What does the Bible mean when it states the wrath of God?
Posted July 18th, 2009 by OmarE
I have heard many times about the wrath of God, exactly what does this mean. When I think of wrath I think cruel things happenning to those individiuals who disobey. However, I know that God is a God of Love and wants us to spend eternity with him. So please someone help to understand this.
The wrath of God is one of if not, the most misunderstood concepts in the bible. The answer again goes back to the character of God. 1 John 1 verse 5 puts it simply, 'God is light, and in him is no darkness AT ALL'. It is important to note that some bible language lost alot of its true meaning in translation. We know wrath to mean displays of fury,anger, agression and vengance and we see alot of that in the old testament and that confuses many christians; Exodus 34:6 'lord God merciful and gracious'/ luke 6:36 ' merciful, as your father also is merciful'. How can God be merciful (Deut 4:31 'the lord thy God is a merciful God')and yet vengeful at the same time? the answer is he isnt. God has always been only LOVE/PEACE/TRUTH, remember colossians 1 verse 17 ' and he is before all things, and by him all things consist (he holds everything together and keeps everything in balance). When we disobey the laws and statutes of our lord we push ourselves further and further away from God and when we deny God finally he respects our wishes and departs from us.Since he is life and peace and love when he departs from us all that is left is death, destruction, darkness, chaos,mayheim.We cannot blame God for the decisions we make in all biblical disasters God has always sent out a warning before hand. Isaiah 54:8 states 'In a little wrath I hid my face' God turns away from us when we turn away from him. If we do not choose to dwell with God he cannot remain with us, even God respects choice again because he is love. The wrath of God occurs when God turns away from us based of our decision to disobey, deny and rebel against his laws.
Therefore from what you are saying the word "wrath" as we know it should not apply to the God's wrath. The decisions today we make will create the future results.
Normally when people talk about the wrath of God it is means that he kills (as seen in the flood and Sodom) and punishes us harshly for our wrong doings. However, the truth is that we punish ourselves because without God there is only death and pain.
We are all Joint-Heirs with Christ