Is God a Wrathful God?

Is God Wrathful?

The cross does cleanse our consciousness, but this is only a result of the cross, not its entire purpose. The truth of the cross sets us free.

Psalm 51:2
Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

But how? Because men�s sins are no longer counted against them because of the cross.

2 Corinthians 5:18-19
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation

Men�s sins are not counted against them NOT because God is love, but because God�s love provided the means to satisfy His holy wrath so that He could forgive us of all our iniquity. It was not only for our cleansed conscious that Jesus came.

The ultimate cause that led to Christ�s coming to earth and dying for our sins was the holy nature of God. He requires justice, but He offers to those who would believe, His love by the cross.

Psalm 7:11
God is a righteous judge, a God who expresses his wrath every day

God IS a wrathful God, and rightfully so. We have rebelled.

Psalm 90:11
Who knows the power of your anger? For your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.

John 3:36
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him

Romans 1:18
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness

Deuteronomy 32:22
For a fire has been kindled by my wrath, one that burns to the realm of death below.

Psalm 76:10
Surely your wrath against men brings you praise

Ezekiel 5:13
And when I have spent my wrath upon them, they will know that I the LORD have spoken in my zeal.

Romans 2:8
But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.

Ephesians 2:3-5
Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved.

God is wrathful. He is rightfully angry at us for our rebellion against Him.

Psalm 89:32
I will punish their sin with the rod, their iniquity with flogging.

Isaiah 59:2
But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear

Here is our hope:

Isaiah 53:6
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:5
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Isaiah 53:11
my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.

Romans 5:8
Christ died for us.

Galatians 2:20
The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me

He gave Himself for me. What does that mean if He did not come to save us from our sins?

1 John 4:10 NASB
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

1 John 2:2 NASB
and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world

Propitiation: to remove from us the wrath of God we deserved because of our sins.

1 John 4:10 NIV
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Yes, God is love. But God is just and God is holy and God is wrathful, all without contradiction:

Psalm 89:14
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; love and faithfulness go before you

No contradiction. He requires justice:

Isaiah 61:8
"For I, the LORD, love justice;

Psalm 9:16
The LORD is known by his justice;

Psalm 11:7
For the LORD is righteous, he loves justice;

That is why He planned the cross. He had to satisfy the demands of the law and punishment was extracted on His Son in our place. He has met the demands of His holiness and now we can enter into His presence. He showed us His love.

If Christ did not die to pay for our sins, then we are still in them. How could we trust in Him for the forgiveness of our sins? Christ would have died in vain.

If God could have set aside the requirement of payment and simply forgiven sins then why did Christ have to die?

Because of the cross we are justified. Justification is a legal act by God, the Judge, in which He thinks of our sins as belonging to Christ and Christ�s righteousness as belonging to us. We are declared righteous in the sight of God because of Christ�s work on our behalf (His sinless life) and because He died to save us.

Romans 5:9
Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!

1 Thessalonians 5:9
For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ

The cross removes our sins from us as far as the east is from the west (which is an immeasurable distance).

1 Timothy 1:15
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners

Not to make us "feel" good.

The Atonement is objective, that is something that happened outside of us, which has it�s primary effect on God, and only secondarily on us.

Unless Christ had died for us, we would have no record of obedience by which we would merit God�s favor and merit eternal life with Him. We have nothing good within us. We have all sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. God is not obligated to do anything for us. He was not obligated to even save us. In perfect justice, God could have left us in our sins to await judgment. It was not necessary for Him to save anyone at all. But because He is love, He sent His Son to die on the cross, so that we could be with Him. That is why He is rich in mercy.

John 3:16
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

1 Thessalonians 1:10
Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath

The verses that speak of about God�s love and mercy are only true in light of the cross.

We deserve to die as the penalty for sin. But Jesus "has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Hebrews 9:26) He has come to do away with all our sins.

Isaiah 59:12-13, 16
For our offenses are many in your sight, and our sins testify against us. Our offenses are ever with us, and we acknowledge our iniquities: rebellion and treachery against the LORD, turning our backs on our God, fomenting oppression and revolt, uttering lies our hearts have conceived. He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that there was no one to intervene; so his own arm worked salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him.

Micah 7:18-20
Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. You will be true to Jacob, and show mercy to Abraham, as you pledged on oath to our fathers in days long ago.

Jeremiah 31:31
"The time is coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah

And God was faithful to His promise. He made the new covenant. Our hope is in His shed blood.

Matthew 26:28
This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

Hebrews 9:15
For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance--now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant

Ransom means that He paid the price to set us free.

Ephesians 5:6
Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient.

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