Stand Strong in the Word
Stand Strong in the Word is a weekly bible study that teaches through the Bible verse by verse in chronological order. For more information, visit www.standstrongministries.org.
Stand Strong in the Word
#309 "Holy Anger: Understanding God's Wrath" (Romans 1:18)
Have you ever truly stopped to ask—what is the wrath of God?
Today, we’re going to confront that question head-on and explore a biblical, honest, and sobering understanding of God's wrath. As Christians, we cannot afford to remain silent. If we truly believe that God’s wrath is real, then love compels us to warn those who don't know Him.
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Have you ever truly stopped to ask what is the wrath of God? Today, we're going to confront that question head on and explore a biblical, honest and sobering understanding of God's wrath. As Christians, we cannot afford to remain silent. If we truly believe that God's wrath is real, then love compels us to warn those who don't know Him. Turn to Romans, chapter 1, and let's stand strong in the word together. Well, hey there, my friends, welcome to Stand Strong in the Word podcast.
Speaker 1:Blessed to be with you guys, as always, as we continue our study here in the book of Romans, and I pray that this has been a encouraging and very thoughtful and provoking study. I mean, when you do dive into the book of Romans, it certainly is, and, as you can already tell if you've been following with me with the last episodes that we've been covering in the book of Romans, I'm actually kind of breaking them verse by verse. Usually we take on sections, but there's so much that is packed into what Paul really lays out in chapter one because, like most of his letters, it really sets the tone, it builds the foundation from everything that you know he talks about later, and that's clearly the case when you see the structure in which he addresses many of these issues, and today it's about God's wrath. Now, if you've missed any previous podcasts, I encourage you, my friends, to go to where you get your podcasts and download them and listen to them, share them with your friends, leave us a review. That's always a tremendous, tremendous blessing to have your support, your prayers, your listenership, but you being our hands and feet and spreading the word about this podcast.
Speaker 1:You know we don't put a ton of marketing into it. We just faithfully just put it together, study God's word and provide an outlet for Christians who want to know more about scripture, exegetically, hermeneutically, kind of an expository fashion. Again, there's really no, as you can tell, I don't really tell a bunch of stories. Just look at the Bible. Let's open it together, let's spend this time together and hopefully that we leave convicted, inspired, encouraged, but more like Jesus, and that you as a Christian can be out there and you can quote the word of God to people, you can articulate what the Bible teaches in a way that is powerful, and that's what I just hope and pray.
Speaker 1:So with that, let me just kind of jump back into verse 16, because, as we've been laying these things out, we've seen that Paul talks about the gospel that he's not ashamed of. Paul talks about the gospel that he's not ashamed of and then how we are to rightly live in that according to his grace. And now he talks about wrath. He goes from righteousness of God to the wrath on the unrighteousness, and this is connected. So if you go back in verse 16, he says for I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. Then verse 18 says for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. So what we have to first understand, as we're now going into verse 18, is that this word for in Greek is gar, and it is connected back to verse 16 and 17. And it's actually in the present passive indicative. So it literally in English should say this is being revealed. So, for the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven.
Speaker 1:Go back to verse 16 and 17. God has revealed himself, he's revealed his righteousness, and in righteousness there's mercy, and in righteousness there's mercy, and in righteousness there's wrath. So that's important for us to understand the word revealed here before we start breaking down what the wrath of God is. It means to uncover or to make known from heaven. So we in and of ourselves are not righteous. Right, if you go back to Titus 3, verse 5, there's no righteousness in ourselves that saves us. It's by the power of God, it's the mercy of God. So God reveals that to us. We can't find that out, we can't figure that out on our own. And secondly, and to that and these are connected, you cannot separate the two just like grace and peace God's wrath is revealed.
Speaker 1:But notice the difference if you go back in the context, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith. For faith so we know, based on the last study that we covered into verse 17, was that it's talking about Christ's life, what he has done for us. That's been revealed, and it was personified in the person of Christ. You think of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Now God's wrath notices specifically from heaven, revealed to ungodliness and to unrighteousness. And the unrighteous suppress his truth because he has made it known. They can't hide it, they can't run from it, they can ignore it, and this we're going to get into the word suppress, what that means. So this means to uncover, to make known, and it parallels, as I mentioned, to God's righteousness. So we have to keep that in mind, you have to keep that in mind.
Speaker 1:In fact, leinbaugh, in his commentary, he emphasizes that God's wrath is now clearly revealed through the gospel of Jesus Christ which came into the world. And those who receive its message, they have life. But those who reject the message, that is the gospel, it's death. So God has revealed his righteous gospel to the world. But as he has done that, his wrath is also revealed, because his mercy falls upon those people who humbly receive it graciously, and his wrath is also going to fall upon people who reject his will to be done his truth aggressively. So God reveals his righteousness and his wrath, my friends, simultaneously in the message of the gospel.
Speaker 1:So when you go back into 1 Corinthians, for example, we see that Paul says that it's the power of God to those who are being saved, and remember we saw that in verse 16 here in Romans 1. It's the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. So if you believe, there's salvation in faith. If you hear the message of the gospel and reject it, suppress it I don't want to have anything to do with it then obviously that power won't save you. But that power that comes from God will condemn you. And we see that in 2nd Corinthians, chapter 2, verse 16, that there's death to those who reject the gospel.
Speaker 1:So when we will see later in Romans, chapter 2, verse 16, where Paul says on that day, when, according to my gospel not like he has ownership of it that he created it Because we know that he's an apostle, through the manifold grace of God, to present the gospel, we go back to Acts, chapter 26, where he was sharing his testimony before Agrippa, and he talks about that gospel message as he told the elders in Ephesus in Acts, chapter 20. So when he says, according to my gospel, god judges the secrets of man by Christ Jesus, so God's wrath will fall upon those who have rejected his message. Okay, so now that we understand what he says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven what that means, and we know it's against a particular group of people and notice it's ungodliness and unrighteousness. So let me just say so we can understand, before we dive into the definition and the terminology and reflect it theologically in the understanding of the wrath of God. Because this is a doctrine that we believe about God that it only is on the ungodly and the unrighteous people who reject Jesus. God's wrath does not fall upon his own people, and we'll look at that in a minute. So what is the wrath of God? Well, simply put, god's wrath reflects his holy people, and we'll look at that in a minute.
Speaker 1:So what is the wrath of God? Well, simply put, god's wrath reflects his holy character. It upholds his righteous standards. So when people reject God's standards, that doesn't mean that they overwrite it, they just simply undermine it because it's universal. So they can suppress it, they can reject it, but there are going to be consequences. So when God established these righteous standards according to who he is for his people, again, god, his mandate, his command because he's the ultimate authority is that we follow them, and as we do, then his righteousness will prevail in our life. If we don't, he will righteously punish anyone who opposes his holiness.
Speaker 1:Now Nygren, in an old commentary it was written in 1949, the Commentary on Romans he says this quote as long as God is God, he cannot behold with indifference that his creation is destroyed and his holy will trodden underfoot. Therefore, he meets sin with his mighty and annihilating reaction. I think that's well said. So God cannot allow anything in his creation to attempt to destroy who he is, because it is his creation, it reflects who he is, and evil does not triumph.
Speaker 1:So we have to understand that there's different ways now, as we move forward, to understand how God reveals but also executes his wrath. Number one we know the finality of it is eternal damnation in hell. We also know that there are end times wrath. So there's times we've seen historically in the past where God's wrath and we'll look at some passages in a minute that has befall on certain people. But we will also see throughout scripture. When you see, you know prophetic things of the end times to come, god's wrath is going to be poured out in a way that's never been. It's called the great tribulation period. It's that it's the. It's the second part of the tribulation period, known as jacob's distress, and that is god's ultimate pouring of his wrath on creation. We also see there's cataclysmic wrath that God would use, like the famous passage in Genesis, chapter six, with the flood, and there's also consequential wrath. What that means is that God's wrath falls upon people who live debauchery lives, and that's something that Paul is going to be exploring further in verses 19 and following. So those are the four areas eternal wrath in hell, end times wrath, cataclysmic wrath and consequential wrath.
Speaker 1:Now, because God is holy, as I was mentioning earlier. He's also just. He's justly holy and he must punish sin, because sin directly offends him. It's not just because on account of what it does to people, that's true, but it's first and foremost directly offensive to who he is, and so God becomes angry. That's a righteous anger. God doesn't have anger like you and I have anger.
Speaker 1:So God's wrath is neither arbitrary nor is it random. So he's not just trying to send out punishment, if you will, at random because he doesn't know what's going on. No, it is precisely measured, it is precisely executed and it is final. Isn't that amazing? I mean, when you think about it, it is final. God does not act like our court systems do. We're trying to execute justice, but we're blind, we are ignorant at times or we're biased. God isn't that way. His judgment is final. It is perfect because it's grounded in his righteousness. So when God responds according to who he is and his righteousness. It is carried out, his wrath. That is perfectly in justice.
Speaker 1:So when you look at Jeremiah 21, god pours out his wrath on Judah and Jerusalem. Why? Because listen to what it says in Jeremiah 21. This is what Jeremiah said to them. Thus, you shall say to Zedekiah so God's speaking through him. In verse four says thus says the Lord, the God of Israel behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands and with which you are fighting against the king of Babylon and against the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside the walls, and I will bring them together into the midst of the city. I myself will fight against you with outstretched hand, strong arm, in anger and in fury and in great wrath, and I will strike down the inhabitants of the city, both man and beast. They shall die of great pestilences, sword and famine into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, into the hand of those who seek their lives. He shall strike them down with the edge of the sword. He shall not pity them or spare them or have compassion. So notice, part of God's wrath is there's no longer him sparing them with compassion, he's no longer being long suffering towards them, because now the consequential wrath comes because of their disobedience. But in this passage in Jeremiah 21, paul uses or excuse me, I don't know why I said Paul, god uses warfare to strike people down and there'll be great pestilences. So there's a lot of different avenues or ways in which God's wrath pestilence, sword and famine, and it's gonna be done by Nebuchadnezzar. So that's one example that we see in scripture.
Speaker 1:In Jeremiah 21, verses three through seven, about God's wrath. Now it's important for us to understand that, according to the expositories, bible commentary says this this means that the unfolding of history involves a disclosure of God's wrath against sin seen in the terrible corruption and perversion of human life. So notice when God's wrath is poured out. God's wrath is poured out. You will always understand in that passage why and it always goes back, and this is why Paul pulls out these terminology the unrighteous, he says, and the ungodly. And so they understood. They may not like it, they may still reject it, but notice, he says I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and a strong arm in anger and infuriate and great wrath, meaning you cannot dodge it and it will fall upon those people precisely and accurately according to God's righteousness.
Speaker 1:Because when you think about disorder, when you think about consequences and chaos, and then you see signs of God's judgment that falls in many cases. I mean it, it's not just, again, fierce and scary. I've seen at times, even in my own ministry, where people, when, when God's wrath falls upon people who are disobedient, or on parts of the world or in particular countries for whatever reason, and then you see a revival come people are, they're afraid and and and so these, and sometimes they're beginning stages of god's wrath. And then there's the finality of it's like okay, you still didn't learn. And then boom's like this is the finality of it.
Speaker 1:So when you actually look at chapter 13, in verses four and five, one of the things that Paul explains about how God's wrath can be carried out is through governments worldwide. So we saw that in Jeremiah 21. And so later in this passage and this is significant because, remember, chapter one lays the groundwork. So when we get to chapter 13, it's gonna make more sense than when he talks about the government. He says for the government that is is God's servant for your good, but if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain, for he is a servant of God, an Avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. So notice, governments are meant to carry out God's wrath. Now, that's not always how God's wrath is executed or falls upon mankind, but in many cases it is.
Speaker 1:Therefore, one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath, but also for the sake of conscience. I love that passage. Let me read it again. Therefore, one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath so if you're in subjection to his will, you will avoid his wrath. So when you're a child of God, when you listen to him and you obey him, you will avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. Meaning, the more you and I live in ungodliness and unrighteousness, it will cause you to go insane. I'm not saying mentally, like where you're going to have to be placed into, you know, a group of some sort and locked down, but your consciousness will be seared and we're going to explain what that looks like now when we start talking about ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. That looks like now when we start talking about ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.
Speaker 1:But before we do, I want to unpack a little bit more about a particular aspect of God's wrath that I mentioned briefly before, and that is this the wrath of God is not our wrath. As I said earlier, remember, god is holy, right, he's just, and so his wrath is the proper and righteous response from a holy God who's just to deal with evil, and evil in this case is being manifested, as we're going to talk about in a minute, ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. And so God's wrath remains holy, it's pure and it aligns with his character. So that's so important that we do not separate the two. The wrath of God is not something that exists eternally in God as an attribute, that's alongside his love, it's a response. So it is improper theologically to say that the wrath of God is an attribute of God. No, it's attributed alongside or it's in response from him being righteous, to sin right. So he enacts right, righteously, his judgment to deal with a particular matter that runs contrary to who he is, that's offensive to him. So if there was no sin, guess what? There would be no wrath of God.
Speaker 1:Now we also have to understand that God's wrath is not explosive, you know, like he doesn't just like this hair trigger reaction over minor things or little insults or injury. No, this is not a reflection of triviality. And we have to be very careful, because when you and I'm just speaking to us as Christians, whatever people say outside of the Christian faith, who don't know Christ as Lord and Savior because, again, when you talk to a lot of people, especially people who advance atheism, this is one key area that they have a problem with I don't blame them, because if you're dead in your trespasses and sin, yeah, god's wrath is going to fall upon you and that's not something to laugh about. The wrath of God is his settled, eternal opposition to all that desecrates and defiles what he has made good. So when you and I reject him as our maker, as our savior, and we believe that our own lives belong to us and we don't care, we suppress any message that can alleviate that there are gonna be consequences, because all the good things of God are loved by him with an everlasting love. And the Bible says that God is long suffering, that he has slowed anger, and I love that. So even now, god is being long suffering towards people who are ungodly and unrighteous. Right now, that's the people who are living against him Before his wrath falls upon them, like again, remember talking about the finality of it. You and I need to be reaching these ungodly, unrighteous people. We have them in our lives. You're probably thinking of some of them right now.
Speaker 1:Now, on the outside, they may be appearing like good, moral, law-abiding citizens, but what Paul's doing here in this scripture, in verse 18, is he's indicting the entire human race. So you and I were once in that fold. So God's wrath is justified in response to humanity's deliberate rejection of God. And so now what Paul's gonna be doing in verse 19 and 20, he's gonna be talking about God's natural revelation that has been revealed to mankind. So they're without excuse.
Speaker 1:In verse 21, 23, he talks about idolatry, that they reject him, they suppress his truth and they go feed into idolatry. And so we're told in verse 24 and verse 26 and verse 28 that God will give them over You'll hear that phrase because they've exchanged something that is of God's truth, of who he is, and therefore God will give these sinners over to their sinful desires. And remember what we said earlier about God's wrath there's also a level of consequ he is and therefore God will give these sinners over to their sinful desires. And remember what we said earlier about God's wrath there's also level of consequential wrath, the results of living a sinful life, so people who are addicted, let's say, to a particular substance. Over time that will destroy their life and sadly, in many cases it can lead to death. So Paul will specifically call out the Gentiles from this point on to verse 32. And also he jumps into chapter 2, all the way to chapter 3, verse 8, to also condemn the Jews who reject Jesus Christ, who is the truth. So these terminologies that Paul uses is important.
Speaker 1:He has the word ungodliness as an adjective and also unrighteousness. Now, the word for ungodliness has to do with committing wickedness or living an irreverent and rebellious life, and this is again something Paul will expound further. So if you want, you can just look at verses 19 through 27, and you can better understand what an ungodly person is. But he also uses the term unrighteousness as well, which this really holds to wickedness. It specifically is highlighting a violation that a person is violating God's laws, they're violating his standards and they're living to. They're living to basically commit acts of unrighteousness or or doing things that are that are unjust. And again, this is something Paul will talk about in the in the later verses.
Speaker 1:But notice what an ungodly and an unrighteous person do. Now remember, these aren't two separate individuals. He's just describing, in totality, if you will, a person who rejects God, who's committing to live an irreverent life. They suppress the truth. This literally means in Greek, to hold down with force. So it takes them to actively using mental muscle and physical muscle to force the truth of God away from them. So, for example, when you are watching a podcast about somebody who says, yeah, I once believed, but I don't believe anymore, that person is physically, mentally and spiritually forcing the truth out of them. So whether they're trying to reason it away, whether they're trying to find explanations or to have a plausible objection, again they're using force. So the moment God's truth begins to convict or reveal itself in their life to the unredeemed, to the ungodly, to the unrighteous, they will try to silence it, they will try to hinder it, they will attempt to block it in their lives and also they, with force, will try to remove it in our lives.
Speaker 1:And that's where the quote cancel culture comes from. So when you think of cancel culture, I want you to think of people who suppress the truth. That is God's truth we're not talking about in terms of politics, even though there's times in discussion of politics, it's mainly centered around morality. What form of morality, what type of morality do we legislate? And so when people are suppressing pro-lifers, what they're doing essentially is they're holding down with force the right to live, and that's demonic.
Speaker 1:So for them to actively and and purposefully suppress the truth, they must have knowledge. Isn't that interesting? Just like when I give lectures about doubt. When you doubt, you have some degree or some level of knowledge about something to be true, that is fact-based. You may lack trust, but you're not essentially denying the truth of it, because it's a fact, it bears true to reality, it corresponds to reality. So for someone to hold down with force, they know they have knowledge of what they're rejecting. That's why they are intentionally trying to silence it, to hinder it, to block it, intentionally trying to silence it, to hinder it, to block it.
Speaker 1:In verse 21, paul notes that they knew God. And notice, because they suppressed the truth here in verse 18, in verse 21, they became futile in their thinking, and the word there for futile is mateo. It means to empty vanity, to be given over to worthlessness. So ungodliness, unrighteousness, leads to worthlessness. Vine's commentary adds this. It says it means to become useless. And you see that when you see and this is so irrational, this makes no sense when someone's rejecting something that is clearly to be true, it's because they become worthless, useless. Now, I'm not saying demeaning them as a person, because they're image bearers of god, but this is what sin does. This is the result of suppressing the truth. You're going to be living a lie and it's going to affect you.
Speaker 1:In 2 Kings 17, verse 15, it illustrates what occurs when you reject your creator, when you turn to worship false and worthless objects of creation. Notice 2 Kings 17, verse 15,. They rejected his statutes and his covenant which he made with their fathers, and his covenant which he made with their fathers and his warnings with which he warned them, and they followed vanity and became vain and went after the nations which surrounded them, which went after gross idolatry, concerning which the Lord had commanded them not to do like them, and they did it which the Lord had commanded them not to do like them, and they did it so clearly here. The wrath of God fell upon them because they became vain that's part of the wrath of God because they went after the nation's idolatry, gross idolatry, so they got into sick, twisted things. So the consequence, my friends of idol worship, because when you reject the true and living God, you will worship something else and it's never gonna work out.
Speaker 1:And when you do that, if you know those people in your life who are living an ungodly, unrighteous life, they're essentially living a worthless, useless life, because they're living for themselves and their thoughts will become unwise. Their hearts will be filled with greater darkness. In Ephesians 4.18, paul elaborates on this lifelessness of people who reject God and his truth. They are darkened in their understanding and they're alienated from the life of God because catch this of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart. So, as I close, if you are talking to somebody, and no matter what you say to them, they just have such a hardened heart. You are already seeing the wrath of God falling on them and we can pray for them and you could be diligent, as God leads you to do so, to be a witness to them, and I thank the Lord for that for you. We need more Christians who are not gonna give up. But, as I said in the opening, if God's wrath is real and it certainly is and there's more of God's wrath to fall on this world, and thank God, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, you and I are saved from it.
Speaker 1:Now let me just close and share with you guys a particular passage about God's wrath, and it's found in the book of Revelation, chapter three. And this is the hope that we have that God's wrath does not fall upon his children. Revelation 3.10 says because you have kept my word about it patiently in endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to try those who dwell on the earth. What is he talking about? He's talking about the wrath to come. This is about in the end times. You see in the book of Revelation, the tribulation period.
Speaker 1:First Thessalonians, chapter one, verse 10, says and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, jesus, who delivers us from the wrath, to come. So, as a follower of Jesus Christ, god's wrath does not fall upon you. Just like we see the picture of the Ark of the Covenant and God with Noah and his three sons and their wives and his wife, he protected those eight souls. And so when you look at Revelation 5, verse 9, it says for god is not destined us. So he's not only saved us, delivered us from wrath. He's not destined us to be victims of his wrath if we've obtained salvation through our lord jesus christ.
Speaker 1:So if you are saved from the wrath of, but you know people who are not right now, I pray you will share your faith. I pray you will share the gospel that you will not be ashamed of it, because it is the power of God and you are his hands and feet, my friends. So wherever you're at listening to this, I pray that that is emboldened you to go. Proclaim the truth. Love you, guys. I want you to know that if you want to continue to grow in your faith, even outside of this podcast, I encourage you guys to go to stanstrongministriesorg. We have videos, articles, books that I've written, made available just for you. So until next time, keep standing strong in the word of God. Thank you.