Category Archives: Wrath of God

God-shrinkers in the pulpit lead to God-shrinkers in the pew

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If you want to get a picture of what is happening to God’s truth in our churches, take a read of the “Christian-only” section of threads on the largest Christian forum on the www – Christian Forums. Here is one example and the subject is, ‘What an eternal hell?’

And a god, or anybody else, acting 239486709485209873245 times worse than Hitler, for 209348759287358972304587 millennia, and then another 204587032985703485 millennia just to get you warmed up, burning you forever and ever, isn’t what I’d call a “holy” god, not in any positive, non-evil sense of the word anyway.[1]

This was my response to this person:

You are a God inventor. You are presenting your obscure, humanly depraved understanding of God. You are a God-shrinker.

Who are you to decide what eternal damnation looks like. That is the domain of the absolutely pure, holy, infinite God of love. When you begin to understand God’s almighty, holy, perfect and absolutely truthful nature, you might not run off at the mouth like this.

Not one person in this world, including you and me, will get more or less than they deserve from the absolutely pure Lord God Almighty. His justice is absolute and we ALL will get it.

“It is impossible for God to lie” (Hebrews 6:18 ESV).[2]

Jim Packer summed it up in 1996:[3]

For more than three hundred years God-shrinkers have been at work in the churches of the Reformation, scaling down our Maker to the measure of man’s mind and dissolving the biblical view of him as the Lord who reigns and speaks (1996:127, emphasis added).

Packer has hit the theological nail on the head. When there are God-shrinkers in theological colleges, in the pulpits and on the printed and electronic pages, we’ll get them in the pew and in the public, and they’ll flow through to places like Christian Forums.

I’m about to give up on Christian Forums as the God-shrinkers are seen in too many threads here (including this thread). Those who take God at His word and want to listen to what the Scriptures say, instead of making the Scriptures mean what a human mind invents, are decreasing.

Reference:

Packer, J I 1996. Truth & power: The place of Scripture in the Christian life. Wheaton, Illinois: Harold Shaw Publishers.

Notes:


[1] holo, Christian Forums, Christian Philosophy & Ethics, ‘Why an eternal hell?’, #712, 21 August 2012. Available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7671002-72/ (Accessed 21 August 2012).

[2] Ibid., OzSpen #740, available at: http://www.christianforums.com/t7671002-74/ (Accessed 21 August 2012).

[3] What follows is my reply to Blessedj01 #738, ibid.

 

Copyright © 2012 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 29 October 2015.

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Hell and judgment[1]

ACTS 17: 22-31

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By Spencer D Gear

“When I die, I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive,” said the late British philosopher, Bertrand Russell, who died in 1970. [2] We can hardly argue with his statement.  It is obviously true concerning the physical body. Three years after he published that statement, Russell died. But is it the whole truth? Does the real “me” disappear? Epicurus, the Greek pleasure-loving philosopher, said long ago, “What men fear is not that death is annihilation (complete destruction), but that it is not.” [3] Bertrand Russell said more than when he dies he rots. He sailed into Jesus when he said: “There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ’s moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.” [4]

I read a fascinating poem by John Betjeman where he described his thoughts before a surgical procedure in the operating theatre. He was lying in a hospital in Oxford, England, listening to the tolling of St Giles’ bells. A few lines of the poem are:

    Intolerably sad, and profound
    St Giles’ bells are ringing round…
    Swing up! and give me hope of life,
    Swing down! and plunge the surgeon’s knife.
    I, breathing for a moment, see
    Death wing himself away from me
    And think, as on this bed I lie,
    Is it extinction when I die?…
    St Giles’ bells are asking now
    `And hast thou known the Lord, hast thou?’
    St Giles bells, they richly ring
    `And was that Lord our Christ the King?’
    St Giles’ bells they hear me call
    `I never knew the Lord at all…’

In the poem he goes on to speak of a vague belief in God that he had because he went to church:

    Now, lying in the gathering mist
    I know that Lord did not exist;
    Now, lest this ‘I’ should cease to be,
    Come, real Lord, come quick to me…
    Almighty Saviour, had I faith,
    There’d be no fight with kindly Death…
    The poem is called,

Before the Anaesthetic or A Real Fight [5]

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matt 7:13,14)

Christ made many statements that there is such a thing as judgment to come. Hebrews 9:27 gets right to the point: “Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.”

A. THE CORRECT ATTITUDE

It is important that we approach this matter of judgment with the right attitude of mind.

1. IT’S TOO SERIOUS TO LEAVE IT UP TO GUESSES.

When Paul, the apostle, was in Athens, he spoke about the judgment in the intellectual atmosphere of Mars Hill (Acts 17). These people “spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas” (v.21). They just loved sitting down over the equivalent of a cup of tea or coffee, and toss ideas to & fro, debating them furiously, discussing them into the night, and then throw them all away. It was fun, an intellectual exercise.

The safest way to approach any subject that threatens to be serious and personally challenging is to laugh at it.  I guess people laughed at and mocked Noah as he preached about God’s impending judgment.

What did others think of Christ when he wept over Jerusalem because they were blind to their need of him and to the judgment to come. Rather emotional! Trying to frighten us into faith, hey? It was no idle speculation.  Jerusalem was besieged and utterly destroyed in AD 70.

Christ also said this about judgment, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt 10:28).

Judgment is not a matter for idle speculations.

2. JUDGMENT IS NOT AN EMPTY THREAT

I’ve heard of parents say things like, “If you don’t stop doing that, I’ll scratch your eyes out.” Vicious words, but an empty threat. But when a mother says, Don’t go near that fire — you may get burnt.” An empty threat?? Certainly not! It’s a realistic warning.

And when Christ repeatedly warns us of the extremely serious consequences of rejecting him, or of neglecting his offer of salvation, because of the judgment to come, is that an empty threat?  It’s a realistic warning; it could happen.

3. HELL IS NOT A SUBJECT THAT CAN BE IGNORED

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For some reason, death and judgment are two forbidden themes in conversation today. The fashion is to live life to the full, concentrate on what you can see and touch — get all the thrills you can. And make Ray Price’s song our theme song for life: “For the good times!” Why be morbid and think about death and judgment?

Many dismiss the Christian faith because they say they want to be rational and realistic about life. Yet, at the same time, they are being utterly irrational and unrealistic about the only fact of life we can be sure of: One day we must die.  (There will be some exceptions: those who are alive at the second coming of Jesus Christ.)

What will happen at death?  When I die do I rot, or does life continue?

I can never understand why people find the subject of judgment difficult. The idea of accountability is built into all of life. Society would collapse without it. Everywhere, we must give account of our work, time, or money to someone.

Why should it then be unreasonable that a created being must give an account of his/her life to his or her Creator. It is plain common sense.

Paul, the apostle, when he was preaching on Mars Hill, Athens, was speaking to intelligent people. He noticed an inscription on one of their altars, “To an unknown god.”  Those people believed in the probable existence of some god, although they didn’t know him from experience.

So, to this intelligent, sincere audience, Paul spoke about Christ, the Judge (Acts 17:22-31).

We must have the right approach to judgment. It is:

  • not a matter for idle speculation;
  • it is not an empty threat;
  • it is not a subject that can be ignored.

 

B. JUDGMENT IS GUARANTEED!

God “has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.” (Acts 17:31)

Judgment is inescapable because it is universal. This idea of judgment is not very popular today. However, our gospel is deficient if we miss it out. Usually, there are a number of objections. Let’s consider a few of them briefly:

 

1. WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO HAVE NEVER HEARD OF CHRIST?

This is a common objection. The Bible gives two general answers:

    a.    Judgment is according to opportunity,

so that those with little or no opportunity of learning about Christ will be judged accordingly. At Athens, Paul said, “In the past God overlooked such ignorance” (Acts 17:31).

    b.    In the words of Abraham, “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen. 18:25).

We can leave the matter with absolute confidence in God’s hands.

If a person has a Bible, has access to a Bible, then he/she has heard or could find out. And the Bible is very clear, then, about his/her position. The discussion of the destiny of those who have never heard, by those who have heard, is academic.

Each of us has to give an account of his/her own life according to his/her own opportunities.

Another objection against hell and judgment is:

 

2.  I DON’T DESERVE GOD’S JUDGMENT

It’s a common protest, ” I don’t go to church, but I reckon I’ve got a pretty good chance of heaven, because I live a decent, honest and generous life. I’m a pretty good bloke. My life is just as good as many Christians; maybe even better.”

We can’t dispute that. By human standards, it is no doubt true that some unbelievers outshine believers by the thoughtfulness and kindness of their lives. The only basic difference between the Christian and the non-Christian is that the Christian knows that he needs a Saviour, and has asked Christ personally to be the Saviour that he needs.

The basic sin is that we usurp — take over — God’s place at the centre of our lives.

Most people, by being the centre of reference of their own lives, are saying in effect to Christ: “Depart from me.  I want you to leave me alone.  I do not want you God, to interfere with my life.  I want to be king of my own castle.  Therefore, depart from me.”

If a person says that now, and goes on saying that, surely it is fair that Christ should say to that person on the Day of Judgment, “Depart from Me.”  It was surely the person’s own decision.

Another objection is:

3.  JUDGMENT SEEMS TOO OLD FASHIONED FOR MODERN PEOPLE. TRENDIES WANT TO RELEGATE IT TO OUT-OF-DATE, MEDIEVAL IDEAS OF CENTURIES AGO.

Some who give this objection are thinking of those grotesque pictures from the middle ages, that show tortured bodies writhing in the furnace. Pictures like this obscure the real teaching of Christ and don’t even begin to convey the true severity of hell. It is far greater and more serious than that of a furnace.

J.I. Packer explains some of the terms which Jesus used when he taught, soberly and deliberately, about hell:

  • the ‘worm does not die'(Mark 9:48), an image, it seems, for the endless dissolution of the personality by a condemning conscience;
  • ‘fire’ for the agonising awareness of God’s displeasure;
  • ‘outer darkness’ for knowledge of the loss, not merely of God, but of all good, and everything that made life seem worth living;
  • `gnashing of teeth’ for self-condemnation and self-loathing. [6]

These things are dreadful. But they are not arbitrary things inflicted on us by a God who loves to hand out punishment. Nobody stands under the wrath of God unless he/she has chosen to do so.  By hell, God’s action in wrath is to give people what they chose in all its implications.  God is doing no more than confirming the judgment people have placed on themselves.  Many Calvinists would disagree, proclaiming that God predestines people to heaven and to hell.  That is not the view here espoused.

This partly answers the next (and last) objection:

 

4. HOW CAN A GOD OF LOVE POSSIBLY TALK OF HELL OR JUDGMENT FOR ANYONE? GOD IS TOO LOVING & MERCIFUL TO CONDEMN ANYONE.

At face value, this seems to be a powerful, irrefutable objection. However, how can we explain the fact that Christ (who more than anyone, showed us the love of God) also spoke to us more than anyone about the judgment of God?

What is possibly the greatest ‘love’ verse in the whole Bible, John 3:16, clearly implies the possibility of appalling judgment: “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.” The astonishing measure of God’s love is seen only when we admit that we all deserve to perish and to be excluded from his presence.  The depth of God’s love is such that we need not, but can know forgiveness.

Repeatedly we are told:

  • God desires all people to be saved;
  • God knows our inclinations lead us down the broad road to destruction;
  • Therefore, in his love, God puts obstacles in our path: the Bible, churches, Christian friends, Christian books, radio & TV programs, trials and difficulties in our lives,
  • and above all the outstretched arms of Jesus on the cross.

If a person rushes past all of these, who is to blame?

Most of us disapprove of deceit, lies, theft, bribery, murder, and so on. What would you think of an absolute power in the universe who always turned a blind eye to corruption — moral corruption?  There would be complete and utter chaos. Unless God detests sin and evil with a great loathing, he cannot be a God of love.

Australian doctor, John Hercus [7] put it very shrewdly:

The truth is that men never really have any problem, never any real problem, in understanding the strong, awesome judgment of God. They may complain about it, but they have no difficulty at all in understanding the ruthless judgment that declares that black is black because only the purest white is white. True, we hear from right, left and centre, from ignorant pagans and even highly-trained theologians, the ignorant prattle about ‘All this hell-fire and brimstone talk isn’t my idea of God. I think God is a God of love and I don’t think He’d hurt a fly.’ But it is easy to know why they talk like that; it’s because they are terrified of the alternative.”

C. WHAT’S THE ALTERNATIVE?

If this doctrine of hell is not true, then heaven itself is meaningless. How could heaven be heaven if it were full of people who had no time for God? The apostle Paul wrote:

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (I Cor. 6:9,10)The widely accepted theory of universalism sounds attractive. The idea is that everyone will one day be in heaven, regardless of his or her attitudes towards God in this life. This view makes nonsense of heaven itself.

Somebody put it this way:

The effects of universalism at a funeral service will be startling. Whether you are conducting a funeral service of a Nero or St Paul, or Eichman or Schweitzer, of Hitler or Niemoller, of an agnostic or Augustine, or an atheist or Athanasius, of Judas or James, you will be able to commit them all equally `in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the dead unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ [8]

The astonishing point is that this is quite possible if all have repented and put their trust in Christ. Otherwise, it makes sheer mockery of the justice and holiness of Almighty God.

If the doctrines of judgment and hell are not true, then sin pays. We can be as selfish as we like, do whatever we like, steal, lie, sleep around, murder…There is no reason to have any standards at all. Why bother to consider other people if there is no day of reckoning?

Richard Wurmbrand, the Romanian pastor who spent 14 years in a communist prison, 3 of them in solitary confinement, put it this way:

“The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe when man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil. There is no reason to be human. There is no restraint from the depths of evil which is in man. The communist torturers often said, ‘There is no God, no hereafter, no punishment for evil. We can do what we wish.” I have heard one torturer even say, ‘I thank God, in whom I don’t believe, that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart.’ He expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture inflicted on prisoners.” [9]

D. JUDGMENT: SUDDEN & UNEXPECTED

Perhaps the most sobering truth which comes from Christ, concerning the Day of the Lord (the Day of Judgment), is that it will take people by surprise. Paul told the people at Athens: “God has fixed a day on which he will judge the world.” Christ said, “You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him” (Luke 12:40). We do not know when that time will come. It is unexpected; therefore, be ready. It will come “like a thief in the night.”

The great Scots preacher, Robert Murray McCheyne, was once preaching on the coming of Christ and the judgment to follow. He asked his elders, one by one, before the service, “Do you think that Christ will come again tonight? One by one they all replied, “No, I don’t think so.” Then McCheyne announced his text: “The Son of Man cometh at an hour that ye think not.” [10]

Those of us who know of the suddenness of death should surely understand the suddenness of the final day of judgment. Some people with a terminal illness linger on for months and years before death arrives. Others, like my own father, kissed his wife goodbye to go off to work and he never returned. At the age of 57, he dropped dead of a fatal heart attack. Death was very sudden and unexpected for him. Because of God’s grace to him through Christ, I have the assurance that I will meet him again in God’s heaven.

Christ expressed the urgency and seriousness of this matter in a dramatic story: about two men, one rich and the other poor. One lived a wonderfully free and independent life, free of all those narrow restrictions of religion, free of God himself.

The other, Lazarus, was a poor, pathetic creature in comparison, but he knew and loved the Lord. Both men died: death was almost the only experience, apart from birth, which they had in common. Suddenly there was a great separation. One found himself in heaven, the other in hell.

This is how Christ described the feelings of that rich man:

“In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.” (Luke 16:23,24)If it were like our day, there would be an obituary in the Jerusalem Times,and I could imagine that he had a magnificent funeral. But in hell he simply cried out, “I am in agony in this fire.”

Here it was at last — the agonising awareness of God’s displeasure. He, at last, saw himself as he really was. He knew how empty his life had been — full of worldly things that he had to leave behind, but empty of God.

Christ makes it very clear that hell is a place of eternal separation from everything good, a place where a person will see that God is right and that he is wrong, and will know at last the glory of God — but he can never experience it.

In this story in Luke 16, Christ talks of “a great chasm fixed.” There is no second chance after death!

Where will you be one minute after you die? [11]

I understand that in a cemetery in Indiana, USA, there is an old tombstone with the epitaph:

Pause, stranger, when you pass me by
As you are now, so once was I
As I am now, so you will be
So prepare for death and follow me.

Somebody who walked past the tombstone read the words and scratched his response:

To follow you I’m not content
Until I know which way you went. [12]

Jesus said: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25, NIV)

For a more comprehensive challenge to consider your eternal destiny, I enthusiastically recommend, Robert A. Morey, Death and the Afterlife [13], John Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? [14] and Eryl Davies, Condemned For Ever! [15]

Endnotes:

[1] I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness for most of the content of this message to the late, David Watson. See David Watson, chapter 3, “Hell: and a God of love,” My God is Real. Westchester, Illinois: Good News Publishers (Crossway Books), 1970. As of 15th May 2002, the book was out of print according to the web site of Koorong Books, Australia.

[2] Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian. London: Unwin Books, 1967, 47. I am indebted to Robert A. Peterson, Hell on Trial: The Case for Eternal Punishment. Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 1995, p. 3, for directing me to the exact reference for this quote. It is in David Watson, but without bibliographical reference.

[3] In Watson, ibid.

[4] Russell, pp. 22-23, in Peterson, p. 4.

[5] In Watson.

[6] Ibid., pp. 35-36.

[7] David, IVP, 1969, in ibid., p. 37.

[8] In Watson, p. 38.

[9] Tortured for Christ. Hodder & Stoughton, 1967, in Watson, p. 38.

[10] In Watson, p. 39.

[11] See Erwin W. Lutzer, One Minute After You Die. Chicago: Moody Press, 1997.

[12] In ibid., pp. 10-11

[13] Robert A. Morey, Death and the Afterlife. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bethany House Publishers, 1984.

[14] John Blanchard, Whatever Happened to Hell? Darlington, Co. Durham, England: Evangelical Press, 1993.

[15] Eryl Davies, Condemned For Ever! Welwyn, Hertfordshire, England: Evangelical Press, 1987.

Hell is as real as heaven. 

There will be no second chance!

Copyright (c) 2007 Spencer D. Gear.   This document last updated at Date: 7 October 2015.

The wrath of God and Muammar Gaddafi’s death

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Gaddafi in death, courtesy of InformationNigeria.org

By Spencer D Gear

Is the death of Muammar Gaddafi an example of the wrath of God in action? In the brief article from Nigeria, ‘Muammar Gaddafi is dead??‘, there was a comment, ‘Any tongue dat shall rise against Nigeria shall be destroyed in Jesus name. So I advise our politicians to beware bcos d wrath of God can fall on any one who does not want PEACE for Nigeria’. There was a Nigerian news item from Information Nigeria, ‘Fleeing Gaddafi forces, officials stray into Northern Nigeria’.[1]

The exact date of Gaddafi’s murder is not known, but the British Guardian newspaper reported, ‘Muammar Gaddafi is dead says Libyan PM‘, on Thursday, 20 October 2011. This is an example of some of the horror that happens in our human world. But is it the wrath of God in action?

As we shall see, this is a dangerous view to state that the wrath of God can be experienced by those who do not want peace with Nigeria. The wrath of God contains much more substance than this fleeting comment by a letter-to-the editor, following the death of this dictator, even though he was known for his violence and injustice. We need to get it clear that God’s wrath is serious and not associated with peace for Nigeria. It is associated with peace between rebel human beings and God. Why would I call all people rebels? A rebel is ‘one who refuses allegiance to , resists, or rises in arms against the established government or ruler’ (The Macquarie Dictionary 1997:1776). All human beings are rebels against the law of God.

It’s a biblical fact:

Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practise homosexuality, enslavers,[2] liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound[3] doctrine (1 Tim. 1:8-10)

Jeremiah 17:9 affirms that ‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?’ Remember Jonathan Edwards famous sermon preached in 1741 , ‘Sinners in the hands of an angry God‘?

What is the wrath of God?

Do we have a description of the wrath of God and have we seen it in action historically? It is important to understand that the wrath of God is as essential an attribute of God’s nature as his love and justice.

We know from 1 John 4:8 that ‘God is love’. ‘God’s love means that God eternally gives of himself to others’ (Grudem 1994:198).

What about God’s justice?

In English, there are two different words for righteousness and justice, but in the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament there is only one word group to cover the meaning of ‘righteousness’ and ‘justice’ (Grudem 1994:203). Remember how Moses described God’s actions? God, ‘the Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he’ (Deut. 32:4). Abraham made a successful petition to God’s character (attribute) of justice: ‘Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?’ (Gen. 18:25). God himself stated, ‘The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart’ (Psalm 19:8a) and ‘I the Lord speak the truth; I declare what is right’ (Isa. 45:19b).

The wrath of God is as much an outworking of the nature of God as God’s righteousness/justice.

When I speak of the anger/wrath of God, I mean that God ‘intensely hates all sin’ (Grudem 1994:206) and acts towards such sin in his own unique way. We see evidence of the outworking of God’s wrath in the Scriptures when God’s people sinned against God. When God saw the idolatry of the Israelites in Moses’ day, the Lord God said to Moses,

“I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you” (Ex. 32:9-10).

Another example is in Deut. 9:7-8,

Remember and do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the LORD. Even at Horeb you provoked the LORD to wrath, and the LORD was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you.

The wrath of God is not only an attribute of God that is demonstrated by OT actions, but we have this warning from the NT, ‘ 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) and ‘For 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).

Therefore, all who do not experience eternal life through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, will experience the wrath of God. Therefore, since Gaddafi, who to my knowledge did not experience salvation through Jesus Christ alone, he will now be experiencing the wrath of God. However, we do not know what Gaddafi decided to do in the last minutes and seconds of his life. Only God knows that.

This experience of the wrath of God applies to ALL who have not committed their lives to Jesus Christ for salvation. John 3:36 is definite: Eternal life (Christian salvation) is experienced only by those who continue to believe in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. Acts 4:11-12 could not be clearer:

This Jesus[4] is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

What’s the difference between the essence of God and the attributes of God?

How do we determine what is an ‘attribute’ of God? The attributes of God have a foundation, and that is the nature of God. Formerly, this was called the ‘essence’ or ‘substance’ of God. Essence and substance are used synonymously here. I prefer to use the term ‘nature’ of God as synonymous with essence/substance. Thiessen defines God’s essence as ‘that which underlies all outward manifestation; the reality itself, whether material or immaterial’ and the attributes are an outworking of this essence (1949:119). So, an attribute is an action that is a manifestation of the essence of some thing or person.

However, there are times when attributes look like essence. H. B. Smith noted this when he recognised that some things that are labelled as attributes, could be, ‘strictly speaking’, a different aspect of the divine substance (in Thiessen 1949:119).

In this aspect of the essence of God that some see as not referring to attributes but essence, we are speaking of God’s spirituality, his being immaterial and incorporeal (without a body), invisible, alive and a person. Other aspects of God’s essence are his self-existence, immensity, and eternity (Thiessen 1949:119-123).

It is important to note that God’s attributes are a permanent outworking from His nature. ‘The attributes are permanent qualities. They cannot be gained or lost. They are intrinsic…. God’s attributes are essential and inherent dimensions of his very nature’ (Millard Erickson 1985:265).

While this differentiation is helpful, there is a fundamental aspect of the essence of God that needs to be clarified as a foundation. This is the fact that ‘God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God’ (Wayne Grudem 1994:226). Grudem summarises this aspect of the essence of the nature of God as a Trinity:

  • God is three persons.
  • Each person is fully God.
  • There is one God (Grudem 1994:230).

Since God’s wrath will be experienced by all who live in unrighteousness and die without experiencing Christ’s salvation, there is no way to know whether Gaddafi did not repent and turn to Christ in the closing days, hours and minutes of his life. Only God knows this. However, we do know that all who do not repent of their sins and turn to Christ alone for eternal salvation, will experience the wrath of God.

How can the wrath of God be appeased before death for any individual? To appease means to be brought to a state of peace with God so that the wrath of God will not be experienced?

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God’s wrath & Jesus Christ’s propitiation

There are frequent Bible verses that speak of the wrath of God against sin. See Rom. 1:18; 2:5, 8; 4:15; 5:9; 9:22; 12:19; 13:3-5; Eph. 2:3; 5:6; Col. 3:6; 1 Thess. 1:10; 2:16; 5:9. So when Paul speaks of Christ’s hilasterion, he can’t be only referring to the covering for sin and cleaning the corruption of human beings (an idea conveyed by expiation), but Christ’s sacrifice needed to appease the God who stated:

There are six things that the LORD hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that make haste to run to evil,
a false witness who breathes out lies,
and one who sows discord among brothers (Proverbs 6:16-19).

This word, ‘propitiation’, is not one that we hear very much from the evangelical pulpits in my part of Australia. Why? Propitiation is not a common word in the Australian English language. My observation is that not much doctrine of this nature is preached from our pulpits.

The Macquarie Dictionary (1997:1712) defines the verb, ‘propitiate’, as ‘to make favourably inclined; appease; conciliate’.[5] We would most often use conciliation rather than propitiation or appeasement in everyday conversation. How can there be conciliation between sinful, rebellious human beings and the absolutely pure and just God Almighty, ruler of heaven and earth who states of Himself, ‘The Lord has established his throne in the heavens and his kingdom rules over all’ (Psalm 103:19).

However, for anyone to enter God’s presence, it cannot be done without God’s appeasing all unrighteous thoughts and actions towards Him. How can this occur? The NT is very clear:

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Rom. 3:23-26).

Since the wrath of God is one of the attributes that is an outworking of the nature of God, it is God also who should decided how the wrath towards all human beings can be conciliated, appeased, propitiated so that we can enter God’s presence. God has been very clear about this. It is only through belief in, acceptance of salvation through Christ’s shed blood.

That is why the doctrine of propitiation is so important to the believer. Christ’s blood sacrifice on the cross appeased the wrath of God as indicated in Rom. 3:25-26; Heb. 2:17; 1 John 2:2; 4:10. This propitiation is being weakened by some theologians today who want it to mean expiation. For example, the NIV translates Rom. 3:25-26; Heb. 2:17; 1 John 2:2; and 4:10 as sacrifice of atonement, atonement or atoning sacrifice.

Many evangelical Christians have not accepted the idea that propitiation = expiation. It was back in 1935 that C. H. Dodd (1935:82-95) opposed the doctrine that Jesus bore God’s wrath against sin. The basic idea of theological liberals is that propitiation may have been common with the pagans but it is foreign to the teaching of OT and NT writers. They assume that because God is love, it would be contradictory for God to love the human beings he created but then inflict His wrath on them. Therefore, they denied propitiation as consistent with the nature of God and used the replacement term, expiation, which means ‘an action that cleanses from sin’ that does not include the teaching on appeasing God’s wrath (Grudem 1994:575 n13).

Dodd’s argument was that the Greek verb, hilaskomai, and its cognates from the LXX could not be applied to Rom. 3:25. Instead, according to Dodd, the meaning in Rom. 3:25 is that of expiation and is contrary to the view of most translators and commentators who are wrong (Dodd 1935:94). Instead of God’s wrath being appeased by the death of Christ, Christ’s sacrifice was to cleanse or cover a person’s sins and uncleanness.[6] One of Dodd’s arguments is that God is almost never the object of the verbs that describe the atonement in the LXX. His view was that ‘the LXX translators did not regard kipper (when used as a religious term) as conveying the sense of propitiating the Deity, but the sense of performing an act whereby guilt or defilement is removed’ (1935:93).

A. G. Hebert supported Dodd’s view:

It cannot be right to think of God’s wrath as being “appeased” by the sacrifice of Christ, as some “transactional” theories of the atonement have done … because it is God who in Christ reconciles the world to himself…. It cannot be right to make any opposition between the wrath of the Father and the love of the Son (in Erickson 1985:810).

George Eldon Ladd (1974:429-430) has refuted Dodd’s views on hilaskomai, demonstrating that it does refer to propitiation and not expiation. Ladd provides this rejoinder (Ladd 1974:429-430):[7]

If we check Hellenistic Greek writers such as Josephus and Philo, uniformly the OT word means ‘to propitiate’. This is also true if we check the Apostolic Fathers of the NT era.[8] Leon Morris is pointed in showing that the ‘expiation’ translation is a recent invention: ‘If the LXX translators and the New Testament writers evolved an entirely new meaning of the word group, it perished with them, and was not resurrected until our own day’ (Morris 1950-51:233).

There are actually three places in the LXX where the word, exhilaskesthai, is used in the sense of appeasing the wrath of God, as propitiation. These are in Zech. 7:2; 8:22 and Mal. 1:9. Dodd’s (1935:233) promotion of the view that there is something exceptional about this view of these three references failed to convince Ladd.

While it is true that the verb, exhilaskesthai, is used in the OT with God as its object, ‘it is equally true that the verb is never followed by an accusative of sin in the canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament’ (Ladd 1974:430).

This is the most significant emphasis: While it is true that the OT does not speak of appeasing the wrath of God, it is true that the context for the thought, where the word is used, is appeasing the wrath of God. ‘In many places atonement is necessary to save life that otherwise would be forfeited—apparently because of the wrath of God’ (Ladd 1974:430).

Therefore, I agree with Erickson (1985:811) that C. H. Dodd’s conclusions, although they have been prominent, are inaccurate because Dodd may have had an inaccurate view of the Trinity, as seen by his failure to present the opposition to his expiation view in relation to Zech. 7:2; 8:22; and Mal. 1:9. Dodd’s kind of emphasis is shown in Bible translations such as the RSV, NRSV, NIV, NEB, REB[9], NET, Wycliffe, CEV, God’s Word translation, Good News Bible, Darby, and Young’s Literal where ‘expiation’ or ‘sacrifice of atonement’ is favoured over ‘propitiation’ in critical verses such as Rom. 3:25-26. For a ‘propitiation’ view of these two verses, see the ESV, NASB, English RV, ASV, KJV, NKJV, Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible, Holman Christian Standard Bible, Amplified Bible, and J. B. Phillips.

There are passages in Paul’s letters, such as Romans 3:25-26, which cannot provide a satisfactory interpretation outside of this understanding of propitiation – appeasing the wrath of God. When Jesus is the hilasterion (propitiation, not expiation), ‘this proves both that God is just (his wrath required the sacrifice) and that he is the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus (his love provided the sacrifice for them)’ (Erickson 1985:811).

Harold O. J. Brown has rightly stated that ‘the history of the church is the history of heresies’ (1969:165). We need to understand the unorthodox theology of people like C. H. Dodd in relation to the doctrine of propitiation (appeasing God’s wrath against sin). See especially Roger Nicole’s (1955) refutation of Dodd’s view.[10]

God’s communicable attributes

The Hebrew word, kaphar, is rendered as exilaskomai, meaning to propitiate or appease, in the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the OT. However, the word, exilaskomai, does not appear in the NT. Instead, verb, hilaskomai, is in Luke 18:13 and Heb. 2:17. The noun hilasmos is in 1 John 2:1; 4:10, and the adjective hilasterion is used twice in Rom. 3:25 & Heb. 9:5. The wrath of God is a teaching in John 3:36; Rom. 1:18; 2:5; 5:9; Eph. 5:6; 1 Thess. 1:10; Heb. 3:11 and Rev. 19:15.

The Greek words for ‘propitiation’ signify what Christ’s death does to conciliate / appease the wrath of God. Evangelical theologian, Wayne Grudem, defines propitiation as ‘a sacrifice that bears God’s wrath to the end and in so doing changes God’s wrath toward us into favor’ (1994:575). He places the wrath of God in ‘the communicable attributes of God’.

In an earlier generation, William G. T. Shedd, wrote,

‘By the suffering of the sinner’s atoning substitute, the divine wrath at sin is propitiated, and as a consequence of this propitiation, the punishment dur to sin is released, or not inflicted upon the transgressor. This release or non-infliction of penalty is “forgiveness” in the Biblical representation’ (in Thiessen 1949:326).

There is abundant biblical evidence that the wrath of God is an essential attribute of our Almighty God. We praise God that his wrath is in his nature as much as his love, patience and forgiveness.

Conclusion

A good exegetical case can be made for the doctrine of Christ’s propitiation, appeasing the wrath of God. The wrath of God is experienced by all who do not believe in Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary. The wrath of God is not limited to tyrants like Gaddafi and despots like Hitler, Idi Amin and others who authorised genocide. ‘But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness’ (Rom. 1:18 NLT). The apostle Paul understood that the death of Christ was propitiatory – Christ died to appease the wrath of God against sin. This is stated beautifully in 1 John 2:1-2:

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

For more of my articles, see ‘Truth Challenge’.

Works consulted

Brown, H O J 1969. The protest of a troubled Protestant. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House.

Dodd, C H 1935. The Bible and the Greeks. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

Erickson, M J 1985. Christian theology. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House.

Grudem, W 1994. Systematic theology: An introduction to biblical doctrine. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House.

Ladd, G L 1972. A Commentary on the revelation of John. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

The Macquarie dictionary 1997. NSW Australia: Macquarie University.

Morris, L 1950-51. The use of hilaskenesthai in biblical Greek. Expository Times 62, 227-233.

Nicole, R 1955. C. H. Dodd and the doctrine of propitiation. Westminster Theological Journal, 117-157. May, Vol. XVII.

Thiessen, H C 1949. Introductory lectures in systematic theology. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Notes:


[1] Dated 10 September 2011 (Accessed 22 October 2011).

[2] The ‘enslavers’ are those who take someone captive in order to sell them into slavery (based on the ESV footnote). All biblical quotes in this article are from the English Standard Version.

[3] Or ‘healthy’ (ESV footnote).

[4] The original said, “This one”, but the context indicates that this one is “Jesus Christ of Nazareth” (Acts 4:10).

[5] The same definition is at dictionary.com: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/propitiate (Accessed 22 October 2011).

[6] I was alerted to this information from Dodd by Erickson (1985:820).

[7] Erickson (1985:810-811) drew my attention to these 4 points.

[8] See First Clement (end of the first century) and the Shepard of Hermas (beginning of the second century), where hilaskomai means ‘propitiating God’.

[9] This is the Revised English Bible, an update of the NEB, but an online edition could not be found. I expect that it would follow the NEB.

[10] Unfortunately Nicole’s article is not available for free access online.

 

Copyright © 2011 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 12 June 2018.