Wrath Revealed

Billy Graham once asked, “Is AIDS a judgment of God?” He then answered, “I could not say for sure, but I think so.” Allegedly, he later apologized and retracted the tentative connection. Big surprise. I’m sure he got major heat for that line.

The wrath of God is a concept usually identified with flood, fire, famine or pestilence on such an epic scale we may attribute them to little else. When fire falls from heaven, for example, it’s difficult to come up with a more convincing explanation than “God’s angry”, especially when a prophet calls it only seconds earlier.

Such expressions of wrath are unambiguous and frequently connected with the stories of the Old Testament. Noah’s flood. Sodom and Gomorrah. The plagues of Egypt. The Red Sea. Nadab and Abihu. Uzzah and the Ark of the Covenant. Was God angry? No question. Drowned, locust-infested, simmering in ashes or buried under a mountain of earth, the evidence was right there to prove it. However, the New Testament uses the term “wrath of God” a great deal more broadly than floods, fire and famine, and we need to recognize that sometimes God’s wrath is revealed more obviously than others.

The following list of obvious and not-so-obvious displays of the wrath of God is the result of a comprehensive study of how the writers of the New Testament use the Greek word orgē, most frequently translated “wrath”. Some manifestations of God’s wrath are subtler than others. Without revelation, some of these would require great discernment to recognize them for what they are.

So then, AIDS: who knows? Billy Graham’s original conjecture may well have been on the nose. We certainly cannot rule it out.

1/ Direct Expressions of Wrath

We will include the use of angelic intermediaries in this first category, as this is often the way God executes his trademark supernatural judgments. In any case, most people would not find differentiating between direct and angelically-expressed wrath significant, at least not with respect to its effects. Moreover, when the angel of the Lord is the one executing judgment, there really is no meaningful distinction to be made:

• Eternal judgment (Romans 5:9; Ephesians 5:6; Revelation 14:10)
• The plagues of Egypt (Romans 9:17-24)
• The future judgment of Babylon the great (Revelation 16:19) through death, fire and famine (Revelation 18:8)
• The future day of wrath in which Christ will personally judge the world (Romans 2:5; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; Revelation 6:16-18; 19:15)

Many other Old Testament judgments fall into this category, which is almost always supernatural and spectacular.

2/ Indirect or Mediated Wrath

God also uses individuals and nations to execute his wrath against various forms of sin and rebellion, often in perfectly ordinary ways. New Testament examples are as follows:

• The Roman siege of Jerusalem in AD70 (Matthew 3:7; Luke 3:7; 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16)
• The future siege of Jerusalem by the armies of the nations (Luke 21:20-24)
• Punishments dealt out by the legal systems of the world (Romans 4:15; 13:4-5), both Jewish and Gentile

Numerous Old Testament judgments were executed through human intermediaries. God judged Egypt directly, but Canaan indirectly through Israel. Then he judged Israel at various times through the Philistines, Syria, Assyria, Babylon and others. He later judged Babylon through Medo-Persia, and so on. Usually, the supernatural is not evident in such judgments. If the prophets hadn’t declared God was acting, you might not recognize his work.

3/ Natural Wrath

The wrath of God also manifests through nature, by which I mean both the natural world and human nature. Paul’s argument for salvation by faith in Romans begins with the assertion that “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” That is to say, God’s wrath is being displayed right now, just as it has been since before Paul wrote.

How does this wrath reveal itself? In the natural consequences of sin in men’s lives. Three times Paul writes, “God gave them over”, first to the dishonoring of their bodies, then to dishonorable passions, and finally to a debased mind. The Lord does not judge such men either directly or through an intermediary. Rather, in accordance with the wisdom of God, the natural world contains built-in consequences for godless thinking and conduct that put a partial brake on the worst excesses of sinful behaviors by reducing the lifespans of those who adopt them. People get stupider and more self-destructive the more they reject God, and they take greater risks because of it. Their bodies, intellects and consciences do not work the way they should, and their desires are increasingly twisted and unhealthy.

When men murder, oppress one another, gossip and backbite, all these expressions of sinfulness are also revelations of the wrath of God. Interestingly, love and obedience do not generally produce renal failure, AIDS, syphilitic insanity or ideologies that murder millions. Sin does. Regrettably, it also spreads its consequences around.

4/ The Absence of Divine Assistance

Sometimes the wrath of God is manifested not in the things he does but in the things he does not do. As many as two million Israelites died in the wilderness because God refused to help them enter Canaan. Hebrews calls this “my wrath”, but it basically consisted in nothing more obvious than God refusing to go up into the promised land with his people, after which an entire generation succumbed to normal attrition over the next four decades. When they tried to go it alone, the Amalekites and Canaanites chased them all the way to Hormah. So then, the absence of God’s help is not always an indication of his wrath, but it certainly may be.

Sometimes a passage just applies itself, doesn’t it?

5/ Delayed Wrath

When Jesus asked the Pharisees “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or do harm?”, they remained hard-hearted and silent. The Lord’s reaction to their obduracy, Mark says, was wrath mixed with grief.

What happened to those Pharisees? Absolutely nothing … at the time. To the extent God’s wrath was revealed in Christ, it was limited to an angry facial expression and perhaps a whip of cords. More often than not, God’s wrath against sin is restrained; it does not manifest until the appointed hour. Let us not be foolish enough to imagine that because we cannot see a violent divine response to sin, that God is not angry about it. That would be far from the truth.

John has this in mind when he writes, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son … the wrath of God remains on him.” Those who reject Christ live perpetually under God’s wrath, though they may see no ill effects from it in the present moment.

That last is a very good thing. Take advantage of it.