Who is God? What is He like? In many of my blogs on God’s promises, I’ve asked readers to consider what the particular story or incident says about God. After all, the Bible is God’s written revelation about who He is and what He purposes for His creation. Although God isn’t always center stage in many of the stories, He is always the main character.
We have seen God’s love, compassion, mercy, patience, and long-suffering on display throughout our scriptural journey together. But, in last week’s blog, we saw another facet of God’s character that should cause us to take notice of how we live: God’s anger or wrath when His laws are broken.
God’s wrath
God’s anger toward sin is as much a part of Him as is love, compassion, and other qualities. I would contend that these qualities could not exist without the righteous anger of God. How would you understand the meaning of John 3:16, “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life,” if you dismiss the truth that God has wrath or anger toward sin? Jesus took God’s wrath and bore our punishment on the cross. Love and anger made our salvation possible.
Don’t miss the point that God was attempting to make to the Israelites when He gave them the Commandments: “I am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to those who love Me and keep My commandments. Exodus 20:5-6.
God is jealous, demanding that we have no other god or loyalty above our love for and loyalty to Him. God wants our first love and loyalty because that is what is best for us! God made us, and the rules by which we are to live. He is the Judge of what is good and evil. He alone has the moral purity and authority to judge, forgive, and punish our behavior.
The New Testament does not gloss over God’s anger toward sin and the punishment coming to those who do not repent. Jesus said in Luke 13:5, “Except you repent, you will all likewise perish.” In the same chapter where we see the promise of John 3:16, we find this promise of salvation and the warning about God’s wrath: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides in him.” John 3:36.
God is a jealous God, and His wrath is real. A final judgment is coming when God’s wrath will be poured out on all unbelievers. Don’t take my word for it, search the scriptures.
Where mercy and grace meet wrath
As we return to the story of the golden calf and Israel’s idolatry, we can see the interplay between God’s burning anger toward them and His mercy and grace. God’s wrath is His anger with those who deliberately sin against Him. What then are mercy and grace, and how do we see them interacting with wrath in this story?
Mercy is the withholding of the punishment we deserve. While Moses was on the mountain with God, the Israelites had Aaron make an idol to replace God, and they worshipped it. Exodus 32:7-10 says that God told Moses to go back to the people and leave Him alone, ” That my anger may burn against them, and that I may destroy them.” v.10 God’s anger was justified, and destruction was what they deserved. God could have wiped them out and started over by making Moses the progenitor of a new nation. But God didn’t wipe them out as justice demanded. Instead, He listened to Moses’ intercession, changed His mind, and spared their lives. Mercy prevailed where wrath would have destroyed them.
Grace is the giving of something we don’t deserve. While God’s mercy withholds the punishment we deserve, grace bestows a gift or blessing we don’t deserve or earn. Where do we see God’s grace displayed with the obstinate Israelites? There is no indication that God had forgiven their sin, and Moses attempted to make atonement with God for them by asking God to forgive them or else remove his name from God’s book. Exodus 32:32. God refused because atonement cannot take place without repentance, which Israel had not done. God has shown mercy by not destroying them, but there will be consequences for their disobedience, as noted in Exodus 32:35.
How did He show grace by giving them something they didn’t deserve? He allowed them to continue toward the Promised Land as participants in the promise He had made to Abraham. “Then the Lord spoke to Moses, ‘Depart, go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up from the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, “To your descendants, I will give it.” Exodus 33:1.
God is a god of wrath, mercy, and grace. Those of us who have accepted Jesus have experienced all three because Jesus has borne the wrath of God for our sin, God has spared us the hell we deserve, and given us eternal life because Jesus was raised from the dead, to overcome the power of sin and death. Wrath, mercy, and grace meet us in Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord!
Praise the Lord Jesus for taking the wrath we deserve and giving us grace and mercy.