Apologetics

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An Angry God?

"I don't like the God of the Old Testament. He's much too severe. I prefer Jesus. He talks about love and grace and things like that." This is the opinion of many people today. They see a dichotomy between the God of the Old and the God of the New Testaments. This is not a new idea. Back in the early days of the church, a man called Marcion from a place called Sinope, was of the same opinion. He taught that the God of the Old Testament was not the God and Father of the Lord Jesus. Marcion was duly excommunicated but the thought is still around today. Where does such an idea come from? Does such a dichotomy really exist or is the problem that the wrath of God is something that we would rather leave alone and not think about? Is it something that is inconsistent with His identity as a God of love?

The answer to such questions lies in our concept of who God is. If we really look at the New Testament we would see that God is presented as just as angry as in the Old Testament. Passages in Romans, Thessalonians, Jude and Revelations to mention but a few, all support this. So if we can't get away from the fact that He is capable of expressing anger we need to know what kind of anger it is and when He uses it...

World gone mad

The first mention we get of God's anger is surprisingly in Genesis 18. Why surprisingly? Because one might have expected that in Genesis 3 there might have been more of an angry reaction when Adam blew the perfect plan. Indeed we do find a definite trace of frustration but there is no hint of God ever "losing it".

It would have been understandable that the Lord should get angry about the disastrous life-style of the Earth's inhabitants in Genesis 6. Instead, we find Him saying that He is so sick of mankind's behaviour that He is grieved and His heart is filled with pain. (Gen.6:6) Still no anger.

Again, in chapter 11 at the tower of Babel, one might expect to see something of God's wrath being poured out against these usurpers, but He simply "comes down" and scatters them, while at the same time confusing their language.


So far, so bad. Civilization hadn't gone too well and, left to his own devices, man had succeeded in putting a great distance between himself and God, and creating a real mess in his own relationships with his fellow man. In all these first eleven chapters, only once, at the end of chapter 4, do we find man calling on the name of the Lord. Man consistently spurned God and the Lord continually showed grace upon grace.

Adam and Eve allowed sin to come into their Paradise and the Lord came looking for them. All the thoughts of men's hearts was only evil continually, and the Lord provided a way of escape, if anyone had cared enough to listen to Noah. Even at Babel, the Lord only scattered the people over the whole world so that they wouldn't be able to cause more damage in their collective quest to sin.
Up to this point, our friends who cannot accept the God of the Old Testament, have nothing to complain about. Here we see grace, grace and more grace. In a world gone mad, we see a God who acts consistently and patiently.

Starting at chapter 12 however, we see a change of emphasis. Same plan, different strategy. God still wants to bless the world, but this time instead of operating on a world scale, He goes back to His classic structure - one man and his family. Just a moment... If this thing hadn't worked with Adam and hadn't worked with Noah, why should it work with anyone else? Two reasons. Firstly, the Originator of the plan is God. Secondly, as Job discovered, "No plan of [His] can be thwarted." (Job 42:1)

Enter Abraham. With this "friend of God", we get to know the Lord a little bit better as He reveals Himself in His friendship with Abraham. Repeatedly, the emphasis is brought out that faith is the foundation of the relationship, a faith which is founded in the character of God and His faithfulness. They go through a lot together and in the course of life, Abraham comes to see that wherever he turns God is blessing him. They share things intimately. On one occasion the Lord decides to bring judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah, two cities which are unbearably given over to sin. The Lord talks about it and in chapter 18 of Genesis we find a prayer which is almost a bartering scene with Abraham respectfully pushing his luck in asking the Lord not to destroy the cities if there was a certain number of righteous people resident there. He arrived at ten after twice asking the Lord not to be angry. Here however the thought is not so much fear that the Lord would lose His patience, as much as a recognition that what he was doing was breaking new ground spiritually. It was clear that he was always thinking about his family in his dealing, but he was aware that this amazing God Who had chosen him had to be treated in a certain way.
But had he really feared a holy ouburst of indignation, he would have stopped far short of his ten. He was quietly confident that the Lord and he would come to an amicable understanding.

Still no sign of a red-faced, capricious God. Plenty of evidence of a loving Father. In fact we have to go right into the next book of the Bible in order to find the first real reference to the Lord's anger.
We find it in a personal interview between the Lord and Moses. The scene is remarkable to say the least. The Lord appears to Moses in a burning-but-not-consuming bush, in itself a miracle. Moses is clearly taken aback by the sight. All the more when the Lord starts to talk to him.

The Lord has been grooming Moses for this moment, and more importantly, for a huge responsability, for eighty years. He ought to be ready but as the conversation unfolds there are a number of questions to be resolved in Moses' mind before he will take on the job.

The plan is that the Lord will free His people Israel from the slavery of Egypt. To do this He has elected to use Moses to act as a spokesman. Forty years in the desert however have taught Moses to be more careful before he acts. Forty years previously he had killed an Egyptian and hidden him in the sand to cover his tracks. The Egyptian had been beating an Israelite. Moses had been overcome by a feeling of nationalistic resentment. That's another way of saying "anger". Moses was a Blower.It's unlikely that the death was due to malice aforethought, more of a case of manslaughter. In any case, the result was the same. Moses, the would-be freedom-fighter, fled the country.

Now God was sending him back. The Lord was going to do the job of releasing the Israelites from their slavery the right way. Their cry had come up to Him; He had seen their suffering and He was sending Moses to bring His people up out of Egypt.


One would imagine that a call like that would be exhilerating after looking after sheep in the desert. But a trip into his past was the last thing on Moses mind. So Moses began to boldly discuss the terms.

Excuse after excuse was raised. All perfectly valid reasons why Moses thought he shouldn't go. Each excuse was more than matched by a revelation or a miracle. With incredible patience the Caller answered the insecurities of the called. Until Moses finally said "No!"

Exodus 4:14 tells us that the LORD's anger burned against Moses. What was it that caused the Lord to react in this way? Simply this: defiance.

The Lord is a sovreign God. He reigns over the entire Universe. It was made by Him, He runs it and will decide its destiny. Then there's us. As God, He has to contend with our insolence. He puts up with so much but one thing He will not tolerate is defiance. Moses went over the limit. The Lord had been patient with him and was willing to let him work through his questions. But when it came to the point of Moses declining the job, the Lord's anger burned against him.

It would appear then that the Lord is not a Blower, but a patient God. Indeed later on in God's dealings with Moses, things get better and the Lord's man has gone through a lot of dangerous and glorious situations. When we rejoin him, he is up on Mount Sinai just after the Golden Calf incident. The Lord has just reassured him that His Presence would go with the fearful leader and when Moses asks about this, the Lord declares that He is pleased with His servant. He knows him, and He reveals Himself as "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. (Exodus 34:6,7) That "rebellion" word is the one we're talking about when we mention defiance. It is simply saying:"I don't care what happens; I am not moving from my position and I am certainly not going to do what you tell me." That's bad enough when it is proudly announced by a sulking, stubborn infant or even when it's yelled by a problematic church member, but when it is directed at the Lord, you're in for some serious problems.

On and On....

Again and again the people of the Lord earned themselves the name of being hard-headed and stiff-necked. And again and again they railed against the direction of the Lord, causing His anger to be kindled. Charles Swindoll writes that that word "kindled" comes from the Hebrew root verb that suggests "to be heated to the point of vexation." The Bible tells us that when the Lord is provoked in this way by blatant disobedience, He gets angry.
I think this is probably true for all of us. When we're pushed to the point of vexation, we get angry. However, unfortunately that's where the similarities between our anger and God's anger start and finish.
We have said that we generally react in one of two ways. Either we bury the anger when it arises or we blow up. The Lord on the other hand does neither of these. He handles situations perfectly.
The basic mistake the Boiler makes is to bury his anger - without even looking at it. In fact he tries to pretend it doesn't exist. He doesn't face the facts of life and so he creates for himself a make-believe world for himself to live in. Susan Ashton, a contemporary Christian singer/songwriter, brings this out in one of her songs. She talks about Alice painting her world in bright colours, painting over the grey, because...
"Life's demands are hard to understand
So Alice stays lost in her Wonderland."
The safety of this kind of escapism is enticing for us. "Maybe if I stay out the way and don't say anything, things will just work themselves out," we say. How come we watch so much television and allow the film-makers to shape our personal - as well as real - world?
Have you ever noticed how children watch cartoons and children's videos? They are open-mouthed and wrapt in their attention. They drink it all in. This scene is so common that we even have a saying for it. We say, "They are glued to the screen." Unreal worlds create unrealistic people.
The Lord is never unrealistic. He sees the situation for what it is. Our theologians call Him omniscient, the all-seeing, all-knowing God. He not only sees things clearly, He also looks at them face to face. In our ignorance and perverted hopefulness we sometimes court sin and hope that somehow the Lord will turn a blind eye. But God says that only the idols that have eyes and can't see. Let's not fool ourselves. As Paul said to the Galatians, "Do not be deceived:(even by ourselves) God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.(Gal.6:7)
So the Boiler hasn't found the right way, nor the effective for dealing with his anger. He needs to follow the example of His realistic God.
The Blower does not reflect the perfect composure or the sure step of his God anymore than the former in handling his anger. He's on a short fuse. He doesn't need much encouragement to display his wares. Let's go back to Moses for a moment.
In our last look at this great man, we saw him refusing to go to Egypt. We all know the story of the ten plagues and the Red Sea crossing from our Sunday School days. One of the lesser known stories however, reveals something of our friends imperfections. (It's grat to be able to learn from and even expose other people's faults in the name of edification. The only problem is their problems are usually only a mild reflection of ours!) On with the story! - Quickly!

Moses was in the desert wandering with the Israelites when they arrived at the "Waters of Meribah". We find the story in Numbers 20. The Israelites found the desert tough goingand they began to get pangs of homesickness for Egypt. Isn't that always the way? When things aren't going as planned, we start to look for someone to blame and our line is "I want to go back. I don't know why I let you talk me into this in the first place." But that's not what the Israelites were saying when they were crying out under the weight and terror of slavery.
In any case the Israelites were grumbling about the lack of water and this was getting Moses really upset. "Ungrateful good-for-nothings! I'll show them!" At this point something that shouldn't have happened did. He lost it! He had already spoken to the Lord about this problem and had received very precise instructions as to how to handle the situation. The deal was that he was supposed to walk up to the rock, talk to the people and speak to the rock. Water would then come gushing out. Great plan. All that Moses had to do was follow it to the "T". The Lord would get the glory, that was sure. But it seems that Moses wanted some for himself too. Who knows the heart of a man? He was now leading the people along with his brother Aaron. Their sister Miriam had just died and this was n't exactly what they needed to hear from the Israelites at this time. "Listen you rebels...!" was how he started his speech, so he clearly wasn't too happy. To top it all the Lord picked up on his unbelief. It appears there was an underlying lack of faith amongst everything else. But why should the Lord be so hard at this point as to judge the leadership team and deny them access into the Promised Land?

Celebrating Anger


Strangely enough, we are quick to condemn the Lord God for expressing anger, yet today’s culture celebrates anger
The Lord's anger and His judgement are closely related, but what was so terrible about a little detail like striking the rock instead of speaking to it? Was it possible that Moses and Aaron didn't want to look like idiots in front of everybody just in case the Lord didn't happen to come up with the goods?
In Hebrews chapter 11 we are told that without faith it is impossible to please God. It follows then that if faith pleases Him, He is equally displeased with a lack of faith. In this case the judgement is immediate.
This then is another thing that the Lord detests - a lack of faith. Not only does it incur His holy displeasure, it detracts from His glory and distrusts His character. So it was more than a simple question of touching the rock or not touching it. Nothing less than confidence in the Lord's name was involved. John Piper in his inspiring book, " The Purifying Power of Future Grace" brings this issue to the fore.
Unbelief, he says, "is turning away from God and his Son in order to seek satisfaction in other things. Pride is a turning away from God specifically to take satisfaction in self."(Future Grace p.87, 1995 IVP)

Idolatry

"Little children, keep yourselves from idols" was the last advice from the wise, old apostle John, in his first letter.
When we substitute something else for God, we get into idolatry, one of Israel's (and our) favourite sins. It was this probably more than anything else that brought the wrath of God on the nation of Israel and various prominent individuals in her history.
Isaiah, the prophet royal, opens his writings with an energetic outright condemnation of Israel's sins - her stubborness, her unwillingness to learn, her running after the gods of other nations. So urgent is the message that he rushes straight into it and we have to wait six straight chapters before we get to hear of his commissioning and his wonderful vision. One might have imagined that with such a high and holy and spectacular calling, Isaiah would have opened his book with this life-changing experience; but the word of God is heavy on his heart and he has to get it out before he bursts. "Wake up! God is angry! Your sins have not gone unnoticed. Don't be so foolish as to think that you can sin and get away with it!"
Yet the anger of God is always tempered by His love. His heart reels at the thought of our unfaithfulness but in His greatness in refuses to be beaten or moved. He will not give up on us.
Isaiah had three contemporaries who were also writing prophets, Hosea, Amos and Micah. Although their messages are not as well known generally, they are nonetheless important. Hosea provides for us one of the most moving and disturbing pictures of the Lord's relationship with his chosen people. After telling His man to go and take a prostitute as a wife, as an illustration of Israel's unfaithfulness, the prophecy continues for another ten chapters and the Lord is seen as longing for His people to forsake their wayward ways and avoid the impending judgement. Close to the end of this remarkable story, the Lord cries out, "How can I give you up, O Ephraim, how can I abandon you?!" (Hosea 11:8)
This "fierce and merciless" God is in reality the Lord who is slow to anger and not willing that anyone should perish.(2 Peter3:9)
He is deeply offended by our willingness to sin and our unwillingness to trust Him who is the Author of life. His anger is an expression of His justice and holiness; but most especially His anger is an expression of His love.
When we fail to have the Lord at the centre of our thinking; when we choose to lean on our own understanding rather than on Him, we dishonour Him and hurt ourselves. His anger protects us from creating further damage in our lives. Let's keep ourselves well away from idols and that way we'll keep them well away from us!

Injustice
We have already mentioned Amos as one of Isaiah's peers. He was a shepherd from the Southern hills of Tekoa. An uncomplicated man with a clear view of life. He represented the Roaring Lion of Judah. The Lion was roaring because of all the injustice that was going on in the house of Israel. Everyone was taking it easy; life had never been so good. Things were going well in the economy and the poor... well, they were poor, downtrodden, oppressed, despised. But there was no problem. You could just turn round in your seat, close the windows and shut out the smell ... and the cry. Nowadays we resolve the matter in the same way. Well, more or less; we just flick the remote controller at the television and the disturbing reality of how the majority of the world lives is effectively kept at arm's length."Out of sight, out of mind," we say.
It is amazing how we can rationalise things away, even as believers. "The poor you will always have with you" is one of our favourite verses. But Jesus wasn't justifying doing nothing for them, whether they be poor spiritually, physically or both.
When Amos preached the Lion was roaring against injustice and complacency. How down-to-earth! The gospel of Christ touches people where they are.
When I was at Bible College we were asked the question in our missiology class, "Is it more important to give a thirsty man a drink of water or to share the gospel with him first?" We pursued the classroom theology of the priority of the Gospel against social care. the theory was that it was more urgent to preach the gospel than to tend to the needs of the people to whom we minister. As zealous evangelicals we always came out on the side of the priority of the Gospel. The reality of life however is different.


It is impossible to share the Gospel effectively with a hungry child until the immediate need has been met. This is not to put the gospel in second place. It is simply to show the compassion of God, thereby helping the person to see the effects of the love of the God whom we wish to share. The other side of the coin is that the social gospel is no gospel at all. If we never get round to sharing the gospel, we accomplish little in eternal terms and leave the most important thing unaccomplished. Christ must be lifted up.
But to lift Him up necessarily means getting involved in the grit and grind of everyday life. It means bringing the Gospel to bear on the situations of life. It means seeing that the right thing is done.
We preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. His Father is the Father of the fatherless and the God of the oppressed. His Father is our Father. He gets very upset when He sees His children acting as if they are not from His family. "Be imitators of God as dearly loved children and live a life of love", says Paul in Ephesians 5.
We should know our Father and realise that His heart goes out to the hungry, the hurting and the helpless.
Do we still doubt the goodness of the God of the Old Testament? His anger burns against injustice, idolatry and our sinful ways. His love compels Him to protect his children.

The Day of the Lord

He is neither a Boiler nor a Blower. He is another kind of reactor. He is perfect in His expression of His anger, but let us not forget that the Day of the Lord will be terrible in its consequences. The Lord is eternal. The magnitude of His anger is befitting to His character. If thousands of years ago He expressed that anger in a universal flood we can only imagine how awful theDay of the Lord will be. The Scriptures provide us with some pointers, most notably in 2 Peter, Isaiah and Revelations.

These Scriptures are full of imagery and often difficult to understand but what is clear is the certainty that that day will come and the inescapable reality that it will be worse than our worst nightmares. The fact that it hasn't already come is grace enough to convince us of His majestic love. He wants to save. He longs for man to repent and experience His pleasure rather than His punishment. The Lord Jesus has not yet returned. Let us hope in Him while we can, and give our lives over to the Judge of all men.

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