FALSE NARRATIVES

So far I have been trying to expose some of the dark and negative narratives about God we hear in religious circles—the angry god who judges us harshly, the god who must be prodded and cajoled into forgiving even our minor infractions. I have tried to show that this is not the God Jesus knows and loves and proclaims. Instead, God’s love is not contingent on anything we do. God is love. God even loves sinners. However, the fact that God loves sinners is usually followed with, “But God still hates sin.” That narrative, I believe, is absolutely true.

It has been my experience that people hold one of two dominant narratives, and both of them are wrong.

God is wrathful. There are those who think God is mad all the time, that wrath and anger are essential to God’s nature because God is holy and so much of the world is not. One woman said to me, “I just figure that God is generally angry with me, but puts up with it until I do something really bad, and then I wonder, ‘Oh no, what is God going to do to me?’ ” Her narrative is very common. God, people assume, is mad at all of the sin he sees and is ready to bring the divine hammer down when he gets really fed up. However, the Bible also says, “God so loved the world” and “in Christ God was reconciling the world.” This is where the narrative gets modified: God the Father is really angry at our sin and would send us to hell, except his Son, Jesus, stepped in and took the punishment for us. This is how people balance God’s anger and forgiveness.

God does not care about our sin. But there is another narrative that is also popular, especially in our postmodern world. Today many people have abandoned the “angry God” narratives, believing that God is just the opposite. In our day you are just as likely to hear a person tell you that their god is a cosmic, benevolent spirit who never judges, does not punish sin and sends no one to hell. This “teddy bear” god has become a very fashionable alternative to the wrathful god of days gone by.

If you watch popular TV talk shows, you will often hear this god mentioned. The appeal is easy to understand. A loving spirit who wants to bless everyone is certainly preferable to the “Marquis de God,” who is cruel and sadistic, ready to send a person into eternal torment for having the wrong doctrine or for failing to overcome some sin. But is this benign spirit the biblical God? Is that narrative any closer to Jesus’ narrative concerning his Father? The cushy, fuzzy god is neither biblical nor truly loving.

H. Richard Niebuhr, the great professor of theology and ethics who taught at Yale University for decades, nailed this problem with his famous and insightful observation that the modern religious narrative teaches that “a God without wrath1 brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.”

This quote shows how several narratives in orthodox Christianity hang together, of necessity, around the issue of sin. The narrative of a god who does not care about sin naturally undermines the entire Christian story. God demonstrates wrath toward sin; there is judgment in God’s kingdom, and there is a need for Jesus to die on a cross.

The teddy-bear god seems inviting at first. But when you look at our world or look deeply into your own heart, you see a darkness that is unmistakable. The nonwrathful god is powerless against this darkness. As strange as it may sound, in my understanding, the wrath of God is a beautiful part of the majesty and love of God. Before I explain why, we need to turn once again to Jesus to get a balanced view of the character of God.

JESUS’ NARRATIVE: WRATH IS GOD’S RIGHT ACTION

We often think of Jesus as meek and mild, as one who strolled through the lilies of the field and talked of peace and love. Or of a Jesus who whistled while he worked as the birds perched upon his shoulders and the mice helped him in the carpenter’s shop. (No wait, that’s Cinderella I’m thinking of.) Nonetheless, we are more comfortable with a Mr. Rogers kind of Jesus than the one who actually appears in the pages of the Bible. In order to balance that perspective we need to look at what Jesus had to say about judgment and wrath. The following five passages reveal another dimension to God.

Words like condemnation and wrath are not often associated with Jesus. But we cannot overlook the fact that he spoke often about these things. How do we integrate these teachings with those we have looked at so far? How do we make sense of a God who, according to Jesus, is like a father who would throw a party for a wayward son, and yet at the same time feels wrath toward those who reject him? To do so we need to take a closer look at what Jesus means by condemnation and wrath.

Integrating God’s love and his wrath is difficult. Most people don’t; they simply decide to go one way or the other. But it is something we must do because Jesus does not allow us to choose one or the other. He speaks of God as being both, and both is what we need to have a full understanding of God. As Paul said, “Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness toward you” (Romans 11:22, italics added).

God is both kind and severe. We cannot have one without the other. In actuality, this is very good news.

PASSION VERSUS PATHOS

The great American statesman and president Thomas Jefferson was a man of science who did not believe in miracles but really liked Jesus. Unfortunately, right next to Jesus’ ethical teachings are stories about miracles—feeding five thousand people with a sack lunch, walking on water, curing blindness. Jefferson resolved this conflict in a very pragmatic way. He took a pair of scissors and cut out the miracle stories. He was left with the teachings of Jesus. He also snipped out some of those teachings that were a bit incredible. In the end he had just the Jesus he wanted.

It’s easy to do this. I suppose I do it in my own way, though not with scissors. I just skip over the parts I don’t like and camp out in the passages I do. This has not been a good strategy, however. I have found that in so doing I lose some important aspect of God or of the Christian life. And that missing piece can make all the difference.

A person similar to Jefferson is the nineteenth-century theologian Albrecht Ritschl (1822-1889). He did not like the notion of a wrathful God. Ritschl concluded, “The concept of God’s wrath2 has no religious value for the Christian.” So he reinterpreted the meaning of wrath. Wrath is the logical consequence of God’s absence, and not God’s attitude toward sin and evil. A lot of people liked this because it depicted a god who is above getting angry. This passive-aggressive god just gets quiet.

This god appeals to us because we have a hard time letting go of our human projections about both love and wrath. When we think of love we think of an emotion or a feeling that is often irrational. Most of the love songs we hear on the radio describe a torrent of emotions a person feels about their beloved, so much so that they would climb every mountain and swim every sea just to be with him or her. In actuality, they wouldn’t. After one or two mountain ranges the emotion would begin to diminish, and the famished lover might actually prefer a cheeseburger to their beloved. After swimming just one sea (even a very small sea) I imagine the fires of love would dim.

So we hear that “God is love” and make the assumption that God is crazy in love with us. But love—particularly the wonderful Greek word agape—has a different definition. To love is, in the words of Dallas Willard, “to will the good of another”; it’s not primarily an emotion. Love is a desire for the well-being of another, so much so that personal sacrifice would not stand in its way. It is not that God’s love is dispassionate, it’s just that God’s love is a lot more like a parent’s love toward a child than the “love” between infatuated teens. In other words, the love of God is not an emotion that waxes and wanes.

The same is true of the word wrath. When we hear this word we imagine someone in a fit of rage who has lost all reason and control. Wrath is such a strong word that we use it only for extreme cases. I have seen some people get pretty angry and remain somewhat controlled, logical and even fair in dealing with those who have caused them to be angry. But I have no such examples for wrath. Wrath is a polite way of describing someone who has crossed past anger into a state of rage.

So when we speak of the wrath of God, we imagine that God is irrationally full of rage, ready to “make heads roll” because he is so livid. In the same way that God’s love is not a silly, sappy feeling but rather a consistent desire for the good of his people, so also the wrath of God is not a crazed rage but rather a consistent opposition to sin and evil. God hates sin, we say (not the sinner, however), but even then, the idea of God hating something seems beneath him. We have a difficult time with the concept of God’s wrath and judgment and condemnation because our only examples of these things are so negative.

The solution to the problem is in understanding that in the Bible the wrath of God is pathos and not passion. The Anchor Bible Dictionary explains the difference:

The wrath of God is not like human wrath, which is a reckless and irrational passion. For example, God is never described by Paul as being angry. Anger is a human emotion. Wrath is different. God’s wrath is a mindful, objective, rational response. It is actually an act of love. God is not indecisive when it comes to evil. God is fiercely and forcefully opposed to the things that destroy his precious people, which I am grateful for. It is a sign of God’s love: “God’s wrath must be understood4 in relation to his love. Wrath is not a permanent attribute of God. Whereas love and holiness are part of his essential nature, wrath is contingent upon human sin; if there were no sin there would be no wrath.”

Wrath is a necessary reaction of a loving and holy God, a good and beautiful God, to evil. God’s wrath is a temporary and just verdict on sin and evil. As J. I. Packer notes, “God’s wrath in the Bible5 is always judicial,” and is “a right and necessary reaction to objective moral evil.”

Packer concludes his point by asking, “Would a God who took6 as much pleasure in evil as he did in good be a good God? Would a God who did not act adversely to evil in his world be morally perfect? Surely not.” And if the Creator of the universe were this indifferent, would the universe be fair? One of the things we humans cannot escape is our longing for fairness and justice. I do not want a universe in which there is no justice, no right and wrong. And I do not want a God who is indifferent to moral evil.

A GOD WHO IS MADD

I think the best example of wrath I can find on a human level is the organization known as MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving). This organization was created by mothers (and I assume some fathers) whose children were killed by intoxicated automobile drivers. For many years the laws against drunk driving that caused deaths were somewhat lenient, considering it involuntary manslaughter. Often the perpetrators were not incarcerated and would drive drunk again. In response, the devastated mothers let their anger fuel their passion to work toward justice. They helped the world see that to drink until inebriated was a choice people made, and therefore these people did not kill involuntarily. Through ad campaigns and grassroots efforts, MADD has helped toughen laws and has changed the way people think and act. In the end, it is safe to say that their efforts—while unable to bring back their own children—have saved the lives of other people’s children.

These mothers’ example is about as close as I can come to understanding what godly wrath looks like on the human level. God really hates the effects that sin inflicts on his children. To say that God is indifferent to child abuse or infidelity or even identity theft is ludicrous. I want no more to do with that kind of god than I do the old, vengeful god who is ready to strike me for missing my quiet time. Both are wrong. God is love, and because God is just, he stands mightily against sin and evil. And I am so glad.

HOLINESS IS THE ESSENCE OF GOD

The essence of God is holiness. Holiness is a divine attribute. God is pure. There is no sin, evil or darkness in God. The Bible proclaims the holiness of God throughout:

Holiness is an essential part of God’s nature. God cannot not be holy in the same way that God cannot not be love. This is not true of God’s wrath, which is not an attribute of God. Wrath is not something that God is but something that God does. While it is correct to say God is holy, it is not correct to say God is wrathful. Wrath is the just act of a holy God toward sin. This is a very important distinction. Many people begin with the notion that God is angry and wrathful, but this is untrue. God is holy and pure. And God’s holiness and purity are a part of God’s goodness and beauty. Holiness is God’s essence. God is not wrathful by nature. Wrath is what humans experience when they reject God. And it is a necessary part of God’s love.

OUR GOD IS A CONSUMING FIRE

For years I had trouble reconciling the love and wrath of God. A breakthrough for me came when I read the great Scottish writer and preacher George MacDonald. In one of his sermons he wrote these four profound words: “love loves unto purity.”7 The sermon was based on the text found in Hebrews 12:29: “Our God is a consuming fire.” MacDonald merged the concepts of unconditional and unending love with holiness. That is, God loves us so much that he longs for us to be pure and works tirelessly to make us pure. MacDonald points out how God is against sin and thus for humans: “He is always against sin8; in so far as, and while, they and sin are one, he is against them—against their desires, their aims, their fears, and their hopes; and thus he is altogether for them.”

God is against my sin because he is for me. And if I am for sin, God stands against those desires, MacDonald is saying, because they cause my destruction. I would not have it any other way. To be sure, I am prone to excusing my sin or rationalizing my weaknesses, but God is not in that business. Though we are now reconciled through Christ, God is not indifferent to my sin. It hurts me, and therefore it hurts God—because God loves me.

God does not make me feel bad or shame me into better behavior. Nor does he use fear or guilt. God’s method of change is the highest of all. God’s holy love burns the dross of sin out of our lives. It is God’s kindness that leads to genuine repentance (Romans 2:4). As MacDonald said, “love loves unto purity.”

YOU DON’T REALLY WANT AN UNHOLY GOD

As I said earlier, the teddy-bear god is an appealing alternative to the “Marquis de God,” the sadistic and angry god who hates and harms unjustly. But in reality, we don’t want the teddy-bear god because that god is not holy. J. I. Packer asks an insightful question: “Would a God who did not care9 about the difference between right and wrong be a good and admirable Being? . . . Moral indifference would be an imperfection in God, not a perfection.” A permissive God might say, “Sin is not such a big deal—especially if my creatures are not hurting each other. All humans sin. I’ll look the other way. Sure, they are living as their own gods, but can you blame them? I made them in my image, so they’re taking after me! I can overlook that too. I think they’re trying to do well.”

I may want this teddy-bear god when I’m feeling guilty, when my conscience is bugging me or when I want to rationalize my desire for sin. But I do not want this god in the long run. This god is like permissive parents who let their kids drink and do drugs and have sex without guilt. When we were young, we thought they were cool, but they weren’t; they were lazy and did not really love their kids. Many of their kids went on to do hard drugs, and most of them wrecked their lives before they turned twenty-one. These may be the kinds of parents you think you want when you are fifteen, but you really don’t.

I don’t want a god who says, “It’s cool. Don’t sweat it. Everybody sins, just do it without the guilt, dude. Guilt stinks. Just have a good time!” This god does not love me. Being soft on sin is not loving, because sin destroys. I want a God who hates anything that hurts me. Hate is a strong word, but a good one. Because the true God not only hates what destroys me (sin and alienation) but also has taken steps to destroy my destroyer, I love him. And because this God destroyed sin by making the supreme sacrifice himself, taking all of the guilt and pain and suffering of my sin upon himself, I love him with an everlasting love.

THE NECESSITY OF HELL

Because God is love, hell—a place of separation from God—is necessary. Love does not demand love in return; it is not coercive. God does everything he can to reach out to us, and yet people are free to reject that love. Hell is simply isolation from God. A person—even a person others think of as decent and upright—who rejects God is experiencing hell on earth.

God will not violate the choices we make. People may choose to bar God from their life. Thus the doors of hell are locked from the inside. In John Milton’s great poem Paradise Lost, Satan boasts, “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.” There is a part of human life that resists relinquishing control to God. If unchecked, this resistance can lead to ruin. C. S. Lewis writes, “It is not a question of God10 ‘sending’ us to Hell. In each of us there is something growing up which will of itself be Hell unless it is nipped in the bud. The matter is serious: let us put ourselves in His hands at once—this very day, this hour.”

God cares deeply about sin because it destroys his precious children. And God longs for holiness in us because it is the way to wholeness.

In chapters seven and eight we’ll look at how our holy God makes us holy people. God willingly sacrificed himself to put an end to the problem of sin—breaking its power and taking away our guilt. Then God rose from the dead and transformed us into Christ-inhabited people who are able to triumph over temptation. In book two in The Apprentice Series, The Good and Beautiful Life, we’ll look at how our holy God invites us into his unshakable kingdom and interacts with us in our everyday lives. The Good and Beautiful Life will also explore the struggles we all face (anger, lust, lying, greed, etc.) in our journey toward Christlikeness. The movement toward holiness is urged by a holy God who loves us with a holy love.

GRACE IS MORE THAN OVERLOOKING SINS

This chapter began with a story about a young woman who believed God’s grace and forgiveness means he no longer cares about our behavior. A few months later I had the opportunity to talk with her about how important—and good—God’s holiness is. I explained to her that God does not condone her sinful actions, but not because God is a prude.

“The reason God does not endorse what you’re doing,” I said, “is because you are sacred to God, and your sexuality is sacred to God. God is very ‘pro-sex.’ After all, it was his invention! But sexual intercourse is a sacred act of intimacy that is designed to be shared by people who have made the ultimate commitment—the covenant of marriage. Anything less than that cheapens and diminishes sex, and usually leads to a lot of pain and heartache. You are sacred and special. That’s why people wait.”

“I know what you mean,” she said. “After a while it seemed he was only interested in me sexually, and not as a person. Our relationship is a mess. What should I do?”

“Tell him, no more until you’re married.”

“He’ll say it’s over.”

“Then you’ll know his true colors, and you’ll be better off.”

The next time I saw her, she told me that she had followed my advice, and as expected, her boyfriend did not like it, and they eventually broke up for good. However, she was smiling. She was now focusing on the sacredness of who she was. Two years later she showed up beaming outside my office. She pointed to a ring on her finger and exclaimed, “I am engaged to the most wonderful guy! He truly respects me. We decided to wait until we’re married to have intercourse. Thanks for showing me who I really am.”

I thought about how it had started off so badly, how I had blown it by preaching in such a way that she thought sin did not matter. Then it occurred to me that perhaps she needed first to hear that she was loved unconditionally before she could address the issue of sin. This is counterintuitive, but I believe it is right. We assume that wrath comes before grace, but that is not the biblical way. God’s first and last word is always grace. Until we have been assured that we are loved and forgiven, it is impossible to address our sinfulness correctly. We will operate out of our own resources, trying to get God to like us by our own efforts to change. God’s first word is always grace, as Barth said. Only then can we begin to understand God’s holiness, and ours.