The Wrath of God
Written by Beau Hoffman
Recently, a friend asked me about my view of “the wrath of God”, particularly in the context of Sodom and Gomorrah. This article is my (edited) response to him.
“First and foremost, I want to be completely clear about my overall suppositions about scripture—they are just that, my suppositions. I think we all take scripture and interpret it through our current lens, biases, worldview, circumstances and understanding. But when we are dealing with a verse that seemingly portrays God as violent, angry and retributive, those passages should be extremely difficult for us to understand. On their face, those passages paint God in a light that appears different than Jesus. There should be no “easy” answer for that, but wrestling through those issues helps us all—even if we come to different conclusions.
I will go off on one tangent quickly about my overall view on the “wrath of God” before I get to the specific story of Sodom and Gomorrah. I do not think God’s wrath is literally God being the direct cause of our harm. I think God acts in perfect love, and as a result, he isn’t controlling. So if I want God to leave me a lone, although he never abandon’s me, he will consent (out of love) to my demands, “handing me over” to my own desires. And the consequences for me walking and living outside of God’s direction are harmful and what we refer to as “the wrath of God.” Quite simply, it is the natural consequences for my own destructive decisions. So although God isn’t directly acting to harm us, God is, in love, allowing us to experience the full consequences for our own choices and actions. I think that point is important to consider when we see things like “God handed them over” in scripture. [Caveat, I think there is one version of “wrath” used to describe God’s conduct in the Bible that actually is directly attributable to God, but this is God acting to remove something painful in our lives when we are open to Him doing so. He only does this with our consent. For example, if I was a hate-filled and violent person by nature, but I wanted God to remove anger from my life and help me to love all of mankind equally, that will be a very “painful process.” It will hurt to admit I was wrong, I was judging people, and it would be painful to overcome. God would act in love to redeem that area of my life, consenting to my wishes, which may cause harm but it would ultimately building within me something more beautiful than existed before. I think God’s wrath would burn the anger and racism out of me, only because He loves me too much not to.]
With that said, I will start with my most basic belief that God was fully and finally revealed in Jesus. There are lots of scripture to support the belief that God is just like Jesus, and that Jesus only did what he saw the Father doing. Thus, I think the biblical authors had incomplete pictures of what God was like up until Jesus died on the cross, pleading for forgiveness even for his murderers. John 10:10 further clarifies that it is the enemy—the devil (literally, the “destroyer”) who comes to kill, steal and destroy, and that God comes to give abundant life. So if it looks like abundant life, I begin with the assumption that it’s from God, and if it looks like destruction, death, and taking from people, then I assume it’s the destroyer.
And the bible supports this, in my opinion. I believe a lot of the early writings state that “the destroyer” was sent to inflict pain and death, and they suggest that the destroyer was God himself. As the authors understanding evolved (or as the text was altered as their understanding of God evolved) the view shifted, and the “destroyer” was not viewed as God himself, but an angel or agent sent from God. And eventually, the view evolved even further, and we see verses that suggest the destroyer was not God at all, but the devil, and God was acting to save or redeem people from the destroyer. These verses often state that God “handed them over,” suggesting that people endured the consequences from their own choices. One of the most obvious examples of this evolution in understanding is in 2 Samuel 24:1, and then centuries later in 1 Chronicles 21:1. In the earlier passage, David's sin is caused by "the anger of God," while in the later passage "Satan's provocation" is the cause of David's sin—over the centuries the author’s view changed (and in John 10:10, completely clarified).
In my opinion, Paul also writes and supports this view in 1 Corinthians 10:10-11 (NASB):
“Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents. Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.”
Combined with John 10:10, I think Paul is being explicit that the destroyer was (and is) the agent that acts to harm people, not God acting out of literal wrath. Instead, God acts in accordance with our consent, and “hands us over” to the circumstances and attacks of the destroyer to which we voluntarily submit (and, praise God, he is there to redeem us when we ask!).
The following is how Brad Jersak explains the view of the “destroyer” evolves throughout scripture:
Early Jewish logic:
1. We sin against God.
2. The destroyer kills us.
3. God is the destroyer.
Middle Jewish logic:
1. We sin against God.
2. The destroyer kills us.
3. God sends the destroyer.
Later Jewish logic:
1. We sin against God.
2. The destroyer kills us.
3. God rescues from the destroyer.
Now, back to the actual question. I believe scripture allows us to see the progressive revelation of who was the direct actor behind Sodom and Gomorrah, just as I suggested above. The Early Jewish logic is established in Genesis 19:24:
“Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven, 25 and He overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.”
However, the Middle Jewish Logic is explain in Genesis 19:13:
“For we [the angels] are about to destroy this place, because their outcry has become so great before the Lord that the Lord has sent us to destroy it.”
And if we use the principles of John 10:10 and 1 Cor. 10:1-11, I think we can re-read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah such that God is not the destroyer and that God doesn’t sends the destroyer but instead that God acts to redeem from the destroyer. In the story, we see that God was actually acting to save people from the destruction caused by the destroyer.
Recently, a friend asked me about my view of “the wrath of God”, particularly in the context of Sodom and Gomorrah. This article is my (edited) response to him.
“First and foremost, I want to be completely clear about my overall suppositions about scripture—they are just that, my suppositions. I think we all take scripture and interpret it through our current lens, biases, worldview, circumstances and understanding. But when we are dealing with a verse that seemingly portrays God as violent, angry and retributive, those passages should be extremely difficult for us to understand. On their face, those passages paint God in a light that appears different than Jesus. There should be no “easy” answer for that, but wrestling through those issues helps us all—even if we come to different conclusions.
I will go off on one tangent quickly about my overall view on the “wrath of God” before I get to the specific story of Sodom and Gomorrah. I do not think God’s wrath is literally God being the direct cause of our harm. I think God acts in perfect love, and as a result, he isn’t controlling. So if I want God to leave me a lone, although he never abandon’s me, he will consent (out of love) to my demands, “handing me over” to my own desires. And the consequences for me walking and living outside of God’s direction are harmful and what we refer to as “the wrath of God.” Quite simply, it is the natural consequences for my own destructive decisions. So although God isn’t directly acting to harm us, God is, in love, allowing us to experience the full consequences for our own choices and actions. I think that point is important to consider when we see things like “God handed them over” in scripture. [Caveat, I think there is one version of “wrath” used to describe God’s conduct in the Bible that actually is directly attributable to God, but this is God acting to remove something painful in our lives when we are open to Him doing so. He only does this with our consent. For example, if I was a hate-filled and violent person by nature, but I wanted God to remove anger from my life and help me to love all of mankind equally, that will be a very “painful process.” It will hurt to admit I was wrong, I was judging people, and it would be painful to overcome. God would act in love to redeem that area of my life, consenting to my wishes, which may cause harm but it would ultimately building within me something more beautiful than existed before. I think God’s wrath would burn the anger and racism out of me, only because He loves me too much not to.]
With that said, I will start with my most basic belief that God was fully and finally revealed in Jesus. There are lots of scripture to support the belief that God is just like Jesus, and that Jesus only did what he saw the Father doing. Thus, I think the biblical authors had incomplete pictures of what God was like up until Jesus died on the cross, pleading for forgiveness even for his murderers. John 10:10 further clarifies that it is the enemy—the devil (literally, the “destroyer”) who comes to kill, steal and destroy, and that God comes to give abundant life. So if it looks like abundant life, I begin with the assumption that it’s from God, and if it looks like destruction, death, and taking from people, then I assume it’s the destroyer.
And the bible supports this, in my opinion. I believe a lot of the early writings state that “the destroyer” was sent to inflict pain and death, and they suggest that the destroyer was God himself. As the authors understanding evolved (or as the text was altered as their understanding of God evolved) the view shifted, and the “destroyer” was not viewed as God himself, but an angel or agent sent from God. And eventually, the view evolved even further, and we see verses that suggest the destroyer was not God at all, but the devil, and God was acting to save or redeem people from the destroyer. These verses often state that God “handed them over,” suggesting that people endured the consequences from their own choices. One of the most obvious examples of this evolution in understanding is in 2 Samuel 24:1, and then centuries later in 1 Chronicles 21:1. In the earlier passage, David's sin is caused by "the anger of God," while in the later passage "Satan's provocation" is the cause of David's sin—over the centuries the author’s view changed (and in John 10:10, completely clarified).
In my opinion, Paul also writes and supports this view in 1 Corinthians 10:10-11 (NASB):
“Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day. Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents. Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.”
Combined with John 10:10, I think Paul is being explicit that the destroyer was (and is) the agent that acts to harm people, not God acting out of literal wrath. Instead, God acts in accordance with our consent, and “hands us over” to the circumstances and attacks of the destroyer to which we voluntarily submit (and, praise God, he is there to redeem us when we ask!).
The following is how Brad Jersak explains the view of the “destroyer” evolves throughout scripture:
Early Jewish logic:
1. We sin against God.
2. The destroyer kills us.
3. God is the destroyer.
Middle Jewish logic:
1. We sin against God.
2. The destroyer kills us.
3. God sends the destroyer.
Later Jewish logic:
1. We sin against God.
2. The destroyer kills us.
3. God rescues from the destroyer.
Now, back to the actual question. I believe scripture allows us to see the progressive revelation of who was the direct actor behind Sodom and Gomorrah, just as I suggested above. The Early Jewish logic is established in Genesis 19:24:
“Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven, 25 and He overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.”
However, the Middle Jewish Logic is explain in Genesis 19:13:
“For we [the angels] are about to destroy this place, because their outcry has become so great before the Lord that the Lord has sent us to destroy it.”
And if we use the principles of John 10:10 and 1 Cor. 10:1-11, I think we can re-read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah such that God is not the destroyer and that God doesn’t sends the destroyer but instead that God acts to redeem from the destroyer. In the story, we see that God was actually acting to save people from the destruction caused by the destroyer.
Touché
ReplyDelete