Being God’s Beloved: Reflections on God’s Love.

There is no denying that God expresses not only love but also wrath and anger in the pages of the scripture. It may, we sometimes think, be comforting to worship a God who experiences and expresses nothing but love, forgiveness, kindness. But in both Old and New Testaments, there are references to the wrath of God that we have to face up to. And, I suggest, it is good that God shows both love and wrath; indeed, they flow from the same centre in the heart of God – wrath is a facet of love.

I encourage you to read Deuteronomy 29:18-28, which is an extended passage about God’s wrath. It is within a larger passage where Moses calls the Israelites to renew their covenant with God. Having reminded them of God’s faithfulness in bringing them out of Egypt, he cautions them about flippancy in their relationship with God. He says that some people will take advantage of God’s chesed (God’s lovingkindness rooted in God’s covenant with Israel) and say to themselves, “I will be safe, even though I persist in going my own way” (29:19). But, says Moses, such thinking will bring down God’s wrath, “his wrath and zeal will burn against that man… the Lord will blot out his name from under heaven” (29:20). He then broadens his focus to the whole of Israel, from the perspective of those who are not Israelites, asking why God would be so angry with them. The answer is, “because this people abandoned the covenant of the Lord” (29:25). And then Moses heavily emphasises God’s wrath: “In furious anger and in great wrath the Lord uprooted them from their land and thrust them into another land, as it is now” (29:28). As if God’s anger and wrath are not enough, we now have great wrath and furious anger.

And God’s wrath is not limited to the Old Testament. Romans 1:18 has, “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.”

How are we to reconcile God’s love and God’s wrath?

First, God’s wrath is not so much the inflicting of penalties equivalent to the person’s sin, as a withdrawal of divine protection.

In both Old and New Testaments, God’s wrath is often expressed as God choosing to withdraw protection from those who sin so that they experience the natural consequences of their sin.[1] The Romans 1 reading is a good example. After writing that God’s wrath is being revealed, Paul explains, “Therefore [because they rejected God] God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts” (1:24). And he repeats this twice more: “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts” (1:26) and “Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done” (1:28). This three-fold “giving over” explains what Paul means by “the wrath of God”. Marshall explains further, “God’s act [of wrath] is not so much a matter of direct, individually tailored punitive intervention as it is a matter of measured withdrawal of his protective influence and control, a refusal to intervene to stem the deleterious effects of human rebellion”.[2]

On the one hand, then, such a ‘giving over’ is not God wreaking suffering on those who sin; but neither is it a passive withdrawal. It is a personal decision that God makes to cease protecting someone. The consequences of the loss of protection may be severe, but they are, essentially, of that person’s own doing. That is the wrath of God.

There are precedents for this understanding of wrath elsewhere in scripture. There are, for example, many passages that express God’s wrath and judgement as God hiding God’s face or turning away. “They will forsake me and break the covenant I made with them. On that day I will become angry with them and forsake them; I will hide my face from them, and they will be destroyed. Many disasters and difficulties will come upon them, and on that day they will ask, ‘Have not these disasters come upon us because our God is not with us?’” (Deuteronomy 31:16-17).

Second, God’s wrath is less about punishment and more about reconciliation.

God’s wrath is not simply a venting of angry emotion, like a pressure cooker letting off steam. Neither is it a desire to obliterate or annihilate people. Rather, it is a strategy to persuade people to turn back to God – to repent of sin and seek to be reconciled to God. For example, in 2 Chronicles 15:2 we read, “This is what the Lord says, ‘You have abandoned me; therefore, I now abandon you to Shishak’.” This is another example of God’s wrath expressed as God turning away. In this instance, “The leaders of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, ‘The Lord is just’” (15:3). Here we see what appears frequently in passages on God’s wrath, namely that God’s intention is not so much punitive as restorative. “The point is not to torment human beings but to enable them to see their moral frailty and their consequent need for God’s healing assistance”.[3] In 2 Chronicles, God’s abandonment results in a recognition of need for God and repentance of sin. God then says, “Since they have humbled themselves, I will not destroy them but will soon give them deliverance. My wrath will not be poured out on Jerusalem through Shishak” (15:7). God relents on the expression of wrath, because the purpose of the wrath (to evoke repentance and call to reconciliation) was achieved.

Third, God’s wrath is a facet of God’s love, giving partial expression to God’s love.

It is good that God feels strongly about sin. If God did not stand against sin, who would stand up for me when someone sins against me? If God loves me, and someone harms me, is it not appropriate that God should be angry with that person? Would God be loving if I, his beloved, am harmed by someone else and God just continues to love both me and them? Isn’t a loving response to someone harming me for God to be angry with them? Think about this in terms of our own loved ones. I love my son, and when someone hurts him, I get angry and want to express my wrath at that person. Is that not love? Would my turning to the person who hurts my son and hugging him and inviting him to supper not be an act of not-love towards my son?

Love and wrath are not mutually incompatible. Rather wrath is a facet of love. Wrath is an appropriate response when someone who is loved is harmed. Wrath is also an appropriate response when someone who is loved harms someone else or her or himself. It is a manifestation of God’s love when God gets mad at me because I sin, because I treat myself (created in God’s image) harmfully. And since we are all created in God’s image, whether or not we and they recognise or accept that, God responds with protective love when any one of God’s creatures is harmed. We call that response of protective love ‘wrath’, particularly if we are on the receiving end of it. But from the perspective of the person being protected, it is love. It is all a matter of perspective.

A few years ago, my car was stolen. I was upset because it was a much loved car. And also because it was stolen from a place where I was volunteering my time for a worthy cause – it felt like an injustice. One of the consequences was that I was delayed in marking my students’ assignments, so I informed them of what had happened as part of my apology for the delay. Many students responded with words of encouragement and solidarity. And many of these expressed sentiments like, “Shame, don’t worry Prof, God will cast those men who stole your car into everlasting torment. They will suffer forever for taking your car!” I was taken aback with the vehemence of their support. On the one hand they expressed what I am saying here, that God’s wrath against those men is an expression of God’s solidarity with me, God’s beloved. But on the other hand, they are God’s creatures too and I found myself loving them and praying that God would not punish them for what they did to me!

This is part of the complexity of being God and why I am glad that God is God, rather than me! Love and wrath are easy to get one’s head around if I am God’s beloved and you are God’s enemy. Then of course God will love me and express wrath against you. And in the Old Testament particularly, there is a tendency to divide the world neatly into those within God’s covenant and those who are already in outer darkness. But in modern times we recognise that things are not so simple and clean. We are all, to a greater or lesser extent, loved by God and enemies of God. I can think of many times when I have harmed someone else (sometimes in anger and intent, and sometimes by accident or necessity), or myself or God. In all of those times I am deserving of God’s wrath. But I am also God’s beloved because of my response, through the grace of God, to the call of Christ. So, do I get love or wrath?

There are no neat answers to God’s love and God’s wrath. But as we mull it over, let us consider that God’s wrath always comes from a place of love, with an intention to restore and reconcile. God’s wrath, like God’s holiness, is enclosed in love. God’s wrath is the servant of and therefore subordinate to God’s love.

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[1] Marshall, C. D. (2001). Beyond retribution: A New Testament vision for justice, crime, and punishment. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, pp. 169-175.

[2] Marshall, p. 173.

[3] Marshall, p. 175.