Day 253

Today's Reading: Revelation 15

There is beauty in diversity and variety. Think about how diverse and beautiful America’s landscape is. Parts of our country have mountains, deserts, forests, plains, and cities with skyscrapers. The diversity of landscape brings a balance that delights the eye.

The same is true for God. The smallest chapter of Revelation has a very large concept in it. It’s a word Christians rarely use anymore concerning God.

When we get stuck on a single part of the landscape of His character, we make God small, which allows unhealthy theology to arise. For instance, we know that God is love. That’s what made God send His Son for our rescue: “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” I am grateful for God’s grace and His mercy. His goodness is overwhelming at times.

But there’s another aspect of God’s character that makes us uncomfortable, so we don’t talk about it: the wrath of God. Today’s chapter talks about it, so it’s important for us to pay attention to it: “Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels who had seven plagues, which are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished” (Revelation 15:1).

The seven angels who have the seven trumpets have the most destructive judgment the planet has ever seen. John describes those as seven plagues because of their devastation. But the word that sums up these seven plagues from these seven angels and seven trumpets is the wrath of God.

As I mentioned in a previous day, my Italian father had a statement that dealt with his wrath when I was growing up. When we were acting up at the dinner table and getting close to the edge of where judgment needed to come, my father would say, “The bag is getting full.” That is how wrath works. It contains patience, warning, and then judgment. God has been sending warnings from the beginning of time and showing patience to the human race. Now Revelation shows when the bag has gotten full. Wrath does not come without thousands of years of warning, but it comes with people disregarding the warning and His patience.

What is the wrath of God?

When we think of wrath, we think of anger, explosive anger. But this is not an accurate description of God’s wrath. Revelation doesn’t portray God losing it on the planet and going off on humanity. We see this kind of anger as irrational, the loss of self-control. Nothing could be further from the truth of this very important part of God. The best way to describe the wrath of God is by connecting it to God’s hatred for sin. Revelation shows when God’s patience reaches a limit, and His calculated judgment comes with wrath against a planet that has rejected Him.

In Free of Charge, Creation theologian Miroslav Volf spoke about how early in life, he disdained the idea of God’s wrath and even rejected God for it. But part of his conversion to faith was in understanding how important God’s wrath is and how it’s connected to God’s love. Listen to Volf describe it:

Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God’s wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn’t wrathful at the sight of the world’s evil. God isn’t wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love.

The wrath of God is necessary if God is love because God’s wrath is His righteous retribution against sin, the enemy of God. Because God is love and God is good, He can never not address evil and sin. How can a police officer be a good cop if he sees crimes committed and does nothing about it? Being a good police officer has a positive side to the law-abiding community but a negative side to the law-breaking criminal. The same is true for God. He is so good that when His wrath is released, He will separate sinners from saints in heaven and hell.

Tony Evans says, “God’s wrath is not saying God is cruel but it is saying that God is just. In the same way you want the rapist locked up because you want justice that is what we are talking about, God must respond to the crime called sin. God must respond to sin based upon His nature.”

Let’s look at Psalm 45:7, and we will see love and hate present in the same verse: “You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.” God hates sin because God loves righteousness. His hate is expressed through His wrath.

The book of Revelation reminds us that no one gets away with anything. God’s wrath is God’s justice. My father said, “The bag is full.” Consider how Paul talked about it in Romans 2:5: “Because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” That’s the best description of wrath and the book of Revelation. The storage unit of wrath is now full and unleashed.

In Psalm 7, David gives us a vivid picture of the wrath of God on evil:

Yet if the wicked do not repent,

you will not relent with your wrath,

slaying them with your shining sword.

You are the conqueror with an arsenal of lethal weapons

that you’ve prepared for them.

You have bent and strung your bow,

making your judgment-arrows shafts of burning fire.

(verses 12-13, tpt)

David says the patience of God is Him not releasing the bent bow that has been pulled back. The wrath of God is released because His mercy and grace have been ignored.

So here’s the good news in the midst of all this wrath talk: the bow is still bent and hasn’t been released. A bent bow means we can repent and ask for God’s forgiveness. God is a God of wrath. And God is a God of mercy. The bent bow means we have time. Use this time to get right with God instead of waiting till the bag gets full.

We can experience angels worshiping in heaven or seven angels unleashing the wrath of God. How do we get the latter? Paul tells us in Romans 5:8-9:

Christ proved God’s passionate love for us by dying in our place while we were still lost and ungodly! And there is still much more to say of his unfailing love for us! For through the blood of Jesus we have heard the powerful declaration, “You are now righteous in my sight.” And because of the sacrifice of Jesus, you will never experience the wrath of God. (tpt)

Saved from the wrath of God through Jesus.