Last week all of our first readings were from the Prophet Hosea. Any one of the reflections could have begun: “In today’s first reading the Northern Kingdom of Israel is being warned about the choices they have made and are making – and the consequences of those choices should they continue.” The actors in the passage were Hosea, the King of Israel, and Assyria. In the first reading for today, the era is the same, the opening remains the same, but the stage bill changes. Now the lead roles are the Prophet Isaiah and the King of Judah; Assyria retains the same “supporting role.” There is a lot going on in the Book of Isaiah, but perhaps these verses can give you the lay of the land:
“An ox knows its owner, and an ass, its master’s manger; But Israel does not know, my people has not understood. Ah! sinful nation, people laden with wickedness, evil race, corrupt children! They have forsaken the LORD, spurned the Holy One of Israel, apostatized.” (Isaiah 1:3-4)
The “wrath of God” is coming for Judah and Jerusalem. Although the verse is from another prophet, the warning is appropriate: “When they sow the wind, they will reap the whirlwind.” (Hosea 8:7)
Spend enough time with the prophets and one begins to wonder about the wrath of God. Is God’s wrath active or passive—or perhaps He has no wrath at all. A full exploration of that question is well beyond the possibilities of a short weekday reflection like this, but perhaps your answer reveals something about the way you consider God.
There was a time when preachers and priests held up the wrath of God as the fate awaiting the unrighteous hanging by a thread over the fires of hell. In time, the emphasis has been on the love of God to the exclusion of God’s wrath – a kinder, gentler God. The modern theologian Richard Niebuhr famously described versions of such preaching: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”
This indictment highlights what happens when God’s love is divorced from his holiness. Without a clear understanding of God’s hatred for sin, the character of God becomes misshapen and the universe bends towards human individuals—regardless of their character. Love becomes pure affirmation. God becomes a personal friend who assists us in all of life’s difficulties.
The testimony of Scripture, from Old Testament to New Testament, witnesses the wrath of God. They are just as much part of the revelation of God made known in Christ Jesus as those sayings and deeds of the Messiah which so conspicuously display the divine love and mercy. Truly, the wrath of God is not the main message of the gospel, but the biblical gospel cannot be understood apart from it.
Wrath is not the pagan idea assigned to their deities. God revealed in Scripture is not a capricious and vindictive deity, inflicting arbitrary punishments on offending worshipers, who must then bribe him back to a good mood by the appropriate offerings. Neither is divine wrath anything like an “irrational temper,” where God looks like Anger, the red-faced cartoon from Inside-Out. Biblically-speaking, divine wrath is the proper and righteous response of God to sin. Put positively, wrath, in perfect harmony with all of his divine attributes, is God’s holy action of retributive justice towards persons whose actions deserve eternal condemnation
On the cross, Jesus bore the full weight of divine wrath as he took on the full weight of all our sins. An act that at the same time revealed the holiness and deep love of God for his creation – and his mercy. The mercy of God is best seen in its relief of God’s wrath. Mercy is more than God’s generic pity for the poor and needy. Without denying compassion, God’s mercy, as expressed in the gospel, is what declares the wicked righteous by means of Christ’s wrath-bearing sacrifice.
The “wrath of God” is coming for Judah and Jerusalem: “When they sow the wind, they will reap the whirlwind.” (Hosea 8:7)
And what will we sow in our lifetime? Sow the seeds of sin and reap the whirlwind of wrath. Live as God asks us: do justice, love goodness and walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8) and reap the whirlwind of God’s mercy and love.
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