The topic I would like to deal with this afternoon is one that is rarely preached on, and this is very surprising because this aspect of God’s character is mentioned hundreds of times in both the Old and New Testaments. This subject is so important to study so we can have a correct understanding of not only the Gospel but God.
The Anger and Hatred of God
It is politically and religiously incorrect today to talk about a God that is angry and full of wrath. It is so much more comfortable to talk about a God of love and forgiveness. My experience has been as I have shared the Gospel with people is that there are SO many people that worship a God of their own imagination. People often take one of two extremes in approaching God.
1. God is a God of Wrath. There are many that approach the scriptures, especially the Old Testament, and come away with a belief that the God of the Bible is cruel, unloving, and harsh. Many make this the reason why they just cannot believe in the God of the Bible.
2. God is a God of Love. More people believe in this God than the first. This God is like a cuddly teddy bear, or like a Grandfather that overlooks the faults of His grandchildren and spoils them to their hearts content.
This may or may not surprise you, but if one of these two “gods” are the God you believe in and serve, you are not worshiping the One True God of scripture. You are worshiping an idol. Both of these alone are missing something. They both show a complete ignorance of scripture, and a total misunderstanding about the nature of God! You cannot pick and choose what you want to believe about God. He is not just a God of wrath. He is not just a God of love. He is BOTH! If you miss one of them, you miss God!
So many people want to believe in a loving God that is comfortable for them that will allow them to do whatever they want. They want to believe that they can live wicked and evil lives, and then at the end be allowed to enter the presence of God in Heaven. But God cannot just let sinners into Heaven. This would compromise His holiness. These people that ignore the wrath and anger of God are in store for a very rude awakening on the Day of Judgment; a wrath filled awakening.
I want to give you a warning right now. You may hear things in this lesson that may be uncomfortable to hear. You may hear things that are different from what you believe about God. You may hear things that are completely new to you.
The Bible is so clear that God is a God who is full of anger, hatred, indignation, and wrath. He is spoken of as abhorring things and viewing things as an abomination. All of these terms describe His anger.
Some Examples:
Isaiah 30:27 - "Behold, the name of the LORD comes from a remote place; Burning is His anger and dense is His smoke; His lips are filled with indignation And His tongue is like a consuming fire"
Jeremiah 21:5 - "I Myself will war against you with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm, even in anger and wrath and great indignation."
Nahum 1:6 - "Who can stand before His indignation? Who can endure the burning of His anger? His wrath is poured out like fire And the rocks are broken up by Him."
Isaiah 34:2 - "For the LORD'S indignation is against all the nations, And His wrath against all their armies; He has utterly destroyed them; He has given them over to slaughter."
Psalms 7:11 - "God is a righteous judge, And a God who has indignation every day."
I could go on and on showing that God is an angry God. He is full of wrath and hatred. There are over 200 references I could give you in the Old Testament to show you the anger, wrath, and hatred of God. But you may be saying to yourselves. “Yes, you are right, but all of the verses that you mentioned are in the Old Testament. God is different in the New Testament!” I must inform you, God is the same in the New Testament. He is angry and full of wrath.
Romans 1:18 - "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness"
Romans 2:5-9 - But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who WILL RENDER TO EACH PERSON ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek"
2 Thessalonians 1:7-9 - "and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power"
God’s wrath, indignation, or anger is mentioned about 40 times in the New Testament!
ANGER AND WRATH TOWARDS WHO?
You have probably heard the popular cliche that says that God hates the sin and loves the sinner. There is a problem with this statement. It is usually not biblical the way we normally hear it used. It is true that God hates sin. Sin makes Him angry. And it is true that God has displayed His love towards sinners and offers it to all. But the Scriptures take God’s hatred towards sin a step farther than most tend to do. The Bible says that God not only hates sin, but also sinners. Many of the verses I have read have already showed this if you were paying close attention. His hatred and wrath is on people, not just towards their sin. It is hard to separate the two.
Psalm 5:4-6 - "For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; No evil dwells with You. 5 The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all who do iniquity. 6 You destroy those who speak falsehood; The LORD abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit."
This verse and many others make it so clear. God does not just hate the sin, but also the sinner. When we sin we make ourselves the enemy of God. Look at the words in this verse again. You hate ALL who do iniquity. You DESTROY those who speak falsehood (liars) (v6), The LORD abhors the MAN of bloodshed and deceit. If hate is too strong a word for you, how about ABHORS?
14 times in the first 50 psalms alone we see God’s hatred for the sinner. In John 3, the text that is mentioned most to show the love of God, we see one of the most neglected verses about the wrath of God: John 3:36.
Read John 3:36 - "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, BUT THE WRATH OF GOD REMAINS ON HIM."
The wrath of God abides on the sinner; on the one who does not obey the gospel. We need to understand that when God killed someone in the Bible or sends someone to Hell, He is not just punishing sin.
He is punishing the SINNER.
• The Flood – Genesis 6-7
• Sodom and Gomorrah – Genesis 19
• The Destruction of Jerusalem in 586BC
• Judgment of the Nations
NEW TESTAMENT
• Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5)
• Those partaking of the Lord’s Supper irreverently (1 Cor. 11:37-31)
• The destruction of the church’s persecutors (Revelation, 2 Thes 1:8-10)
• God will not throw sin into hell, but sinners
God hates and abhors sin! He hates sin so much that He is not only dead set against sin, but also against SINNERS. His holy hatred and wrath is against all who reject Him and all those who will not obey the gospel. And even we who claim to be Christians are not exempt from the anger and wrath of God if we continue to sin.
“For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES. 28 Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know Him who said, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY." And again, "THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE." 31 It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” -Heb 10:26-31
Just because we are Christians does not mean that God will not judge us! If you are living in sin that you are unwilling to repent of, this text teaches that the only hope you have is the fury of fire that will consume the enemies of God.
“But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed.” -Isaiah 53:5
If God was willing to crush His only begotten Son, don’t assume He wouldn’t be willing to do the same with us if we are trampling under foot what Jesus did for us and insulting the Spirit of God!
But What about Gods Love???
You may be asking this question as I have been going through all of these passages that talk about the hatred and wrath of God towards sin and sinners. What about the love of God? How can we have so many verses that talk about God’s hatred towards sinners when there are so many verses about His love for the lost? In both the Old and New Testaments there are numerous verses that talk about the love of God:
• “For God so loved the world…” John 3:16
• “But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house.” Psalm 5:7
• “God is love” 1 John 4:8
So how can this be? There seems to be a contradiction here. How can God both be a God of wrath and hatred towards sinners while loving sinners at the same time? This, my brothers and sisters is one of the central questions of the Bible, and the answer is the CROSS!
God is perfect and Holy, and because of this, we deserve to be destroyed by Him. He should crush us! He should kill everyone for their rebellion against Him. He should give all of us a one way ticket to the eternal fires of Hell! But praise God for His long-suffering and mercy. Praise God that He offers us a way to escape having to experience the fullness of His wrath due to sinners. The CROSS, and ONLY THE CROSS can save us. Pretty much every verse in the New Testament that deals with the love of God and the love we need to have towards others is tied to the cross.
We deserve to drink the full cup of God’s wrath for sin, but Jesus’ sacrifice makes it so we do not have to.
The cross saves! But what does it save us from? The answer to that question is not that we are saved from sin. Christians are saved from the wrath of God. God saves us from Himself!
“Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him” (Romans 5:9).
“and to wait for His Son from heaven , whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come” (1 Thessalonians 1:10).
God’s wrath towards sinners can be escaped because of Christ’s atonement on the cross. Instead of being the enemies of God we can be at peace with God. The New Testament word for this concept is “propitiation”.
1 John 2:2 - "and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world."
Jesus is our propitiation. He is God’s atoning sacrifice that reconciles sinners with Himself. He puts aside His wrath and gives mercy to those who are cleansed by the blood of Christ.
"For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. 21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard. -Col 1:19-23
Now, I don’t preach this lesson to scare you into doing what is right, but we need to remember who this God is that we claim to serve. He is a Holy God, a Jealous God, a Just God, and he is a God that should be feared. Not just respected, but feared. I also preach this lesson so we can see two very important things: 1.)Studying about God should give us a wake up call to take sin seriously in our lives, and 2.) We need to understand the end for those who do not obey the glorious gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So I close with this question: Have you been reconciled with God? If you have not obeyed the gospel, Jesus teaches says that “He who believes and is baptized will be saved.” You can be saved from the wrath of God today.
