All the recent brouhaha over hell, universalism, etc. brought about by Rob Bell’s new book got me thinking about a little theological idea I’ve been playing with for awhile. It’s really just a undeveloped, niggling idea I’ve had that I want to throw out here on my blog to see what y’all think.
Here it is:
What if God’s wrath is simply a pre-emptive strike on the degrading power of sin?
What if God’s wrath is his way of short-circuiting the natural, slow, sleepy devolution of the image of God we would experience if sin simply had its way with us? Maybe God’s wrath is his way of “pressing the issue,” of getting us to experience some the actual horror of sin so as to wake us up before it’s too late.
Sometimes we conceptualize God’s wrath as the same kind of thing as when parents get frustrated that their kids don’t put the milk back in the fridge after they use it. But what if it’s more like an intervention? What if God sees the powerfully degrading affects of our sin and seeks to jar us awake before we quietly slip into a coma we’ll never come out of?
And what if the true horror of the destiny of those who refuse to be woken up is not that God’s wrath rests on them eternally, but that his wrath is withdrawn from them, signifying a final end to God’s pursuit of them?
Also: After Jesus’ death on the cross, God seems to deal with humanity differently than he did before. Should this play into our thinking about God’s wrath?
So there you have it, just a few thoughts. Possibly heretical. What do you think?
Ben:
Again, a thought-provoking post. I recently had a discussion with one of my (adult) sons, in which he was (I think) trying to provoke a caustic response out of me. It wasn't that he had done anything overtly wicked (other than he had tried to take his own life), but he was delineating all the reasons why he thought himself to be a liability to mankind. He seemed to be wrestling with his own great capacity to sin. My response to him was that I don't believe in pre-emptive punishment because I don't believe that God manifests His judgment in that way. My point was that pre-emptive ultimate self-flagellation (suicide) is not how God exemplifies His standard of justice.
But your perspective on pre-emptive strikes against sin's degrading effects on man and the cosmos is one which I think is taught throughout Scripture, e.g., the Flood. There is a sense in which it is responsive to the sin of mankind, but the redemption of Noah and his family demonstrates that God was preventing things from getting worse. (Although, from the description of human society, it would seem that it couldn't get much worse.)
If we accept that calamities and disasters (yes, even holocausts) are from God's hand, however mediated through secondary causes, then I think we are faced with the reality of God's gracious and measured wrath as a wake-up call. Being Japanese (just a half-breed) has brought this home for me in the wake of the disaster in Japan. The problematic power plant complex in Fukushima is within 60 miles of where I grew up with my missionary parents. Of course I ache for my "kindred after the flesh," but this is as gracious a message from God as the message of Jonah to Nineveh.
And you're right about God's manner of dealing with humanity after Christ's atonement. Though Paul says that God winked at the ignorance of the past, he also declares that the work of Christ makes men more culpable. Our favorite evangelistic verse shows the flip-side of God's grace in Christ when it is read in context, since "the wrath of God abides" on the one who does not believe in Jesus.
Thanks for wading into the water, Vernon!
For the record, I don't think that "natural" disasters are necessarily expressions of God's wrath. Most of the time I think they are "temper tantrums" from an earth inadequately "dominioned."
This construct works on some levels. I'm having trouble fitting it into some of the exercises of his wrath where people are entirely destroyed. Oh wait, you added to the post at the end. Hmm…maybe that works.
But even expressions of wrath where people are entirely destroyed, is there not a possibility that this was to save them from a far worse fate? That of being so far gone that they become entirely numb to God's pursuit?
I think C.S. Lewis said something like that once, that killing someone wasn't necessarily the worst thing God could do to them, when you consider eternity.
So you're saying its not "too late" for those he annihilated? Well, how UNorthodox of you Bennie!
And when you speak of his "jarring" you don't include natural disasters, disease, death, etc. So what do you include? What wrath do you speak of? If you just mean wrath we read about in the OT, how does your theological construct help us today?
Your statement about God' wrath being removed from someone is worse than his wrath being on them is tricksy. Aren't you basically saying his interventive "jarring" was grace…and the removal of said grace is true wrath. I guess that is what confuses me…I've always understood intervention of sin's degradation in terms of grace…never wrath. Otherwise, wrath loses its meaning as a word for me.
I did say that my thoughts might be heretical – I'm just playing around with a few ideas. Thanks for helping me think it through 😉
I said that natural disasters weren't "necessarily" expressions of wrath. They could be. But I think of Jesus in the boat in the storm. He didn't treat the storm like God's wrath (i.e. submit to it), but as unordered creation, and spoke to it like an unruly puppy, "Down!"
And I am indeed wondering if "wrath" is an expression of grace. What I have trouble fathoming is God eternally and actively expressing "wrath" towards people. I'm wondering if wrath is God revealing his displeasure with sin (because of the degrading human consequences), but that in the end there will come a time when he stops this active pursuing and revelatory work, "giving up" and allowing people to go their own way, so to speak (and who knows what they become then…)
Another way to say it: what if the "natural" consequences of sin are so bad that God doesn't really need to "add" anything to it?
What if heaven and hell aren't filled with arbitrary rewards and punishments, but are simply the natural states of being for those who wish to be close to God and those who don't?
What a fantastic paragraph: "And what if the true horror of the destiny of those who refuse to be woken up is not that God’s wrath rests on them eternally, but that his wrath is withdrawn from them, signifying a final end to God’s pursuit of them?"
Ben
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I guess reading this I ask myself if it is consistent with what I know to be true of God? That He is good. That He loves us. Is it consistent with the way we see God act in the Old and New Testament? And to me it is. One problem that I see so many people struggle with is trying to reconcile in their minds the way they read of God acting in the Old Testament vs. the New Testament. I myself find it hard sometimes to reconcile the two seemingly different ways of God acting in the Old and New Testaments. I still believe God is good, but there are just some things that I can't understand. I feel your thoughts bring light to the things I don't understand. I am not saying that I believe your thoughts to be true, but I must say that I do find them consistent, and comforting because it only considers the best thought of who God is.
To think of how God pursues us so consistently, and that He is always looking out for our best. That is the God I worship, and I feel that I love him more today.
Thanks again,
Jason.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Jason.
I'm not sure how it all works out, either, but I am convinced that God wants everyone to "get in" and will accept absolutely everyone who can stand it. I think it might have been C.S. Lewis that said "the flames of heaven may be hotter than the fires of hell," meaning that the dominating reality of heaven is God himself, and some people just don't like him or what he is all about.
Imagine just one small implication of living with God forever: no more lying. No more hiding. Committing yourself to live completely in the light. That alone is enough to make many choose hell, I would think. Unless God can woo them… which is what he is up to, I think.
When your skeltons are out of the closet and everyone knows about them it can be a very freeing thing. We may think it scary, but we're all in the same boat. We are all sinners. With this in mind I believe the power of same is broken.
Jason
God HAS wrath. But God IS love. His wrath is against evil, sin, and those things that harm humanity, but NEVER against humanity itself.
Also, check out the absolutely wonderful book "He Loves Me." http://lifewalkblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/12/revi…