The Standard July 26, 2025
God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-wise, as well as perfectly loving, just, and holy. These always have been and always will be attributes of God; wrath is not one of them. Before human sin entered the world, there was no divine wrath. Wrath stemmed from the reaction of a holy and just God to the evil and rebellion of humanity. It is a response to our sin, with God judging unrighteousness.
As parents we certainly can love our children in the healthiest ways while regretting harmful, destructive choices they make. It is because of love that we want what is right for our kids and employ appropriate instruction, limits, and discipline. To enable unsafe, hurtful behavior is to fail in certain areas as a mother, father, grandparent, or guardian.
Throughout Scripture we get a good understanding of God’s wrath. “Whoever believes the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.” John 3:36
“Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? 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.” Romans 2:4-5
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” Romans 5:8-10
As there are some parents who believe that saying “no” to children is unloving and who are convinced that almost every instinct and desire must be affirmed, so there are religious folks who believe that a loving God should approve almost every behavior, regarding most or all of our natural desires as good. They highlight the Bible verses about love and grace and downplay the ones about obedience, the narrow path, and God’s holy judgment. We understand God’s unbounded love, despite the deep flaws in our selfish attitudes and vain ambitions. God helps us with our daily leanings towards ourselves, opening our eyes to costly grace.
This conflict of thought was highlighted in 2013 when a mainline denomination wanted to use the theologically rich masterpiece, “In Christ Alone,” in its hymnal. The problem was that the committee asked authors Keith Getty and Stuart Townend if the line “’Til on the cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied” could end instead with “the love of God was magnified.” The hymn writers refused to allow the change to their carefully considered, orthodox work. While it is certainly true that God’s love was magnified through the cross, we can’t skirt around the fact that Jesus was paying the penalty for our sin in this astounding sacrificial act. Jesus took on our sin and became our substitute.
A most appropriate quote regarding this topic was written in 1937 by Christian theologian, minister, and ethicist H. Richard Niebuhr. In The Kingdom of God in America he rightly declared that the Christianity of liberal Protestant theology or the “social” gospel hinged on the thought that “a God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”
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