www. bymonline. org | October 2018
The True God
Yes, the Bible teaches that God is loving, patient, caring, and forgiving( Psalm 86:15 and John 3:16). As the apostle John put it,“ God is love”( 1 John 4:8). Two of my favourite passages in the Bible emphasize the personal loving nature of God. One was penned by the apostle Peter. In 1 Peter 5: 6-7 he says that we are to cast all our anxieties upon God“ because He cares for you”. That is a very comforting thought. The other passage that I love to read over and over consists of words spoken by the prophet Jeremiah in Lamentations 3( RSV): The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness.“ The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,“ therefore I will hope in Him.” But the Bible also clearly teaches that there is another aspect of God ' s character that is equally important. It is the aspect that Satan wants us to ignore, and he has been very successful in prompting ministers to overlook it. After all, it doesn ' t produce popular sermons! I ' m speaking, of course, of the holiness of God( Leviticus 11:44, Isaiah 6:3 and 1 Peter 1:16).
Grace or Wrath?
The Bible teaches that God is perfectly holy. Because of this attribute of His character, He cannot tolerate sin( Numbers 14:18). The Bible says God must deal with sin, and He does so in one of two ways either grace or wrath. All of us seem to know John 3:16 a very comforting verse about God ' s love for us. But few of us seem to be aware of the words recorded a few verses later in John 3:36 words taken from a sermon by John the Baptist:“ He who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” The apostle Paul emphasized this point in his preaching and teaching. In Ephesians 5 he warns against immorality, covetousness, and idolatry, and then he adds this observation:“ Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things, the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience”
( Ephesians 5:6). We come under God ' s grace by placing our faith in Jesus and appropriating His atoning sacrifice for our lives( 1 John 1:7). There is no salvation apart from Jesus( Acts 4:10-12). Those who have rejected God ' s free gift of grace in Jesus are under God ' s wrath( John 3:36), and they have no one to blame but themselves.
The Unchangeable God
Despite the Bible ' s clear teaching that our Creator is a God of both love and wrath, I never cease to be amazed at the number of pastors I run across who argue that the God of wrath is the Old Testament God and not the God of the New Testament. In the process they ignore another clear teaching of the Bible that is found in Malachi 3:6 where God, speaking of Himself, says,“ I, the Lord do not change...” The New Testament confirms this important point in Hebrews 13:8 where it says,“ Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, yes and forever.” Nonetheless, Jesus seems always to be presented in sermons as the meek and gentle Saviour who is full of grace and forgiveness. That statement is true, but it is not the full picture. Jesus castigated the Pharisees, calling them“ hypocrites”,“ serpents” and a“ brood of vipers”. Likewise, in His letters to the seven churches of Asia Minor, Jesus condemned the church at Thyatira for tolerating a false prophetess. He called upon the church to repent, and then He warned that if they refused to repent of their immorality, He would cast the offenders“ upon a bed of sickness”,“ killing them with pestilence”( Revelation 2:22-23).
Types of Wrath
The Bible reveals several different aspects of the wrath of God:
Consequential Wrath This is what might be called“ sowing and reaping wrath”. It is the wrath we bring upon ourselves when we reap what we sow through sinful living.
Cataclysmic Wrath As evidenced in disasters, 3