In a previous Q&A on wrath, we discussed the wrath of man which is actually the wrath of Satan. We also alluded to the fact that there is godly wrath or righteous indignation, but cautioned that even justified wrath ought to be short-lived as, due to Satan’s influence, even our righteous anger may become unrighteous.
In this Q&A, we will focus on godly wrath or righteous indignation and show the reason for such emotion.
God is slow to anger (Psalm 103:8). His anger only lasts for a moment (Psalm 30:5). Rather, He is merciful (same verse); ready to pardon and abundant in kindness (Nehemiah 9:17). He is full of compassion (Psalm 145:8) and He relents from doing harm (Joel 2:13; also compare Jonah 4:2 and Nahum 1:3).
At the same time, we do read about God’s wrath; and much can be found about it in the book of Revelation.
During the very last days, just prior to Christ’s return, people will say to the mountains and rocks: “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne [God the Father] and from the wrath of the Lamb (Jesus Christ)! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” (Revelation 6:16-17). Later, holy angels will say to God the Father, the Lord God Almighty: “The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come… [that You] should destroy those who destroy the earth” (Revelation 11:18).
In Revelation 14:9-10, a mighty angel warned all of the end-time inhabitants of the earth not to follow the beast and the false prophet, as well as the powers which they will represent, saying this; “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation…” We had seen in the Q&A on Satan’s wrath that Satan will persecute those who will not follow these God-defying Babylonian powers; and those who do will be punished by God’s wrath, which will be severe (note Revelation 14:19-20; 19:15).
God’s end-time wrath is many times described as occurring on the “day of the Lord” or the “Lord’s day” (Revelation 1:10) or the “great day of God Almighty” (Revelation 16:14) or, as we have seen above, “the great day of His wrath.” The seven last plagues of the seventh seal (consisting of the seven last trumpets) “complete” the “wrath of God” (Revelation 15:1). These seven last plagues (of the seventh trumpet) are also identified as “seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God” (Revelation 15:7; 16:1); and they are described in detail in Revelation 16:2-21; compare especially verse 19.
As we analyze many more Scriptures describing God’s fierce wrath on mankind, we must understand that God is angry with man because of man’s abominable sins and transgressions, as well as man’s hatred for God’s Law.
In Nahum 1:2 we read: “… The LORD avenges and is furious. The LORD will take vengeance on His adversaries, And He reserves wrath for His enemies.”
In a Q&A on Psalm 7:11, stating that “God is angry with the wicked every day,” we said this:
“The context of Psalm 7 shows that ‘Cush, a Benjamite,’ persecuted innocent David… Cush is a designation for King Saul. David expresses to God his innocence (vv. 3-5, 8), and asks God to take care of his situation. He points out that God will rise in His anger (verse 6), and that He ‘hath indignation every day’… The New King James Bible ADDED the words, ‘with the wicked,’ which do not appear in the original Hebrew. However, the addition is in accordance with the intended meaning…
“It is important to note WHY God is angry with the wicked. Verse 12 explains: ‘If he does not turn back [that is, if he does not repent of his evil deeds], He [God] will sharpen His sword.’ That is, God will fight against him, and his own evil and ‘violent dealing shall come down on his own crown’ (verse 16)…
“God is angry at sin and sinful, rebellious conduct. But God’s anger ceases when man repents of his sin. King Solomon understood that when man sins, God becomes angry with man and brings trouble upon him (compare 1 Kings 8:46). He also understood that when man sincerely repents of his evil deeds, God forgives and helps man out of trouble (vv. 47-50).
“There are many examples in the Bible, showing that God’s hot anger is kindled against man because of sin. As we saw, God became angry in Old Testament times (cp. Judges 2:11-14). Jesus Christ became angry too when He saw the hardness and stubbornness of the Pharisees who rebelled against God’s mercy and compassion for suffering people (cp. Mark 3:5).”
In Ezra 8:22, the priest Ezra proclaimed that God’s “power and wrath are against all those who forsake Him.” In 2 Chronicles 28:13, the prophet Obed warned the people of Israel, saying: “You intend to add to our sins and to our guilt; for our guilt is great, and there is fierce wrath against Israel.”
In Zechariah 7:9-14, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah with a dire pronouncement against, and a serious admonition for, the ancient houses of Israel and Judah:
“‘Execute true justice, Show mercy and compassion Everyone to his brother, Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, The alien or the poor. Let none of you plan evil in his heart Against his brother.’ But they refused to heed, shrugged their shoulders, and stopped their ears so that they could not hear. Yes, they made their hearts like flint, refusing to hear the law and the words which the LORD of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets, Thus great wrath came from the LORD of hosts. Therefore it happened, that just as He proclaimed and they would not hear, so they called out and I would not listen,’ says the LORD of hosts. ‘But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they had not known…’”
In the book of Zephaniah, the end-time wrath of God is vividly described where it is referred to as the “day of the Lord.”
We read in Zephaniah 1:14-18:
“‘The great day of the LORD is near; It is near and hastens quickly, The noise of the day of the LORD is bitter; There the mighty men shall cry out. That day is a day of wrath, A day of trouble and distress, A day of devastation and desolation, A day of darkness and gloominess, A day of clouds and thick darkness, A day of trumpet and alarm Against the fortified cities And against the high towers. I will bring distress upon men, And they shall walk like blind men, Because they have sinned against the LORD; their blood shall be poured out like dust, And their flesh like refuse.’ Neither their silver nor their gold Shall be able to deliver them In the day of the LORD’S wrath; But the whole land shall be devoured By the fire of His jealousy, for He will make speedy riddance of all those who dwell in the land.”
Zephaniah 2:1-3 continues:
“Gather yourselves together, yes, gather together, O undesirable [shameless] nation, Before the day of the LORD’S anger comes upon you! Seek the LORD, all you meek of the earth, Who have upheld His justice. Seek righteousness, seek humility. It may be that you will be hidden in the day of the LORD’S anger.”
God’s fierce end-time wrath during the day of the LORD is further described in Zephaniah 3:8:
“Therefore wait for Me,’ says the LORD, ‘Until the day I rise up for plunder; My determination is to gather the nations To My assembly of kingdoms, To pour on them My indignation, All My fierce anger; All the earth shall be devoured With the fire of My jealousy.”‘ (This aspect of God’s wrath is explained in Zechariah 14:1-4, 12-15.)
In the above-mentioned Q&A on Psalm 7:11, we continued to state this:
“God will pour out His fierce anger on rebellious mankind, in an unparalleled way, in the not-too-distant future. We are told in Scripture that the day of the LORD is at hand—a time of God’s wrath and hot displeasure when God will intervene in human affairs and punish those who rebel against Him.
“Isaiah 13:9, 11, 13 says: ‘Behold, the day of the LORD comes, Cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, To lay the land desolate; And He will destroy its sinners from it… “I will punish the world for its evil, And the wicked for their iniquity; I will halt the arrogance of the proud, And will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible… Therefore I will shake the heavens, And the earth will move out of her place, In the wrath of the LORD of hosts And in the day of His fierce anger.”‘
“Isaiah 66:15-17 includes additional aspects of God’s anger to be poured out on this world in a few years from now. Also, Micah 5:15 states: ‘And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury On the nations that have not heard [or obeyed, as the margin has it].’ …”
God’s warning must not be neglected or rejected. John the Baptist asked the hypocritical Pharisees and Sadducees who came to him for baptism, but they did it just for pretense: “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance… every tree which does not bear fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire…” (Matthew 3:7-10).
John the Baptist also said this in John 3:36: “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe [obey, compare RSV] the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
Paul cautioned mankind, in Romans 2:5-6, 8-9:
“… in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent [unrepentant] heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God… [God] will render to each one according to his deeds… to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness–indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil…”
But for true Christians who are anxious to live a godly life, Paul has this encouraging promise in Romans 5:9:
“Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him (Jesus Christ).”
The gist of that last statement is repeated by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 1:10, where we read that we “wait for His Son from heaven, whom He [the Father] raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.” Paul adds in 1 Thessalonians 5:9: “For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Paul addressed the topic of God’s wrath on rebellious mankind throughout his letters. For a further example, note Ephesians 5:6:
“Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things (he listed many of those things in verses 3-5, including fornication, covetousness and foolish or ungodly talking) the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” Compare also Colossians 3:6.
God’s wrath will be poured out very soon on unrepentant mankind, especially during the Day of the Lord just prior to Christ’s return. But most will not have committed the sin which cannot be forgiven (the unpardonable sin), and they will receive their opportunity of salvation during the Second Resurrection of the Great White Throne Judgment period (Revelation 20:11-12).
It is a different matter for true Christians who have received their opportunity for salvation in this day and age, and who walked away from it. For them, the wrath of God will have eternal consequences. In our above-mentioned Q&A on Psalm 7:11, we said this:
“God is also angry with those who refuse to respond to His call for salvation. In the parable of the Great Supper, in Luke 14, God is depicted as a man or master who gave a great supper and invited many people. But they all began to make excuses, refusing to attend the supper. In verse 21, we read that the master of the house became angry with those people. [We will not make a final judgment call regarding these people who excused themselves from attending the Great Supper. This is up to God, but the dire warning must not be overlooked, because God said in verse 24: “… none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.”]
“God’s righteous indignation is directed at rebellious mankind who refuse to obey God and to repent of their evil and wicked deeds. This world will soon wake up to the fact that God CAN BE VERY ANGRY—and it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:31).
“Those who permanently and rebelliously refuse to submit to God, even though they know better, will pay the price. Hebrews 10:26-27 says: ‘For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.'”
Paul warns true Christians throughout the ages to look at the bad conduct of ancient Israel as an example. While God poured out His wrath on Israel so that they were not allowed to enter the Promised Land, true Christians, when they fall away, will face God’s wrath in the Judgment and will not be allowed to enter the Kingdom of God:
“Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, And saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, And they have not known My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, ‘they shall not enter My rest.’ Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God…
“Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey?… Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it… Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience…” (Hebrews 3:7-12, 17-18; 4:1, 11).
Lead Writer: Norbert Link
