“But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquities, and did not destroy them. Yes, many a time He turned His anger away, and did not stir up all His wrath.” Psalms 78:38

Though God's compassion is often celebrated, many find the idea of His wrath disturbing. If God is love, they think He should never express wrath. That notion, however, is false. His wrath arises directly from his love.

Some claim that the Old Testament God is a God of wrath and that the New Testament God is a God of love. But there is only one God, and He is revealed as the same in both Testaments. The God, who is love, does not become angry at evil, but precisely because He is love. Jesus Himself expressed profound anger against evil, and the New Testament teaches numerous times about the righteous and appropriate wrath of God.

God’s anger is always His righteous and loving response against evil and injustice. Divine wrath is righteous indignation motivated by perfect goodness and love, and it seeks the flourishing of all creation. God’s wrath is simply the appropriate response of love to evil and injustice. Accordingly, evil provokes God to passion in favor of the victims of evil and against its perpetrators. Diving wrath, then, is another expression of diving love.

The God of the Bible loves justice and hates evil. Sin and evil, therefore, provoke Him to passion, a passion expressed on behalf of those oppressed and abused, and even in cases in which one’s evil affects primarily oneself. God hates evil because evil always hurts His creatures, even if self-inflicted. In the biblical narratives, God is repeatedly provoked to anger by what Biblical scholars refer to as the cycle of rebellion.

In the face of this cycle of egregious evil and infidelity, however, God repeatedly meets human unfaithfulness, but with unending faithfulness, long-suffering forbearance, amazing grace and deep compassion.

According to scriptures, God has the right to bring judgment and when He does, He always does so with justice. Both the Old and New Testaments explicitly reserve vengeance for God. As Paul writes in Romans 12:19, “never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”

While God eventually brings judgment against injustice and evil, Christ has made a way for all who believe in Him. Indeed, it is Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.