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God’s Love & Wrath

As a Christian and a person who studies God’s Word, I am fascinated by the number of Christians who speak on God’s love, but refuse to acknowledge God’s wrath. It is as if the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation is not in their Bibles.

There are also those who believe the God of the Old Testament is not the same God in the New Testament. Any true believer knows and understands they are one and the same. God is the same in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. His love, grace and mercy are revealed along with His wrath in both sections of the Bible.

Knowing this is the truth, I am forced to ponder the reasons behind the denial of God’s wrath. No matter how I come at the question, I am led to believe, people do not want to acknowledge the wrath of God, because they have chosen to live their lives in unrighteousness, but still want to enter into His Kingdom.

Paul the Apostle addressed the problem of living in unrighteousness in his letter to the church in Rome:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them (Romans 1:18-19).

We all want to experience the love of God, and we like to quote 1 John 4:8: He who does not love does not know God, for God is love, especially to other Christians we believe are not expressing the love of God. Unfortunately, those same Christians did not read further. John went on to say this: For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome (1 John 5:3).

God loves us and He pursues us in His love, but when we choose to pursue the world and the things of this world, we choose the wrath of God. The same can be said for all who pursue unrighteousness. They pursue God’s wrath, not His love.

The most amazing thing about God’s love is that He never gives up. He always provides a way back to Him. Even after the Rapture of the church, when God takes His believers home to Him, before the Tribulation, those who chose His wrath in this life still have a chance to come to the Lord. There are those who will come to the Lord during the Tribulation. They will experience some of God’s wrath but in His great love, they will be saved. John wrote this in Revelation 7:13-14:

Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, “Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?” And I said to him, “Sir, you know.” So he said to me, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

That is the true love of the Lord. It is not the absence of His judgment or wrath. It is the many opportunities He gives us to choose Him—to choose eternity in heaven.

The love and wrath of God can be boiled down to this simple quote from Thomas Fuller, “God giveth His wrath by weight, but His mercy without measure.”

— Staff Writer