My ancestors came from Germany during the early 18th century. The name “Zorn” is a German name and means “wrath.” I did not know the meaning of my family name until I took German in college. I’ve often wondered how my ancestors earned or were stuck with such a name. I’m sure some of the students I taught in college and seminary would agree that the name was appropriate for me.
Preachers and evangelists have certainly used the word to scare the hell into people over the centuries. But what exactly does the Bible say about wrath and what does the word mean in Scripture?
The concept of wrath is mentioned often in the Bible. Preachers and evangelists have certainly used the word to scare the hell into people over the centuries. But what exactly does the Bible say about wrath and what does the word mean in Scripture? Wrath is often related to judgment and punishment. Elsewhere in this blog I discuss judgment and come to the conclusion that the purpose of judgment and punishment must be remedial in nature if God is truly a God of love. Retributive and punitive judgment, especially if such is believed to be everlasting, simply cannot be reconciled with a belief in a God of love.
But what do we do with those passages which refer to God’s wrath? Here are some suggestions.
- Most people associate the wrath of God with the God of the Old Testament. There are passages which warn of God’s wrath, and that wrath is described in frightening ways. However, there are also passages which speak of the limited nature of God’s wrath. God’s steadfast love (hesed in Hebrew) is what lasts forever, not God’s wrath. Psalm 103 even celebrates this enduring and faithful love of God with these words: The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. God will not always chide nor keep Her anger forever. She does not deal with us according to our sins nor requite us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is Her steadfast love toward those who have proper reverence and awe of Her; for as far as the east is from the west, so far does She remove our transgressions from us. As a Mother has compassion on her children, so the Lord has compassion on those who have proper reverence and awe for Her. For She knows our frame; She remembers that we are dust.
Psalm 136 celebrates God’s steadfast love by repeating twenty-six times the refrain, “for God’s steadfast love endures forever.”
Even in passages where God is said to visit the iniquities of parents on their children to the third and fourth generation, we are reminded that God’s steadfast love, in contrast to such wrath, endures forever.
Perhaps the most poignant passage which reflects the struggle of wrath and steadfast love within God is Hosea 11. After enumerating the sins of Israel which have resulted in a complete rupture in the relationship between God and Her people as well as a pronouncement of extreme judgment, God asserts in the midst of that agony Her inability to surrender Israel to a fate of exile and destruction: “How can I give you up. O Ephraim (another name for Israel)! How can I hand you over, O Israel. How can I make you like Admah! How can I treat you like Zeboiim (cities destroyed along with Sodom and Gomorrah)! My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger, I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a human being, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come to destroy.” This is one of the most moving passages in the entire Bible. God cannot destroy Her child Israel because of Her motherly love. (The Hebrew word for compassion comes from the Hebrew word for womb.) God has womb-love for Israel. She cannot destroy Her beloved. Years ago, H. Wheeler Robinson referred to this passage as “the cross in the Old Testament.” Instead of turning on Israel, God turns on Herself and bears the pain of Israel’s sin and rebellion.
Just like all people of faith, those responsible for the Hebrew Scriptures were groping for truth.
So, yes, there are references to the wrath and anger of God. There are references to judgment and punishment meted out by God. But there are also passages which give a priority to God’s steadfast love which, unlike wrath and punishment, endures forever. Just like all people of faith, those responsible for the Hebrew Scriptures were groping for truth. I see a trajectory within those sacred books which moves steadily, if not always consistently, toward the primary nature of God’s love which can never let wrath, destruction, and punishment be the last word for Her beloved people.
- We should also remember that any concept of a final judgment involving an everlasting reward or punishment did not come about until the second century BCE. With the possible exception of the Book of Daniel, there is no belief in an everlasting hell in the Old Testament. Whatever the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures meant by wrath, judgment, and punishment, they were not even aware of any reality resembling a hell where all who enter have to abandon any hope for deliverance.
- Wrath is also mentioned in the New Testament. (The Book of Revelation frequently refers to wrath. To deal with those references is beyond the scope of this article. I plan to tackle that issue in a future article). The Apostle Paul in Romans 1 perhaps is most helpful in understanding the New Testament concept of God’s wrath. In verses 24, 26, and 28 of that chapter Paul describes God’s wrath as God “giving them up” to their sins. In other words, God allows them to suffer the consequences of their wrongdoing. In essence, God says to those who stubbornly refuse to turn from their evil, “Thy will be done.” They are allowed to stew in their own kettle of evil. Their punishment is the logical outcome of a turning away from God, goodness, love, and peace. In an indirect way one may argue that God is responsible for this wrath. There is a moral trajectory within creation. God has created the world in such a way that eventually evil and injustice self-destruct. This is the moral arc of the universe that bends toward justice MLK referred to in his sermons and writings. But the wrath experienced by those who refuse to repent and embrace the ways of love is brought on by their own choice.
However, if we stopped with the opening chapters of Romans, we will miss the point of Paul’s overall message in Romans. These chapters are designed to reveal that all humans are in the same boat: Jew and gentile, male and female, slave and free. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Paul is leading up to his understanding of the good news of Jesus Christ. He carefully builds his argument, but we must see the letter to the Romans as a whole to appreciate his reasoning. In Romans 5, Paul refers to the human predicament by saying sin came into the world through one man (Adam) and since we are all descended from Adam (according to Paul’s view of history), we are all one in sin and condemnation for sin. But then Paul finally gets to his point: “Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all humans, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.” (Paul’s Greek is difficult to translate in this verse. The difficulty is demonstrated by David Hart Bentley’s translation: “So, then, just as by one transgression unto condemnation for all human beings, so also by one act of righteousness unto rectification of life for all human beings.”) So, are all saved from God’s wrath or many? The Greek would point to all. However, in my opinion, Paul clears up this question in Romans 11:32: For God has consigned all men to disobedience, that God may have mercy on all. All! How can so many Christians miss Paul’s good news? As Greek scholar David Bentley Hart says, Paul’s meaning is clear: “Universal condemnation is annulled by universal salvation. . . All are bound in sin and all will receive mercy.” (Italics by Hart) God has turned humans over to their sin in order to rescue them from their sin through the grace and righteousness of Christ. This was the good news which inspired Paul as he travelled the Roman Empire to tell a broken world that God’s love in Christ will bring everyone home and that homecoming can begin in the here and now.
So, wrath is not as cut and dry a concept as many of us have been taught.
So, wrath is not as cut and dry a concept as many of us have been taught. We see in the Hebrew Scriptures the priority and abiding nature of God’s loving kindness over God’s limited wrath. As Jesus teaches in Luke 15, God seeks the lost sheep and the lost coin until She finds them. And if we continue our rejection of love, goodness, and shalom, God gives us a free rein to continue our folly. But we see in Paul that even when God gives us over to our sin and consigns us to disobedience, Her mysterious plan finds a way to have mercy on each of us. She allows all prodigals to go into the far country but waits for them to recognize their fundamental error and return to the love which corresponds to their greatest need and deepest identity. This salvation and deliverance come to us through God’s suffering, patient, and enduring love expressed in Jesus. As Hosea said, but without the full significance of his insight, God is a Mother whose love simply cannot let any of us go. Paul was so overwhelmed with thanksgiving and joy that he, who had persecuted the church, was commissioned by the Risen Christ to preach good news to the whole world. I assume he firmly believed that if there was hope for him, there is hope for all. He pauses in Romans to utter doxologies of praise and thanksgiving for such grace. (Romans 8:31-39; 11:33-36) We would do well to join him in such praise as we finally accept the good news that God’s love is indeed unconditional, indiscriminate, self-giving, and everlasting. Wrath is real but not final. Wrath is remedial, not punitive. Wrath in some way serves a higher purpose—that of love.
[I am well aware that there are biblical scholars and theologians with very impressive credentials who would not agree with my conclusions in this article. However, I am also aware that there are other biblical scholars and theologians with equally impressive credentials who would concur with those conclusions. There are passages which seem to point to a final wrath and condemnation beyond which there is no hope. But there are also passages which affirm the universal salvation of all human beings and all creation. (See the following passages: Roman 5:18-19; I Corinthians 15:22; II Corinthians 5:14; Romans 11:32; I Timothy 2:3-6; II Corinthians 5:19; Ephesians 1:9-10; Colossians 1:27-28; Philippians 2:9-11; Colossians 1:19-20; I Timothy 4:10, John 12:32; II Peter 3:9; John 3:17.) I agree with Gandhi. Since we are all such scoundrels, we should leave judgment to God. The love of the God I trust and experience in Christ is stubborn, persistent, and everlasting. I trust that She will seek until She finds and will wait until the last shriveled soul willingly and gladly confesses that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Mother and comes home (Philippians 2).]
(Quotations by David Bentley Hart come from The New Testament: A Translation, pp. 297-298, 311.)
