The wrath of God

“Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.” (Romans 12:19)

This past Sunday, I preached on Romans 1:18-32, which begins with this decidedly un-seeker-friendly slap in the face: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.” Paul, out of his desire to showcase the salvation found in Jesus Christ in all of its glory, begins by painting a bleak picture of the depravity and spiritual lostness of all men – Jew and Gentile – as well as the reality that the wrath of God is over every one of those lost souls.

The concept of a God of wrath is an uncomfortable one for most of us. Everyone can get on board with a God of love, a God of grace and mercy. But wrath? A God who avenges, and punishes, and condemns? Not so much. And wrath is not just an Old Testament concept. Even Jesus gets in on the act, declaring in John 3:36 that “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him.”

One of the likely reasons that we cringe at the notion of a God of wrath is that we live in relative comfort here in the United States. One of the best treatments of the wrath of God I have read is by Miroslav Volf, a Yale theologian and Croatian who lived through the violence in the Balkans. In his book Exclusion and Embrace, Volf wrote:

“If God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make a final end to violence – that God would not be worthy of worship… The only means of prohibiting all recourse to violence by ourselves is to insist that violence is legitimate only when it comes from God… My thesis is that the practice of non-violence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many in the West… But it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human non-violence (results from the belief in) God’s refusal to judge. In a sun-scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die… [with] other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind.”

Volf’s point is that for those whose lives are marked by injustice and violence, they need to know that God is a God of wrath, a God who will avenge and punish evil. Without that belief, what is to stop someone from taking revenge themselves when they have been wronged?

Most of you have likely never experienced atrocities to the level that Volf has. However, the principle still applies to us. When we are wronged, we want vengeance, and we feel justified in punishing, slandering, or otherwise harming those who have hurt us. But God loves us with a perfect love, and that love includes perfect hatred of evil as well as the perfect perspective by which to judge, and the perfect ability to exercise that judgment in the perfect way at the perfect time. It is His to avenge, His to repay, He says. Our job, according to Jesus, is to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us, and to let our God of love – and wrath – take care of the question of justice. May God give you the strength – and trust – to do just that.