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ὀργή (Orgē): The Wrath of God Revealed · Reformed Thinking

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Hello and welcome back to Reform Thinking.
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Hey, it is good to be here. Yeah.
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So if this your first time tuning in, we're really glad you
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found us. And if you are a regular the
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learner as we call you, welcome back to the conversation.
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We have a massive topic on the docket today.
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We really do. And when I say massive, I mean
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it carries a lot of weight. In fact, it might be the
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heaviest thing we've ever put on the table for one of these
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discussions. It is heavy, but you know, heavy
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things are often the most crucial things to talk about.
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You cannot build a solid house on Styrofoam.
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You need stone. And today we are looking at some
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real granite. Granite is a really good word
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for it. Our mission today is to look at
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a concept that, let's be honest, most modern people would
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strongly prefer to ignore. Oh absolutely, they run from it.
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We are talking about wrath, specifically the biblical
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concept of wrath, and we're going to be zooming in on the
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Greek term or Co. And because this is Reformed
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thinking, we're not just going to skim the surface or apologize
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for the text. We're going to unpack it through
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the lens of systematic theology to see how it fits into the
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whole picture of who God is. Yeah, because it is sort of the
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elephant in the room of modern Christianity.
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It really is. I mean, we love to talk about
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grace. We'd love to talk about mercy,
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but you cannot have an honest conversation about the cure if
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you flat out refuse to talk about the disease and the
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doctor's reaction to that disease.
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That is the PR problem though, isn't it?
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The PR problem. Yeah, I mean, when people hear
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the word wrath, they do not think of a doctor fighting a
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disease. They think of a toddler throwing
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a tantrum or an abusive father flying off the handle because
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the house is messy, right? It feels volatile.
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It feels unsafe to people. Spot on.
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We project our own emotional instability onto God.
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We assume that if God is angry, he must be having a bad day.
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He must be losing control. Right, like he skipped his
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morning coffee. Yeah, precisely.
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But if we are going to be honest students of the text, we have to
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deal with the fact that Scripture speaks of God's wrath
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constantly. It isn't just a side note, it is
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a central theme from Genesis all the way to Revelation.
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So the question we have to wrestle with, and I know this is
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the stumbling block for so many people out there, is how do we
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reconcile the God of love, the God we see in Jesus washing
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feet, with the terrifying descriptions of fire and
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judgment and fury? That is the tension.
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Is God bipolar? Does he have mood swings?
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That is the big question. And if the answer is yes, then
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we were all in serious trouble. Yeah, we are, but the answer is
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no. To understand why, we have to
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strip away our modern English baggage and go back to the
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source text. We need to look at the
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etymology, where the word actually comes from.
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OK, We need to see how the Old Testament shapes the New
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Testament writers, and we need to see how wrath is actually a
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direct function of God's holiness.
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The goal here is to get past the caricature.
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Right. By the time we are done with
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this deep dive, I hope we will see that biblical wrath is not
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an emotional outburst. It is not God losing his temper.
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It is a settled and necessary and completely controlled
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reaction of holiness against evil.
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OK, let's get to work on this. We are focusing on this Greek
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word orgo. It is the standard New Testament
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word for wrath, but words of histories.
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They don't just appear out of thin air.
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No, they do not. Where does?
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Orga come from. It is actually a fascinating bit
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of linguistics. The noun orgo comes from a root
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verb or go, and originally this was not an angry word at all.
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It was agricultural. Agricultural biological event.
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OK, I did not see that coming. Orgo refers to a swelling,
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specifically a swelling with SAP.
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Like tree SAP? Yes, like tree SAP, it describes
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a natural impulse or a vigorous upsurge of life.
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Think about a fruit tree in the spring.
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You know when a bud is just about to break open it.
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Gets all plump. It is full, it is tight, it is
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swelling with life and juice. That is orgo.
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That is surprisingly vegetative. So originally it was not about
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being mad at all. It was about being full of
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vitality. Vitality is a great word for it.
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It was about a swelling of nature or a disposition.
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In classical Greek writers like Hesiod used it to describe a
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person's temperament. It was the internal disposition
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that swells up and then breaks forth into action.
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It is the life force pushing out.
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So if I am an ancient Greek farmer or Leah is actually good
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news for my olive trees means they're alive and producing.
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Correct, but here is where the usage shifts as the language
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developed, especially with the tragedians.
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Right. Yeah, guys like Sophocles and
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Euripides, they started applying this concept to human
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psychology. And in humans, a swelling of the
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soul that breaks forth into action is not always pretty.
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Because humans are not trees. We have wills and we make
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choices. And we have major flaws.
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So the words started to take on a darker hue.
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The Trojidians used it to describe a specific reaction of
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the soul, often a demonic excess of will.
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Wow, a demonic excess. They called it a fateful
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necessity in those Greek tragedies.
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When you see orgis, you are almost always seeing a character
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driven by a passion they simply cannot control.
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It is a swelling of the soul that completely overrides reason
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and leads directly to destruction.
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So. It went from a fruit bursting
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with juice to a human bursting with uncontrollable rage.
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In a sense, yes. It became the word for a passion
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that takes over the driver's seat.
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And this brings us to the philosophers.
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You know how the Greeks loved their philosophy?
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Oh yeah, they had an opinion on everything.
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The Stoics in particular had a very specific view on this type
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of internal swelling. I'm guessing they were not fans.
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They absolutely hated it. To the Stoic, orga was a
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passion, a pathos. And in Stoic ethics, the main
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goal of life is apatheia, freedom from passion.
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Which is where we get our word apathy.
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Right. They believed that a wise man
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should never be moved by emotion.
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If you are angry, you have lost control.
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You have let the external world dictate your internal state.
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The classic stone. The Stoic sage is an island.
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Nothing can hurt him, so nothing can make him angry.
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Therefore, when they thought about God, they projected this
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ideal upward. They believe the perfect being
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must be apathized completely without passion.
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So for a stoic, a God who gets angry is a contradiction terms.
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It would mean that God is weak. Precisely, they would argue that
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if God gets angry he is reacting to something outside himself
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that would mean he is not self-sufficient.
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Or they would say he's losing his composure.
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OK, what about the Epicureans? Even the Epicureans, who had a
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totally different view of the world, agreed on this one point.
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They believe the divine being was wholly inactive.
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The guides are up there in the ether, drinking nectar,
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completely indifferent to human affairs.
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They just do not care. They are neither gracious nor
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angry. I just watch.
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This is where the contrast gets really sharp for me, because
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that is clearly not the God of the Bible.
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The God of the Bible is not sitting around drinking nectar
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while the world burns down. It is the exact opposite.
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The God of Scripture is not the unmoved mover of Aristotle or
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the passionless mind of the Starks.
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The God of the Bible cares, and because he cares, he reacts.
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That makes sense. You cannot love something and
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remain indifferent when it is threatened or destroyed.
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That is a key distinction. If you love your child and
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someone attacks your child and you have 0 emotional reaction,
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that isn't stoic perfection. That is just bad parenting.
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It is a massive defect. It is a lack of love.
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A God who looks at sex trafficking or genocide or the
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abuse of the poor and feels absolutely nothing, That is not
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a God worth worshipping. No, not at all.
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So when we see orga applied to God in the Bible, we are not
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importing the Greek idea of a demonic excess of will or a loss
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of self-control. We are seeing a God who is so
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intensely personal and committed to his creation that he swells
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up against that which destroys it.
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He is full of life, so he opposes death.
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Yes, that is the bedrock idea. Here, now, obviously the New
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Testament was written in Greek, but the writers were thinking
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like Hebrews, they were steeped in the Old Testament.
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So we have to look at the Hebrew background too.
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We do. When the Septuagint, the Greek
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translation of the Old Testament, chose the word or
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gay, what Hebrew concepts were they trying to translate?
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Because Hebrew is a very earthy language.
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It's very earthy, and this is where it gets incredibly
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visceral. The primary Hebrew word
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translated as wrath is off. Off OK and that.
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Literally means nose or nostril. Wait, stop.
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Yeah, the theological word for the wrath of the Almighty God is
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nose. Yes, nose.
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I am picturing this and it is just bizarre.
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We are talking about the creator of the universe here.
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Are you telling me the Hebrew writers could not come up with a
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better abstract concept for divine justice than snorting?
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It sounds bizarre to us because we moderns think abstractly, but
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the Hebrew mind thinks concretely.
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They describe the emotion by the physical symptom it produces.
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When a person or an animal like a bull gets really angry, what
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happens physically? The breathing changes.
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Right. You breathe much harder, your
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nostrils flare, you snort. So to say God's anger was
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kindled in Hebrew is literally to say God's nose burned or his
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nostril slaired. That is incredibly graphic.
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It sounds almost uncomfortable. Human.
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Yeah, it is what we call an anthropopathism.
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Anthropopathism. That is a mouthful.
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We are ascribing human feelings or physical traits to God to
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understand Him in our own limited terms.
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But there are other words too. Just to fill out the picture.
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There is chima, which means heat or even poison like snake venom.
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So it implies a deadly internal burning.
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Exactly. And there's Chima, which is the
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literal burning or blazing of anger.
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So we have a burning nose and snake venom.
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It paints a picture of something dangerous, something highly
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active. But let's go back to the nose
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thing for a second. Is scripture saying God
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literally has a physical nose? No, we have to distinguish
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between anthropomorphism, God having a physical body, and the
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theological reality. God is spirit, He doesn't have
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nostrils. Right, but these terms highlight
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the personal nature of Yahweh. He is not a cosmic force like
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gravity. Gravity does not care if you
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jump off a Cliff, it just blindly pulls you down.
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Yahweh is a person and persons have actual responses.
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And persons have relationships. Correct.
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In Greek mythology, the gods had many Orvis.
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A word for a grudge Holding wrath.
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Like holding onto an insult. Yes, it was petty.
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It was like you forgot to sacrifice a goat to me, so I
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will sink your ship. It was deeply insecure.
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The Septuagint translators largely avoided using that word
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Menis for God. They preferred orga and thymos.
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Why? Because they wanted to show that
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God's reaction was not a petty grudge, it was a holy moral
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reaction. So what actually causes this
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moral reaction? If it is not, you forgot my go.
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What triggers it? It is the violation of the
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covenant. It is not capricious.
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You do not wake up in the morning wondering if Yahweh is
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in a bad mood today. His wrath is provoked by
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specific things, usually idolatry or rank injustice.
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So it is reliable, you know what the boundaries.
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Are it is perfectly consistent and here is a concept I really
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want us to grasp. Wounded love.
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Wounded love. God's wrath is the reverse side
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of his His covenant love and His Kodesh.
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His Holiness Scripture says he is a jealous God.
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That does not mean he is insecure or envious of other
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gods. It means he is jealous for his
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people. He wants them for himself.
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He refuses to share them with things that will ultimately kill
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them. Like the golden calf incident in
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Exodus 32. That is the classic example.
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Right. It is a perfect example.
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He rescues them from Egypt, he performs all these massive
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miracles, he splits the sea for them and 5 minutes later they
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are down there worshipping a cow made of melted jewelry.
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His wrath burns. His nose burns.
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Not because he has an ego problem, but because this is a
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fundamental betrayal of the relationship that is the very
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source of their life. It is like a husband seeing his
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wife destroy herself with an affair.
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Now, the Old Testament doesn't just talk about God's anger, it
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talks about human anger too. It seems to have a very
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different take on that. Very different.
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The wisdom literature, books like Proverbs and Ecclesiastes
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is generally very negative about human anger.
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It says anger resides in the lap of fools.
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It says a hot tempered man stirs up strife constantly.
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Why the double standard? Why is it a holy thing for God
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but foolish for us? Because God's wrath is always
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completely controlled by His perfect righteousness, ours is
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almost always controlled by our ego, or our hurt pride, or,
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frankly, our lack of information.
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We jump to conclusion. We do, But even with God, there
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is a modifier here that we cannot miss.
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The Old Testament repeatedly says God is slowed anger.
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The Hebrew phrase is Eric apeum. Which relates back to the nose
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word. Literally it means long of nose.
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Long of nose. Yes, the image is that it takes
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a very long time for the snorting to actually begin.
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Think about it physically. A short nose breathes quick,
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shallow breaths. Panic, rage, reaction.
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A long nose takes a deep long breath.
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He inhales. He is patient.
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He gives ample time for repentance.
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He does not fly off the handle at the very first infraction.
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That is a beautiful image honestly.
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Lung of nose. It gives you room to breathe.
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It implies massive restraint and control.
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God has the absolute power to destroy but.
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He holds it back. He holds it back to give space
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for grace. So moving into the New
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Testament, does this dynamic change at all?
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We often hear people say the Old Testament God is a God of wrath
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and the New Testament God is a God of love.
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Like he went to anger management classes in the intertestamental
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period and chilled out. That is the oldest heresy in the
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book. It is called Marcinism, named
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after Marcion, a guy in the 2nd century who tried to cut the
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entire Old Testament out of the Bible because he thought the OT
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God was just too mean. The church rejected that idea
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completely. The New Testament maintains the
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exact same tension. God is the same yesterday,
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today, and forever. But the evaluation of human
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anger seems to get even stricter in the New Testament.
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You mentioned James chapter one verse 20 earlier when we were
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prepping for this. Yeah, James says the anger of
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man does not produce the righteousness of God.
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That is a definitive blanket statement.
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Human orga usually fails to achieve divine ends.
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Paul says in Ephesians 431 to put away all bitterness and
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wrath. In Colossians 2.
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Right in Colossians 3/8, he lists anger as something to
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strip off, like dirty clothes. Because it is inherently
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selfish. Because it gives place to the
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devil, it destroys Christian community.
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When we get angry, we almost always end up sinning.
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We attack the person, not the problem.
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However, there is one exception and it is a massive 1 Jesus.
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Mark chapter 3, verse 5. This is the scene in the
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synagogue with the man with the wizard hand.
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Yes, let's set the scene. It is the Sabbath.
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There is a man there suffering with this physical deformity and
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the Pharisees are watching Jesus like Hawks, not to see a
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miracle, but to see if he will break their little Sabbath rule
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so they can formally accuse him. They.
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Do not care about the suffering man at all.
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They care about their power. And the text says Jesus looked
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around at them with anger, met orgas.
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He was visibly angry. He felt orgas.
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And notice the 'cause he was grieved at their hardness of
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heart, This completely validates that Orga can in fact be
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righteous. But notice it was anger at the
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religious leaders blocking God's mercy.
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It was not anger because they insulted him personally.
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That is a. Huge distinction because when
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they insulted him later, when they spat on him and mocked him
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during the trials, he was silent.
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He didn't get angry then, but when they hurt the vulnerable or
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blocked Grace, he was furious. Precisely.
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It shows that anger is not intrinsically evil, but it must
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be aligned perfectly with God's holiness.
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Since we are fallen, our anger is rarely aligned that way.
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That is why we are told to be slow to speak and slow to anger.
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We are not good at it. Jesus is.
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The New Testament actually uses two different Greek words for
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anger, right? Yeah, we have been talking about
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orgo, but there's also thymos. Is there a difference or are
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they just synonyms? There is a definite nuance
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between them. Thymos often denotes A turbulent
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boiling up of passion. It is like a match flaring up
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hot, explosive quick, or the thick smoke rising from a fire.
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You see, Thymos used a lot in the Book of Revelation to
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describe the final explosive outpouring of judgement.
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And. Orga tends to refer to a
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settled, abiding opposition to evil.
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It isn't a sudden flare up, it is a state of being.
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It is the permanent posture of a holy God towards sin.
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So it is more constant. Yeah, it is interesting that
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Paul almost exclusively uses orgy in his letters to the
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Romans and Thessalonians. He views it not just as a
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passing emotion, but as a status.
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You are either living under grace or you are living under
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wrath. It is a realm.
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That brings us right to Romans. If you want to understand the
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Reformed view of wrath, or really the biblical view, you
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have to go straight to Romans chapter 1.
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It is the absolute anchor text. You cannot understand the Gospel
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without Romans 1. I think a lot of people think of
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wrath is something that only happens at the very end of the
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World Judgement Day, fire falling from the sky.
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But Paul seems to say something quite different in Romans 118.
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He does. He uses the present tense.
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He says the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven.
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Apocalyptiti. It is happening right now.
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Look out the window. Watch the Evening News.
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Wrath is being revealed today. So what does that actually look
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like? If fire isn't literally falling
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from the sky right now, how is wrath being revealed?
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This is the terrifying part, and this is where the Reformed
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theological lens really helps us see the text clearly.
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Paul explains that God reveals his wrath by giving them over.
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The Greek word is Periducan. Giving them over to what?
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To their own desires, to impurity, to a debased mind, we
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tend to think that sin is the fun part and judgement is the
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nasty hangover or the punishment that comes later.
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Right, like getting caught. But Paul teaches that the moral
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chaos of the world, the addiction, the perversion, the
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breakdown of families, the confusion of identity is not
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just the cause for judgement. It is the judgement.
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Wait, hold on. So the punishment for sin is
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more sin. In a real sense, yes.
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It is the specific punishment of divine abandonment.
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It is God removing his restraining hand, what we call
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his common grace, and saying you want a world without me?
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You want to be your own God? OK, have it your way.
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That sounds less like a judge slamming A gavel and more like,
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well, that sounds like a parent finally letting go of the bike
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and letting the kid crash into the wall.
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It is God handing us over to the natural, unavoidable
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consequences of our own rebellion.
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If you unplug a fan from the wall, the blade keeps spinning
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for a while, but it is totally disconnected from the source of
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power. Eventually it stops.
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Humanity unplugged itself from God.
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The chaos we see in society is the fan slowing down.
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It is a vicious circle. Sin leads to wrath, which is the
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giving over, which leads to more sin, and hardening which leads
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to more wrath. But hold on a second, if God
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gives them over, isn't he essentially enabling the
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addiction? That sounds really harsh to
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modern years. It sounds like he's saying fine,
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go play in traffic. It is harsh, but remember they
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are banging on the door demanding to play in traffic.
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They're actively suppressing the truth, Paul says.
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They know God exists internally, but they suppress that truth, so
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God honors their choice. He lets them have what they
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asked for. As CS Lewis famously said, there
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are really only two kinds of people in the end.
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Those who say to God thy will be done, and those to whom God says
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in the end thy will be done. The giving over is God saying
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thy will be done. That is a really heavy concept.
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It means when we look at a culture spiraling completely out
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of control, we aren't waiting for judgement to fall.
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We are watching judgement happen in real time.
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The spiral is the wrath. We are watching the giving over.
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But Paul doesn't stop with just the present reality.
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There is also a future reality. He talks in Romans 2 verse 5
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about storing up wrath. Thesaur is Inc.
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That sounds like Thesaurus. It does.
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It means a treasury or a storehouse.
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Usually the Bible talks about storing up treasures in heaven,
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rewards, good deeds, things like that.
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But here Paul uses a dark irony. He says the unrepentant person
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is investing every single day. They are putting capital into a
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bank account, but the currency is wrath.
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A treasury of wrath. Every sin, every single act of
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rebellion, every suppression of the truth is a deposit, and the
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account is growing with compound interest, and on the day of
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judgement that account will be paid out in full.
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That is a chilling metaphor. It implies nothing is ever
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forgotten. Nothing is forgotten.
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God is a perfect record keeper and in First Thessalonians 216
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Paul says wrath has come upon them to the end or fully and
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forever. There is a definitive day of
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wrath, the Dies IRA. It is the final vindication of
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God's absolute holiness. It is when the account is
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finally settled. So we have this present giving
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over and this future outpouring. Let's jump to the end of the
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book Revelation. The imagery there is wild, but
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there is one phrase that always stops me in my tracks when I
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read it. Revelation 616 The Wrath of the
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Lamb. It is one of the most jarring
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paradoxes in all of literature anywhere.
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A lamb. Think about it.
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A lamb is the universal symbol of meekness, gentleness,
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sacrifice. A lamb does not have fangs, it
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does not have claws. A lamb gets eaten.
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It does not attack. Right.
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You do not put a Beware of lamb sign on your front fence.
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It is fluffy. It is harmless.
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But here in Revelation, the kings of the earth, the
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generals, the rich, the powerful, they're begging.
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The mountain is to fall on them. They are literally shouting to
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the rocks. Hide us from the face of Him who
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sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.
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How does a lamb generate that kind of sheer terror?
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This connects directly back to what we said earlier about
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wounded love. The Lamb is the judge.
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Why? Because the Lamb was the
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sacrifice. The rejection of the Lamb
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sacrifice is the ultimate cause of the ultimate wrath.
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Because they trampled on the cure.
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Yes, if you trample on the only thing in the universe that can
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save you, there is absolutely nothing left but judgement.
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If you reject the medic, you die of the disease.
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The wrath is fueled by the greatness of the rejected love.
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Revelation also uses a lot of liquid imagery for Wrath, the
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cup, and the wine press. It seems to be obsessed with
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fluids. It is very graphic imagery.
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The cup of wine is an image pulled straight from the Old
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Testament prophets like Jeremiah 25.
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The nations are forced to drink the wine of God's fury.
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Think about what too much wine does to a person.
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It makes you stagger. It makes you confused.
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You lose all control. You fall down in the dirt.
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So the judgement is described as a sort of spiritual
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intoxication. It implies A staggering,
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terrifying destruction. Total disorientation, but the
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wine press imagery is even more intense.
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Revelation 1915 depicts Christ personally treading the wine
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Press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.
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I have a vague idea what a literal wine press is.
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Yeah, it is how they made wine in the old days, right?
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Yes, you put all the harvested grapes in a large stone through
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and then people would get him barefoot and literally stomp on
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them. They would crush the grapes
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until the juice flowed out a drain at the bottom.
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And in this metaphor. In this metaphor, the grapes are
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rebellious humanity, and the one treading them is Christ Himself.
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It is an image of total, unmitigated crushing.
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And the juice, The text explicitly connects it to blood.
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It is showing the absolute incompatibility of sin with the
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holy presence of God. Sin cannot stand.
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It is crushed completely. It is not a pleasant image at
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all. In fact, it is horrifying.
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It is meant to be horrifying. If we sanitize it, we lose the
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gravity of what sin actually is. Sin isn't just a minor mistake,
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it is a cosmic rebellion against the Creator that requires A
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cosmic response. Who actually executes this
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wrath? Does God do it directly or does
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he have agents that he uses? It is both actually.
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God often uses instruments to execute or go.
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Sometimes it is the state. Romans 13 four calls the civil
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magistrate a servant of God and avenger who carries out God's
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wrath on the wrongdoer. That is interesting.
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So a judge sentencing a criminal to prison is, in a limited
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temporal way, an instrument of Orgo.
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Correct. Civil justice in a functioning
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society is a flickering candle of God's blazing eternal
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justice. But sometimes God uses the
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natural order, storms, plagues, famines, and sometimes he even
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uses demonic forces. In Revelation, God actually
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allows the abyss to open. That seems strange to a lot of
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people. God using the devil.
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This is a distinctively Reformed perspective.
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We believe God is totally sovereign over absolutely
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everything, including evil, even Satan.
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Satan is not a rival God, he is a created.
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Being he is finite. Right in his raging, Satan is
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unwittingly acting as a tool of God's sovereign judgement.
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Satan means it for evil, but God uses him as an instrument of
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wrath, even while Satan himself remains an object of that same
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wrath. Martin Luther famously called
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the devil God's devil. He is on a leash.
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That leads us right into the deep waters.
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We really cannot talk about reformed theology and wrath
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without talking about election. We have to go to Romans chapter.
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Nine, you cannot avoid it. Romans 9 is the theological
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Everest. The air is very thin up there.
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Paul brings up this concept of vessels of wrath.
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Skia orgus, Paul asked the rhetorical question.
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What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His
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power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath
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prepared for destruction? OK, let's walk through this
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slowly because people trip over this constantly prepared for
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destruction. That sounds like God just
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created some people for the sole purpose of destroying them.
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Like he built a faulty car just to drive it off a Cliff for fun.
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We really have to look at the Greek verb forms carefully here.
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This is where paying attention to the grammar actually saves us
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from bad theology. In the very next verse, Paul
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speaks about vessels of mercy. He says God prepared them
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beforehand for glory. The verb there is active.
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God actively did it. God is the sole active agent in
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preparing people for heaven. OK, so salvation is 100% God's
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doing, yes? But when he speaks of the
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vessels of wrath, the grammatical construction
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completely changes. It implies A passive or a middle
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voice. It suggests they were fitted or
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they fit themselves for destruction.
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That is a subtle but massive. Difference.
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It is huge. God actively prepares the
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vessels of mercy, but the vessels of wrath fit themselves
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for destruction through their own continual sin and rebellion.
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Humans provide the sin. God simply provides the justice.
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So God is not the author of their sin, no.
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Absolutely not. But the crucial point Paul is
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making here is why? Why does God tolerate these
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vessels of wrath at all? Why didn't he just wipe out
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Pharaoh immediately the first time he said no?
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Why does he let human history run its course with all this
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horrible evil? Paul says it is to make known
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the riches of his glory to the vessels of mercy.
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Exactly. Well, spot on.
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The backdrop of wrath is necessary for us to perceive the
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magnitude of grace. You cannot appreciate the light
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without the darkness. Imagine a master jeweler showing
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you a flawless diamond. What do they display it on?
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Usually a piece of black velvet. Why black Velvet?
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To make it pop, to show the brilliance of the cut against
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the dark background. Without the black velvet of
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God's perfect justice and wrath, the diamond of His grace simply
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does not shine as brightly to us.
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We would take salvation completely for granted if we
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didn't understand what we were actually saved.
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From we would just think God owes it to us.
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Right. If there is no real danger,
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there is no real rescue. If there is no wrath, grace is
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just niceness. So the existence of wrath
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actually serves the glory of mercy.
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That is the hard but glorious truth of it.
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It magnifies God's attribute of mercy to the elect.
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This brings us to the most important question of the
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discussion today, the So what if the whole world is under orgo?
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If Ephesians 2-3 is right and we are all by nature children of
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wrath, and if God is holy and must judge sin, how does anyone
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ever escape? Are we all just waiting for the
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Winepress? That is the ultimate question
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the gospel answers. If you do not feel the crushing
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weight of the wrath, the gospel just sounds like helpful life
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advice. But if you feel the weight, the
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gospel is a life preserver in a hurricane.
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So what is the answer? The answer is found in First
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Thessalonians one verse 10. Paul describes Christians as
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those who wait for his Son from heaven, Jesus, who delivers us
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from the wrath to come. How does he actually do it
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though? Does he just ask the father to
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calm down? Does he distract him?
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No, that would deny God's perfect justice.
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The debt must be paid in full. The nose is burning.
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The law has been completely broken.
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God cannot just wink at sin and sweep it under the rug.
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If He did, He would cease to be holy.
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So the wrath has to go somewhere.
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It has to land. It has to land, it has to be
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spent, and this is where we get to the most beautiful word in
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the theological dictionary, propitiation.
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Appreciation. That is a very big seminary
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word. We do not use that at the
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grocery store. We really should.
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It is a better word than expiation.
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Expiation just means wiping away sins, like cleaning a
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whiteboard. But propitiation means something
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much more specific. It means to fully satisfy wrath.
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It means to appease an offended party.
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It means the anger is actually absorbed.
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Yes, Christ did not just cancel the debt on a Ledger.
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He paid it. He physically and spiritually
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absorbed the order. Connect this back to the cup
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imagery we talked about earlier, the Cup of Staggering.
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Go to the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus is on his knees in the
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dirt. He is sweating drops of blood.
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He is in absolute agony, and he prays.
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Father. If it be possible at this cup
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pass for me. I always honestly thought he was
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just afraid of the physical pain.
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The Romans denails the cross. Many martyrs have died very
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bravely. Many regular people have been
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crucified without sweating blood beforehand.
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Jesus was not a coward. He was not afraid of iron nails.
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He was afraid of the cup. What was actually in the cup?
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The wine of the fierce wrath of God, the accumulated orga
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against all the sins of all His people throughout history, every
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lie, every murder, every lustful thought, every act of idolatry,
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it was all distilled into that One Cup, and he had to drink it.
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He drank the poison so he would not have to drink a drop.
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He drained it completely to the dregs when he was hanging on the
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cross and supernatural darkness covered the land.
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He was experiencing the ultimate giving over.
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He was being forsaken by the Father, and when he cried, it is
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finished. The cup was completely empty.
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He turned it over. That changes everything about
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how we view the cross. It does for the believer.
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There is not one single drop of God's wrath left, Romans 59 says
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much more than being now justified by His blood.
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We shall be saved from wrath through Him.
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There's also a connection to baptism here, is there?
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And John the Baptist said something specifically about
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this. He looked at the self-righteous
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Pharisees and asked, who warned you to flee from the wrath to
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come? Baptism is a vivid physical
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picture of this deliverance. Water in the Bible is very often
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a symbol of judgement and chaos. Think of Noah's flood.
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The water wiped out the sin of the world.
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So going under the water and baptism is like going through
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the judgment. Yes, you go down into the death,
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you go under the floodwaters, but you come back up.
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We pass through the waters of judgment safely because we are
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safely inside the Ark, and the ark is Christ.
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He took the violent battering of the storm so we could stay
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completely dry inside. So for the listener right now,
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if they're in Christ, if they're trusting in that finished work,
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what is their current relationship to wrath?
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It is absolute 0 There's none left for you, First
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Thessalonians 59 says. For God has not destined us for
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wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.
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That is the root of real Christian joy.
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It is. We do not have to look at the
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sky and constantly wonder if the lightning bolt is coming for us.
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We do not have to interpret every flat tire or bad day at
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work as God punishing us for something we did last week.
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Because the lightning already struck.
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The Lightning already struck Calvary and just as dictates it
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will not strike the same place twice, the debt is paid.
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That is a striking relief. It means we can actually have a
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daily relationship with God based on love, not terror.
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John wrote There's No Fear in love, but perfect love casts out
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fear. Why?
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Because fear has to do with punishment.
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If the punishment is gone, the fear is gone.
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So to wrap this up, and we have covered a massive amount of
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ground today from Greek agricultural roots to the cross
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itself. We started with the popular idea
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that wrath is just God losing his temper.
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We have clearly seen that is not the case.
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No, not at all. Wrath is God's intensely
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personal, wholly settled opposition to sin.
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It is the nose of God, flaring at the smell of the rot that
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destroys his beautiful creation. It is revealed right now in the
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giving over of society to its own destructive devices, and it
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will be revealed perfectly later in the final judgement.
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But the reality of that wrath is the very thing that makes the
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cross so magnificent. That is the final thought.
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I want to leave the learner today.
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We cannot truly understand John 316, for God so loved the world
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without also understanding John 336.
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The wrath of God abides on him. You desperately need the bad
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news to get the good news. Precisely.
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The love is measured by the sheer magnitude of the wrath He
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saved us from. If I save you from stepping in a
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puddle, that is nice of me. If I save you from a burning
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building at the cost of my own life, that is profound love.
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If God's wrath is small, then His love is small.
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If God's wrath is infinite, and he took it upon Himself to save
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you, then His love is infinite. That puts it all in perspective.
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It makes the gospel the absolute best news in the universe.
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Thank you for unpacking that for us and to the learner, thank you
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for sitting at the table with us to process this.
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We hope this deep dive helps you read your Bible with fresh eyes.
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Remember, if you are in Christ, you are not destined for wrath
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but for salvation. Rest in that today.
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Amen. This has been Reformed thinking.
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We will see you next time.