THE WRATH OF GOD
A Meditation on Romans 1:18-32
By Pastor Wayne Christiansen
Why is the wrath of God such a difficult doctrine? Could it be that the teaching of Scripture on this topic is opaque and confusing? I submit to you that it is problematic for exactly the opposite reason—the Bible is all too clear and straight forward in describing God’s wrath. Mark Twain once said, “It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.” And that is certainly the case here.
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven...” (Rom. 1:18). Since this verse begins with the conjunctive “for,” we need to back up a little to get the context. The apostle Paul told the Romans that he was eager to preach the gospel to them (vs 15). He then stated three reasons for his eagerness. He is “not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes…in it the righteousness of God is revealed” (vv. 16-17). Now Paul will show why Jews and Gentile alike should be as eager to receive this good news as he is to preach it: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven… (vs. 18). R.C. Sproul has succinctly stated that we are saved from God (His wrath) by God (His grace) for God (His glory). But we must start at the beginning, which is our need to be rescued from wrath.
When we hear of the wrath of God we instinctively think of the final judgment. But in Romans 1:18, Paul does not say that “the wrath of God will be revealed…” rather he says that “the wrath of God is revealed...” The present tense verb is crucial. Paul is speaking of the wrath of God that unbelievers experience in this life.
Why does God reveal this wrath? Because unbelievers deliberately suppress the truth (vs.18). Through the creation of the world God has clearly made known His eternal power and divine nature. So they are without excuse (vv. 19-20). “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him…” (vs. 21). This is the primordial sin that God visits with wrath.
What exactly is the wrath of God? John Stott notes, “When we hear of God’s wrath, we usually think of ‘thunderbolts from heaven, and earthly cataclysms and flaming majesty’, instead of which his anger goes ‘quietly and invisibly’ to work in handing sinners over to themselves. As John Ziesler writes, it ‘operates not by God’s intervention but precisely by his not intervening, by letting men and women go their own way’. God abandons stubborn sinners to their willful self-centeredness, and the resulting process of moral and spiritual degeneration is to be understood as a judicial act of God. This is the revelation of God’s wrath from heaven” (Romans, p. 75).
This “judicial abandonment” is seen in Paul’s sobering threefold refrain: “Therefore God gave them up…God gave them up…God gave them up” (vv. 24, 26, 28). Simply put, God says, “If you want to sin, go ahead and sin.” What does this look like in everyday life? Paul will describe it for us, and the picture is not pretty.
“God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves” (vs. 24). This is heterosexual sin. Next, “God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another…” (vv. 26-27). Three times Paul uses the word nature or natural. This is homosexual rebellion against God’s natural (creation) design. Finally, lest we think sexual sin is the only way God’s wrath is manifest, Paul’s third refrain provides us with a list of twenty-one horrid vices (vv. 28-31). And, as R.C. Sproul notes, “If we can make it through Paul’s entire list without pangs of conscience, we are psychopaths” (Romans, p. 51).
Paul’s basic point in Romans 1:18-32 is that the punishment for sin is more sin, which is—mark it well—what sinners want. Given this understanding of God’s wrath, how can anyone protest against it? Similarly, how can one object to the doctrine of hell? God’s wrath on Judgment Day is, in part at least, merely a continuation of the wrath that already began in this life. Revelation 22:11 says, “Let the evil doer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.” C.S. Lewis stated it well: “Heaven is when we say to God, ‘Thy will be done.’ Hell is when He says that to us.”
Paul concludes this section: “Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them” (Rom.1:32). When sinners have trouble sleeping at 2:00 A.M., and they are honest with themselves in their heart of hearts, they know God’s judgment is just.