If God is love, what's up with his wrath?
God is love. Many people today hear that assertion and ask (aloud or silently), "Oh yeah? Then how come God. . .?" That's an important question. Actually, considering how many ways people fill in those three dots, that's a lot of important questions. They all deserve a serious answer. Wrath seems particularly incompatible with love. Humans display wrath by losing their temper in frustration and trying to exert control over whomever is not letting them have their way. It's not enough simply to assert that God is somehow different. I hope to demonstrate just exactly how God is different.
The wrath of God is revealed against human godlessness and wickedness. I suppose nearly everyone has seen that scripture plastered, all by itself, on at least one billboard. It doesn't make God seem very nice. Jesus—now, Jesus seems like a really nice guy. At least until we read about him losing his temper in the temple and wielding a whip. At least until we recognize that Jesus warns about hell more sternly than anyone else in the entire Bible. Out of character? Only if someone reads the gospels very selectively to define Jesus' character. No two ways about it: God and Jesus are on the same page. That makes sense if, as Christians claim, Jesus is God made evident in human flesh.
The meaning of wrath
Probably the first task in reconciling God's wrath with his love is to understand what wrath is. Here's what I did: I looked up "wrath" in Strong's concordance and found the number (3709) of the Greek word (orge) used in the verse I cited earlier. In the King James (the translation Strong's is based on), it is translated using four different English words: anger, indignation, vengeance, and wrath. That Greek word, in turn, comes from one that means to stretch oneself or reach out after (Str 3713, oregomai), rendered in King James English as covet after or desire.
The word Paul used is not the only Greek word for "anger." Looking further through reference works, I find that the word we're looking at means a settled habit of anger. That's important, because anger that comes suddenly on impulse is always expressed by a different Greek word. Now we know at least that the wrath of God does not mean anything impulsive.
Human anger can be either a settled habit or a sudden impulse, and neither kind is very pretty. We get angry one way or another when something thwarts our will, hurts our feelings, or arouses our insecurity. Modern psychologists tell us that anger is energy that we can use to change things. Actually, anger can be beneficial if we want to change things. Terrible problems result when we try to change people instead of things. Anger used that way destroys relationships, and often other things as well.
Here's where God is different. By definition, he is all-powerful. Nothing can thwart his will. Search Scripture from front to back with a fine-tooth comb. No one has ever alleged that any act of God's anger resulted from hurt feelings or insecurity. The verse I'm using as a text says that it's revealed against godlessness and human wickedness (or unrighteousness, or any number of ways of expressing it in various translations). Whatever its source, though, God's wrath is a settled habit. That means that he can exercise it with inexhaustible calmness and patience.
The meaning of wickedness
