What Is The Wrath of God?

Romans 1:18 says, "For God's wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth."  What is the wrath of God?  

First, let’s be clear about what it is not.  It is not a loss of self-control and a violent concern for selfish interests (Leon Morris).  It is not a petulant, irrational burst of anger (NIV Study Bible).  It is not an impulsive outburst of anger aimed capriciously at people who God does not like (MacArthur Study Bible).  It is not a spontaneous emotional outburst (NLT Study Bible).  It is not fury, which generally means rage, or sudden outbursts of anger (William Hendriksen).  

The wrath of God can be summarized with two words:  revulsion and retribution.  The wrath of God is His revulsion (i.e., feeling of hatred, disgust, and horror) toward sin, and righteous retribution for sin.  In other words, God’s wrath is His hatred for sin and His determination to punish it.  

Sometimes in the Bible God’s wrath was poured out through events like the worldwide flood, or Sodom and Gomorrah.  In the New Testament, God’s wrath often refers to the day of judgment in the future when Christ comes back.  Romans 2:5 speaks of a future day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment is revealed.  Matthew 3:7 speaks of the coming wrath.  Colossians 3:6 says that God’s wrath is coming upon the disobedient.  That wrath will be expressed by sending unbelievers to hell for all eternity.

The Bible calls nonbelievers “children under wrath” (Eph 2:3).  In other words, because of their sin, God is determined to punish them in hell (Mt 25:46).  They are headed for eternal destruction.  Jesus said that if you believe in Him you have eternal life, but if you reject Him, the wrath of God remains on you (Jn 3:36).

In Romans 1:18 it says that “the wrath of God is revealed.”  It doesn’t merely say that it will be revealed on judgment day, but that it is revealed presently.  What does that mean?  In the previous verse (Rm 1:17) Paul said that in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed.  The gospel reveals the way that God makes us right with Himself.  How is that?  The cross.  “He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us,  so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:21).”  The gospel reveals that the way God makes us right with Himself is by punishing Christ for our sins and rewarding us for Christ’s righteousness.  Just as the gospel reveals the righteousness of God, it is also the gospel that reveals the wrath of God.  The wrath of God against sin is so severe that it required the day of His Son to make atonement.  

You may not like the idea of God’s wrath.  Perhaps you like to think of God as a nice grandpa, or maybe a figure like Santa Claus who would never hurt anyone.  But that’s not the God of the Bible.  Yes, He is loving, and gracious, and merciful, but He is also holy, and just, and He has wrath.

The theologian A.W. Pink wrote that it is actually very healthy for Christians to meditate on the wrath of God -- for three reasons.  First, "that our hearts may be duly impressed by God's detestation of sin."  Our tendency is to minimize the seriousness of, and evil of, and impact of sin.  Meditating on God's wrath will help us to realize the heinousness of sin.  Second, to grow in the fear of God.  The Bible says that we cannot adequately worship and serve God without fearing Him, and to fear God we must remember that He is a consuming fire (Heb 12:28-29).  Third, to inspire us to praise God even more for the cross of Christ.  The whole purpose of the cross was to deliver us from God's wrath (1 Thess 1:10).  If we don't understand God's wrath, then we will not appreciate the cross.