Understanding God's Wrath

Daily Bread

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From the book of Romans we read,

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven . . .” (Romans 1:18 – NASB)

The apostle Paul sets forth in the two previous verses to our text (1:16-17) that the Gospel of Christ is that message, that, if men will believe it they can be saved. Having said that, the obvious question becomes, “Saved from what?” Our text explains the “what;” saved from “the wrath of God.”

Dr. John MacArthur writes,

“People cannot fully understand God’s love without also understanding God’s hate; or His grace without knowing about His law; or comprehend His forgiveness until they understand the penalty for sin. Unless men sense that they are in grave danger of God’s Wrath, there is no pressure applied to them to change.”

We must grasp the fact that God is a wrathful God if we are to fully understand the Gospel of Christ. We must understand that, if God is a God of love, and He is, then that love can only be put in its proper perspective when it is understood that God also hates. God manifests perfect love but He also manifests perfect hate. And in His hate God is a God of “wrath.”

In Hebrews it is written,

“Thou hast loved righteousness and hated lawlessness” (Hebrews 1:9 – NASB)

In His holiness, His perfection, His purity, His very glory, God is a wrathful God, hating “lawlessness” and bringing His “wrath” to bear upon sin, upon those who reject His loving gift of salvation that is in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He loves in Christ and He hates in righteous judgment. FACT: God’s love and mercy and grace cannot be fully understood apart from understanding God’s “wrath.”

Dr. MacArthur writes,

“If you understand that God hates sin profoundly, then you will find it all the more amazing that He can love sinners. So, without an understanding of His hate, His love is crippled also in our thinking. Love and grace are favorite terms, yet they are void of meaning, if God does not hate.”

What a glorious message the Gospel of Christ is when men are enlightened by God to fully understand “the wrath of God.”

A few weeks ago our Pastor said it well regarding salvation, “Salvation is deliverance from Him! From His justice!” The warm and fuzzy messages of many negate the full understanding of God’s love in Christ when they fail to proclaim the whole truth about God, that He is a God that hates, that He is a God of “wrath,” and that anyone who spurns His Son is a child of wrath (Ephesians 2:1-3), one who will experience divine “wrath” for his/her sin.

Have a good day brethren . . . and take a moment, maybe more, to think upon the amazing grace that, in Christ, saves us from the wrath to come . . . . Oh think of it brethren, and rejoice and give thanks!

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