R.V.G. Tasker, Professor of New Testament Exegesis in the
University of London, said:
The view advocated so persistently and so thoroughly
by Marcion in the second century, and consciously or unconsciously echoed in
much so-called 'Christian' teaching in recent years, that the Old Testament
reveals solely a God of wrath and the New Testament solely a God of love, is
completely erroneous. It can easily be disproved by anyone who is prepared to
give more than superficial attention to the text of the Bible.[1]
When John the Baptizer "saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming
to his baptism, he said to them, 'You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee
from the wrath to come?'" (Matt 3:7) He said the same thing to the
crowds. "He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be
baptized by him, 'You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to
come?'" (Luke 3:7)
John is the last Old Testament prophet.[2]
He speaks
of the wrath "to come." So we can't confine the wrath of God to the Old Testament.
Jesus: Wrath Remains
Jesus said, "Whoever
believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not
see life, but the wrath of God remains on him." (John 3:36) The wrath of God
remains. It is not confined
to the Old Testament.
Paul: Day of Wrath Coming
Paul begins his explanation of the Gospel to the Romans,
saying, "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth." (Rom
1:18) He says we "were by nature children of wrath, like the
rest of mankind." (Eph 2:3)
Paul speaks of
God's wrath as something to be revealed on a great and terrible day in the
future. He says, "But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are
storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment
will be revealed. " (Rom 2:5) He says, "There will
be wrath and fury." (Rom 2:8) "Let no one deceive you with empty words, for
because of these things [sin] the wrath of God comes upon the sons of
disobedience." (Eph 5:6) "On account of these [sin] the wrath of God is
coming." (Col 3:6)
The future wrath is the reason for the shedding of Christ's
blood. "Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more
shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God." (Rom 5:9) We "wait for his Son
from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath
to come." (1 Thess 1:10)
John: Wrath of the Lamb
In the last book of the New Testament, John sees a future time
with people "calling to the mountains and rocks, 'Fall on us and
hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of
the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?'"
(Rev
6:16-17) The Lamb is Christ. He is the Lamb of God, the Passover Lamb, the Lamb
of sacrifice and atonement.[3]
Angels bring the future wrath of God. (Rev 14:19; 16:1) Then Jesus, himself, brings it. "From his
[Jesus'] mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he
will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of
the wrath of God the Almighty." (Rev 19:15)
Wrath: Endless Destruction
God's wrath destroys body and soul, but this destruction is
not an annihilation. The torment goes on and on, day and night, without rest
forever.
And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with
a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on
his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured
full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and
sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And
the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day
or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the
mark of its name.” (Rev 14:9-11)
Who Revealed Hell?
That scene suggests "hell fire" that
we like to relegate to the Old Testament and to outmoded tent revival preaching
somewhere in the Bible Belt decades ago. But get this: Jesus is the revealer of
hell and hell fire.
The Old Testament hardly develops the idea of hell. It talks
about Sheol and hardly describes it. Sheol is shadowy. It might be bad, but it
does not appear hellish.
Jesus uses the word geenna for
hell. This was the valley of Hinnom, a valley of Jerusalem. It was the open town dump
that burned and smelled continually. This is Jesus' chosen picture of hell.
This tells in one word more about hell than does the whole Old Testament.
It won't do
any good to flee from Moses to Jesus if we are trying to avoid talk of hell and
hell fire. Frankly, we'd do better running the other direction, if we could.
Jesus reveals hell and hell fire in Matt 5:22, 5:29, 5:30, 10:28, 18:9, 23:15,
23:33; Mark 9:43, 9:45, 9:47; Luke 12:5. To ignore hell, one practically must
ignore Jesus.
Day of Atonement
On the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16, the High Priest
sprinkled the blood of the sacrifice on the mercy seat, the cover of the Ark of
the Covenant, to make atonement for sin. Inside the Ark were the two Tables of
the Law, the writing of condemnation against us. The blood covered that
condemnation and turned away the wrath of God.
This is not outmoded history. The ark existed first in the Holy of Holies in
the heavenly realm, and then a shadow or copy of it was made on earth in the days of Moses
to give us some notion of sin, sacrifice, and salvation. Christ, our eternal
High Priest, entered the Holy of Holies in the heavenly realm and, through the Spirit,
offered his sacrifice to God. (Heb 9:11-14) The Ark goes on forever in heaven.
"Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen
within his temple." (Rev 11:19) Wrath is excluded from heaven only because
the blood of Jesus covers it.
Who Knows about Wrath?
Jesus knows about wrath. He suffered it for us.
The denial of wrath begs the question, why did
Jesus make such a project of turning away from us what did not exist? Why did the Father
provide in Christ a solution looking for a problem. If there is no sin, wrath, or
salvation, what were Gethsemane, the cross, and the Day of Atonement about? Why
do the temple, the ark, the covenant, and the blood of Jesus go on and on in
heaven, if wrath is nothing?
Magnificare peccatum -- to make sin great --
was, according to Luther's lecture on Romans of 1515-16, the sum of this Pauline
epistle. Luther's entire doctrine of justification hinges on a person's
existential [existenziell] experience of himself as a sinner without
the possibility of coming to God. Luther's doctrine of justification was among
Bonhoeffer's basic theological convictions, and thus taking sin
seriously was a crucial theme for him. ... The function of the law is to
reveal sin to the sinner who wishes to conceal it. This happens when the
law drives the sinner to despair, from which only God's pronouncement of freedom
in the gospel can deliver him. ... [Bonhoeffer] says, "Where there is no law,
there is no sin. Where there is no sin, there is no forgiveness. Where there is
no forgiveness, Christ came into the world and died in vain."4
Admit wrath, and receive the salvation that is in Christ
Jesus. Do not be deceived and ruined by the spirit of the age in which nothing
is sin and nothing is forgiven.
________________________
1. R.V.G.
Tasker, "The
Biblical Doctrine of the Wrath of God," The Tyndale Lecture in Biblical
Theology for 1951, (London: The Tyndale Press, 1951), p. 27.
2. Matt
11:13-14; and Luke 16:16.
3. John 1:29; 1:36; Acts 8:32; 1 Cor
5:7; 1 Pet 1:19; Rev 5:6-13; 6:1, 16; Rev 7:9-10, 14, 17; 8:1; 12:11; 13:8, 11;
14:1, 4, 10; 15:3; 17:14; 19:7, 9; 21:9, 14, 22-23, 27; 22:1, 3.
4. Wolf Krotke, "Dietrich Bonhoeffer
and Martin Luther" in Peter Frick, ed.,
Bonhoeffer's
Intellectual Formation: Theology and Philosophy in His Thought,
(Tubingen: Dulde-Druck, 1961) p. 65.
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