The Wrath of God

Today at work yielded an interesting conversation. I was speaking with a Catholic friend and we were discussing the Tornado and the Lutherans (see this post).

My Catholic friend, "John", said that he thought the tornado was probably a message of some type - but maybe not. Then he said that he figured God could judge a church seeking to ordain openly homosexual clergy, but he would just love and respect all people.

I asked him what he meant by that, was he saying that he would unjudgementally love and care for lost homosexuals. He said that he would. I agreed that was a good thing. Then I asked if he also meant that he would love and accept practicing homosexuals who were fellow Christians and members of a local church, even clergy. He said he would love and respect them as well. He misquoted the "Do not judge" passage here (Matthew 7).

I brought up the idea behind the last paragraph in 1 Corinthians 5, which is Paul telling the people of Corinth to disassociate (really excommunicate) unrepentant habitual sinners who call themselves a brother (sister) in Christ. My Catholic friend said that I must be taking the passage out of context. I grabbed a Bible (we keep one around) and showed John the passage. I asked him to explain to me what Paul meant if he didn't mean that we ARE to judge those within the church, not those outside the faith, but expressly those inside the church.

John didn't have an answer for me, other than pointing me to 1 Samuel 16:7


"But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

That confused me. I asked him to clarify how that passage related to my interpretation of 1 Corinthians. He told me that God was the one who judged the heart - not us. I agreed with him that only God ultimately knows what a man thinks and does at all times, however - Paul seems to be saying that we are bound to pass disciplinary judgement on fellow church members if they are found to be engaged in persistent, wanton sin. Therefore (I argued) the Samuel passage did not conflict with the Corinthians passage, it was simply saying a different thing - "Don't judge others by apperance alone." The old book by its cover thing...(also see John 7:24)

John went on to tell me that he felt sorry for me because I was so pessimistic and I only saw the negative things of the faith. He said that I should look around and see the good in people.

I told him that I didn't see people as inherently good (and neither does the Bible). He argued that all people have something of Gods light in them and if I could just see that, I would stop from talking about wrath and condemnation so much.

I again grabbed the Bible and went to Ephesians 2 and Psalm 51 to make a case for original sin and our depraved, rebellious nature. I told him that we are dead children of wrath from birth and that none of us has the Spirit of God in us - until God sovereignly decides to make it so.

John told me that he didn't think we worshiped the same God. He said that he didn't see how his God, a God of love and mercy could square with my God, a God of wrath and judgement. I told him that we did worship the same God - only we each decided to emphasize diffrent attributes of him, but it was certainly the same God.

I went on to explain that I probably emphasize the holiness of God and the righteous indignation of God more, because I think we have abandoned that attribute in large part as American Christians. We are moving closer and closer to universalism and heresy instead of biblical theology and orthodox doctrine (many have already crossed the line). I told John that I felt we needed more voices in the wilderness crying out to tell people about their desperate need for repentance. I also told him "Thanks" for pointing out my focus on wrath - I have to be careful to always follow that message up with a clear picture of the gospel.

John told me that God was not a God of wrath anymore. He said that while the Old Testament was full of Gods wrath, the New Testament was full of Gods love. I told him that he was flat mistaken and that he needed to get into a good bible study where the entire scripture was opened and examined. In fact, I explained - the New Testament is really a continuation of and a more vivid portrayal of both Gods love and his wrath. Jesus is the apex of Gods love (the cross) and Jesus is the apex of Gods wrath (the pending Second Coming).

At this point, John was obviously over talking with me. I am sad for him. He is obviously entrenched in the mainline American believer mentality of a politically correct, lovey-dovey, God who would never be angry at anyone. What starts with a simple denial of the plain text on church discipline leads to a disregard for the inerrancy and inspiration of the Bible. Ultimately, it can slide one into the path of a tornado.

I hope that God will use me in such a way as to speak truth to John in love about what scripture tell us. I pray that I might see John realize the full panoramic of God, his terrifying wrath along with his generous mercy. I also pray that God will keep me from ever delivering a message of Gods fury without including the path that takes us away from that anger - the path of Jesus Christ.

John 14:6
"Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.."