The scriptures clearly refer to the wrath of God (e.g. Nahum 1:6; Jeremiah 10:10; Psalm 90:7-10; Romans 1:26-28). Is God furious at the world? Is God's stance toward the world hostile, filled with bitter enmity? Are we sinners in the hands of an angry God?
The Orthodox answer to all three questions is "No."
God does not have a hostile attitude toward the world. We may be hostile toward God, but God is not hostile to us. Instead, God loves us. Furthermore, the cross of Christ has nothing to do with "satisfying" God's wrath, but rather, is a clear expression of God's love. "The Cross does not presuppose the hostility but the love of God. 'For God so loved the world...'" (vii)
Despite the passages that speak of God's wrath, "the anger of God is not portrayed in the Bible as a fundamental attribute of God, but rather as something transient" (4). Numerous verses communicate this:
- He does not retain His anger for ever because He delights in love. (Micah 7:18)
- In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid My face from you, But with everlasting love I will have compassion on you (Isaiah 54:8)
- For His anger is but for a moment, But His favor is for a lifetime. (Psalm 30:5)
God's anger is never capricious or arbitrary, but designed to lead sinners to repentance. It is directed against evil, and it is the counterpart of love. "God's anger is not the antithesis of love, but the counterpart of love. Just as God loves goodness, so He hates evil which seeks to destroy goodness" (11).
God does not hate human begins, but God hates the evil deeds, attitudes, and motivations that are opposed to human flourishing. Put another way, God hates the sickness, but does not hate the sick person (19).
This is not a play on words, as C. S. Lewis eloquently argues:
For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life-- namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact, the very reason why I hated the sins was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things. Consequently Christianity does not want us to reduce by one atom the hatred we feel for cruelty and treachery. We ought to hate them. Not one word of what we have said about them needs to be unsaid. But it does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere, he can be cured and made human again. (69-70)
God's anger is righteous, and is expressed against sin, injustice, and evil. With this in mind, we may retain the use of wrath language as a powerful antidote to our own sinful habits:
The language is strong because that is just how we should speak to enemies who seek to destroy us. Especially spiritual ones. Anger--righteous indignation-- must always be directed against sin and evil. This is why St. Nikodemos and other saints of the Church call on us to hate and abhor sin, which is our greatest enemy since it jeopardizes our very salvation, depriving us of God's grace in our journey toward theosis (union with God in Christ)." (20-21)
St. Theophan the Recluse illustrates how we might practice holy anger:
As soon as you observe a passion [such as cheating lying, hatred, anger, unforgiveness, resentment, jealousy, envy, pride, gossiping, lust, or greed], try to stir up anger within yourself against it as quickly as possible. This anger is a firm rejection of the passion. The passion cannot be sustained unless there is sympathy for it, but any sympathy is destroyed by anger, and the passion will leave or fall away at the first manifestation of it. (23)
Clearly, this is a whole new way to view "Be angry and sin not" (Psalm 4:5; Ephesians 4:26).
The anger of God is not a fundamental divine attribute, but "a tragic necessity, a calamity for man and grief for God. It is not an emotion He delights in, but an emotion He deplores. 'For He does not willingly afflict or grieve the sons of men' (Lam. 3:33)" (34).
There is a wonderful story that illustrates this truth. Two little brothers were playing one day and, as brothers do, they got into an argument. One boy threatened to be a bad boy; the other warned, "You can't be a bad boy, because if you are, Mother won't like you." Overhearing the conversation, the mother spoke up. "Boys, you're wrong," she said. "Mother will always love you. When you're good, she'll love you with a love that's glad, and when you're bad, she'll love you with a love that's sad." (26)
God's wrath is most clearly demonstrated in God's "giving people over" to their own misguided and distorted desires. Three times in Romans, "the wrath of God is revealed" in that "God gave them over" (Romans 1:18, 24, 26, 28). God's wrath is not an active hostility toward human beings, but a reluctant and sad "letting go."
The essence of God's "wrath" is that He allows people to have what they choose. He does no more than ratify judgments which people have already passed on themselves by the path they have chosen to follow.
St. John explains it this way, And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil (John 3:18).
They pass judgment on themselves when they reject the light that comes to them in Christ, preferring to dwell in darkness. God still loves them but with a love that makes Him sad. (28)
Tragically, sin distorts our vision of God and causes us to picture God as angry, vengeful, unforgiving, and wrathful. And yet, the Hounds of Heaven (not the Hounds of Hell) continue to pursue us with God's goodness and mercy. If there is any enmity between us and God, the enmity arises from us.
The fact that God's wrath is not fundamental to the divine nature, but a reluctant and transient expression intended to lead sinners to repentance, must change how we view the cross. Contrary to popular expressions of the gospel, the cross has nothing to do with "satisfying" God's wrath. "If the cross is a personal act of violence perpetrated by God towards humankind but borne by his Son, then it makes a mockery of Jesus own teaching to love your enemies and to refuse to repay evil with evil" (39).
Instead, the cross reveals God's deep love and perfect patience.
Thus, Christ dies on the cross not as a victim to satisfy God's anger, wrath or justice; He dies rather as Victor, as the Incarnate Son of God to destroy sin and death and release the whole creation from "the bondage to corruption" (Rom. 8:21). In other words, Christ died on the cross not to save us from God's wrath but to release us from the bondage to corruption and make us "partakers of divine nature" by grace. This is God's makrothymia [Greek for long-suffering or patience]. It is not His wrath or offended justice that is behind the Cross but His long-suffering love, His makrothymia. (99)
In my opinion, the second half of the book falls short in that Coniaris argues for the impassibility of God, rendering God's anger (and patience, love, compassion, etc.) as mere anthropopathism instead of a true expression of the divine life.
In spite of this shortcoming, this short book is a helpful corrective to those who want to make wrath a permanent and predominant characteristic of God. We must never forget that the scriptures teach, "God so loved the world that he gave his Son," and not "God was so angry with the world that he killed the Son." The cross reveals God's patience, vulnerability, and deep love - not God's wrath.
Quotes excerpted from Can a Loving God be Wrathful? An Orthodox Christian Perspective by Anthony M. Coniaris
© Richard J. Vincent, 2009
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