance from God's Wrath. "The law cannot save us, for its only effect is to stimulate sin and show us how far short we fall of righteousness. The outward trappings of religion cannot save us either, any more than mere circumcision can save the Jew. Is there any way of deliverance, then, from the wrath to come? There is, and Paul knows it. 'Being now justified by his blood,' Paul proclaims, 'we shall be saved from (God's) wrath through him' (5:9). By whose blood? The blood of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God. And what does it mean to be 'justified'? It means to be forgiven, and accepted as righteous. And how do we come to be justified? Through faith--that is, self-abandoning trust in the person and work of Jesus. And how does Jesus' blood--that is, His sacrificial death--form a basis for our justification? Paul explains this in Romans 3:24 f., where he speaks of 'the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, by his blood." What is a 'propitiation'? It is a sacrifice that averts wrath through expiating sin, and cancelling guilt."