God's Anger and God's Love

[Josh]

Today we began a discussion about a paradox in Scripture- the tension between God's anger/ wrath and his love.

Here's an outline of some of the ground we covered, questions we considered, and Scripture we combed through.

Questions: Does God get angry? Does God ever hate? Does God get frustrated?

We can answer these questions in the affirmative, based on a survey of Scripture:

Anger/Wrath
Greek: Orge, Parorgizo (exasperation, indignation, agitation, provocation, violent emotion)

2 Chronicles 36:16 God’s wrath against Israel aroused with no cure
Isaiah 10: 5 Assyria wielded the club of God’s wrath
Jeremiah 25:15 God’s wrath against the nations
John 3:36 If you reject the Son, God’s wrath is still on you
Romans 1:18 Wrath of God revealed against ungodliness
Romans 2:5 Storing up wrath for the day of wrath
Romans 5:9 Jesus saves us from God’s wrath
Romans 12:9 Leave room for God’s wrath
Ephesians 5:6 Don’t be deceived- God’s wrath on the disobedient
Revelation 14:9-11 Wine of God’s wrath/ Fury on the followers of the Beast

Hate
Hebrew:Satam

Deuteronomy 12:31: God hates destestable practices
Proverbs 6:16-19 Things God hates
Isaiah 61:8 God hates robbery and iniquity
Amos 5:21-24 God hates fake and hypocritical worship
Zechariah 8:16-17 God hates plotting and lies
Malachi 2:16 God hates divorce and violence against the innocent

[Josh]

We then considered the following:


Is anger, wrath, or hatred “below” God?

We discussed how many all across the belief spectrum from the new Atheists to Buddhists, believe that God, being God, cannot possibly be moved by anger.

This opened up a larger discussion about anger.

Is it possible that the Bible's attribution of anger to God is merely hyperbole or anthropomorphizing? This is indeed what some say- that it is ultimately naive or foolish to attribute human-like sentiments, feelings, and moods to God. However, this works two ways. Should we explain away all the Bible's teachings about God as a passionate lover as mere hyperbole as well?

One of the unique and beautiful and startling things about the Bible is that, almost unique among the world's religions, it teaches us that God has feelings. God can be wounded. God can feel anger. God can feel intense desire.

We also asked is anger ever justified?

We talked about how Scripture teaches that it is possible to be angry and yet not sin (Psalm 4:4, Ephesians 4:26). We discussed times in which it seems that Jesus himself grew angry, demonstrating a "righteous anger".

We then moved on to a survey of statements about God's love in Scripture:

God’s love
Hebrew: ‘ahab
Greek: agape

We saw how God's love echoes from one end of Scripture to the next, from the Garden of Eden where God walked in the cool of the day with Adam, all the way through to the New Heavens and the New Earth He is preparing for those He loves

Some standout passages:

1 Kings 10:9 God’s eternal love for Israel
Romans 5:8 God's love for us while we were yet sinners
Ephesians 2:2-7 ...while we were dead
Titus 3:3-8 We were once in sin but God’s love appeared in Christ
1 john 4:10: Not that we loved God, but He loved us (first)
1 John 4:7-19 God is love, No fear in love

If the very nature of God is best described as love, then we must see even love in in his anger/ wrath.

I'd love more feedback on my thesis that God's love and his anger/wrath are one and the same- just two sides of the same coin.

We began our study with an object lesson. One of the objects was a lighter. What makes the difference whether fire is experienced as a good thing or a bad thing? Does the fire change intrinsically when it is experienced differently? No, it remains the same. It is our relationship to the fire that makes the difference between use perceiving it as a good or bad thing.

Or imagine walking in the woods and startling a mother bear with her cubs. Your experience of her roar would be what? Sheer terror.

Now imagine you are one of her cubs. What would your experience of her roar be now? Mom's got my back!

Likewise, parental discipline can be felt simultaneously as love and wrath, see Hebrews 12:5-11:

And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,

“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?  If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live!  They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness.  No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.



That's about where we left it for part A.

Follow-up questions/ thoughts to consider:

1) Have we made a good enough case that God's love and anger might be the same thing? I don't think so yet... I have some more thoughts on the subject I'd like to bring in.... especially from author Thomas Talbott. What do you think at this point?

2) How do we know when our own anger is righteous or has become unrighteous?

3) What do we do with the few rare passages where God seems to be said to not just hate evil, but to hate the sinner, such as Psalm 11:5?

4) I mentioned that certain statements of Jesus such as "But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." or "The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born." would probably be construed as unrighteous anger if we let them fly from our lips. However, as Michelle pointed, out, in reviewing these two passages I think it's important to note that Jesus didn't say "I wish you would never have been born or I wish you would throw yourself into the see"- he said "it would have been better for you if...." That's quite a bit different.

[Josh]

Oh, and I corrected the three references I had wrong in the lesson today. Thanks for helping me refine a work in progress

[freebirdro]

I just want to talk about the Psalm 11: 5, which may look like we have to hate not just the sin but also the sinner.
in the NIV translation it says :

The Lord examines the righteous, but the wicked, those who love violence he hates with a passion.

It seems to me that God is examines the heart of people, which means that He really looks inside the human heart and maybe He sees that there is no return from their love for violence, and they are declared enemies of the Kingdom. Kind of like how we hate Satan becouse no matter how much Love God will show they wont change their hearts. But becouse we are human and we don't know the hearts of men, we need to still show grace towords them.
I think this passage talks about the ability of God to make a early judgement. An example being Maybe Saul.

I don't think that ability applies to us as finite humans

[Josh]

Fyi: another verse that supports the sentiment that anger is not intrinsically wrong or inferior, when used properly:

1 Cor 13: 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

In other words, love does get angry at times.



Vio: that is one possible interpretation of Psalm 11:5, depending upon one's view of whether there is truly a "point of no return" for people in God's eyes (which some Scripture does at least seem to support).

The way I attempted to explain the verse in the teaching was something like this: there are two ways to talk about "people". We rarely refer to someone in their entirety- usually we are thinking about some abstract part or aspect of a person.

For instance, if I said, "I get so mad at Vio when he takes my parking spot" I'm probably not saying I'm angry at Vio in his entire, totality as a person. I'm not saying I'm angry at him in every way and aspect possible. I'm just saying that there's a certain aspect of Vio that really bothers me.

Therefore, when God says that his "soul hates" those who love violence, I don't think we need to infer that God's soul hates every aspect of that person, or that person in their entirety. In this case it is the violence of the person that God hates intensely.

For us all, we could say that God intensely hates our sinful nature, but passionately loves our new creation, couldn't we?

And, again, I'm arguing that God's love and hate are just two sides of the same coin: his passionate desire for the best for all of his creation.

[stevekimes]

I think it is important, as you said, to see God's anger as an aspect of His love. The cliche of God's anger is the story of Sodom, where God reigned fire and brimstone on a city. But it is clear in the context of Genesis 18-19 and Ezekiel 16 that God destroyed Sodom because they were raping and killing (compare Judges) immigrants coming to their town. God says that He is the protector of the widow, orphan and immigrant-- any who do not receive justice by governmental systems (Exodus 22) and that He will destroy rulers when they do not help the poor (Psalm 82). Thus, God's wrath is especially poured out on those who harm the helpless.

I think calling God a mother bear is too mild, if anything.

[Michael]

I believe that the initial feeling of anger, in and of itself, is not sinful. It's how we react to the emotion that matters. I think the biggest problem people have with the idea of God having the capacity to experience genuine anger is that the typical human experience with anger is one that is not self-controlled. We clearly would be anthropomorphizing God if we pictured Him losing his temper, yelling, screaming, destroying people with lightning bolts, fire and brimstone at the drop of a hat. But that's definitely not how he rolls. Do a quick search and you find almost a dozen passages in the Old Testament alone referring to him as being "slow to anger."

Would anyone argue against the statement that God's love is perfect? Why couldn't his anger be perfect as well? Almost sounds sacrilegious, doesn't it. But since he is God, his anger, and his actions stemming from it are always righteous and self-controlled. Ours often isn't, and that's why I think it's difficult to imagine God being righteously angry.

So far as God's love and anger being two sides of the same coin, I think the case could be made that every action stemming from his anger is a result of his love for something or someone else. For example, God's love for Israel, and his hatred for the detestable practices of the Canaanites gave Israel victory in war, and the Canaanites defeat, at least until Israel became disobedient themselves. And God's love for righteousness and holiness led to the destruction of Sodom, but salvation for Lot and his family (although it seems like that was more because of God's love for Abraham and his righteousness, rather than for Lot's).

But at the same time, while every one of God's actions originating from anger are a result of his love, it obviously wouldn't make sense the other way around (love as the result of anger). To me, both sides of the coin are love, and God's anger is always a result of his love.

Hey Josh, maybe I just stumbled across at least one answer to your follow-up question #2: How do we know when our own anger is righteous or has become unrighteous? When it is a result of righteous love (or love for righteousness), it is righteous anger. If our angry action is unloving, then it's unrighteous.

[LadyAjax]

Jun 19, 2011 20:28:13 GMT -8 Josh said:

We then considered the following:
2) How do we know when our own anger is righteous or has become unrighteous?

I don't know that I have ever experienced "righteous anger."
I have certainly felt what I would call "justifiable anger," the "if you asked a 100 people on the street, they would all back me up" kind of anger. But since it is human nature to want to justify ourselves, whether it is warranted or not, I don't know how well that really fits the bill. And I have experienced "self righteous anger" which honestly, really isn't very “righteous.” In the anger spectrum, perhaps the “best” I can claim is “righteous indignation” on behalf of someone else, but in this case there is no actual “anger” feeling, but just a strong sense of a wrong which needs to be righted.

So what IS "righteous anger?" - even the name sounds like an oxymoron to me!

During the discussion last week, some people made statements along the lines of "It isn't the anger you feel, but what you do with it" that decides whether it is sin or not. Well, what does that mean? If you serenely deal with an issue you are righteous, but if you whack about with words or deeds you are unrighteous? - Obviously the 2nd one isn't good, and we should all strive for the first one, but is it reeeally "righteous" or just the "lesser of two evils"

Over and over and over in the New Testament, Jesus makes the repeated point that it is NOT just our actions by which God judges us, but even more by our hearts (feelings).
Mt 5:22 is just one (particularly on point) example: "But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment."
It doesn't say anyone who expresses anger, or acts in anger, but anyone who IS angry.

I wonder if this doesn't fall under the same umbrella that freebirdro referred to when he said "I don't think that ability applies to us as finite humans"

~~~

Like Michelle pointed out during the discussion, I was taught that anger is always a secondary emotion; that underpinning it we first feel fear or pain or loss, and anger is our emotional response to one of those. (as a philosophical side point, it could be argued that even pain and loss can be deconstructed to have a root in fear – which further calls into question, for me, about whether our Bigger Than The Cosmos, Creator Of The Universe, All Powerful GOD would feel “anger” as we humans experience it)

Josh, you made the point that if we are going to claim Love from our God we must make room for the whole spectrum of other emotions which are also ascribed to him, and this has definitely caused me to question my long held belief and ponder the whole issue further. I don't know what the answer is, but whatever it is I'm sure it is bigger/better/bolder d.i.f.f.e.r.e.n.t. than we can possibly imagine.

And I have faith that God will make it clear in this life, or explain it later, LOL

Ever learning,
~Jacqué

[stevekimes]

hopeskolkata.org/images/crippled%20beggars.jpg

Go to this link. Take a look at this young man. Possibly he was made crippled as a child by someone who wanted to use him to make money. This beggar is picked up at the end of the day, all his money taken away, and is given a meager meal. If he did not make enough money, he is beaten. If he continues to make less money than it costs to keep him alive he is abandoned or killed.

I'm sorry, but if that doesn't make you angry, then there is something wrong.

God gave us anger in order to respond to injustice. Most of us respond to injustice inappropriately. Either we think something wasn't fair when it was or we over react to something wrong.

But there was a time in which Jesus was clearly angry. And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand. And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him. And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth. And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace. And when
he had looked round about on them with anger,
being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other. (Mark 3:1-5)

Jesus was angry, and he was angry at the injustice of the religious leaders who should have been rooting for God's love and power. But his response to his own anger was to heal. That is righteous anger.

[Josh]

Jacque- Just got back into town and I haven't read steve's response yet, but here are some of my thoughts:

Mt 5:22 is just one (particularly on point) example: "But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment."

Note, however, that the passage says "subject to judgment" not "anyone who is angry will be judged". I see this passage as saying that if we are angry, we need to realize we are in a place that is very dangerous.

I disagree with the idea that it is not possible for humans to be angry without sin not only by my own experience, but simply because Scripture tells us it is in the Ephesians and in the 1 Cor. 13 references above.

There are times in Scripture when people of God were righteously angry, such as when Paul said of the Judaizers:

Galatians 5:12

As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!


One of my favorites

I would define "righteous anger" as being spitting mad but still doing the things that truth and love require in the situation.

Let me give you an example of a kind of situation which I think virtually requires righteous anger. If you've been physically or sexually abused, it is the right and healthy thing to work through justified feelings of righteous anger. And I'm sure glad that God Himself is angered by such things (as we are told He is) and not merely mildly bewildered.

[Josh]

BTW, the audio files for both of the teachings on this topic can be found here:

www.aletheiacf.org/site/cpage.asp?sec_id=2432&cpage_id=7990&orderby=file_date&ascdesc=DESC&dlcat=&dlyear=

God's Wrath/ Love Parts 1 and 2

I'll try and post notes for part 2 here, as well as follow-up questions.

[Josh]

BTW, the audio files for both of the teachings on this topic can be found here:

www.aletheiacf.org/site/cpage.asp?sec_id=2432&cpage_id=7990&orderby=file_date&ascdesc=DESC&dlcat=&dlyear=

God's Wrath/ Love Parts 1 and 2

I'll try and post notes for part 2 here, as well as follow-up questions.

[Josh]

Last Sunday we developed our theme by exploring some verses in Romans 9 which might seem to argue against God's mercy and his wrath/anger being seen as different aspects of his love, such as:


13 Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

14b: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

19-24:

19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”[h] 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— 24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?


These passage have often been miscontrued (often by Calvinists) to mean that God loves some and hates others, shows favoritism in his mercy, forms some people for glory and others merely for eternal destruction.

Yet this is at odds with verses such as Acts 10:34, Romans 2:11, Galatians 2:6, and Ephesians 6:9 which specifically say God does not show favoritism.

We discovered how if we follow through Paul's argument past Romans 9 and into Romans chapter 11, we find that he is leading up to the fact that God shows favor/ mercy or witholds it in specific circumstances as part of his grand overall strategy to show mercy to all:

Romans 11: 30-32

30 Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, 31 so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now[h] receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. 32 For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.

This is all further clarified elsewhere by Paul where he makes plain that we are all "objects of wrath" (Ephesians 2:1-5) when alone in our sin, but that all of us can be cleansed from being dishonorable vessels to ones which now honor God
( 2 Timothy 2:20-21).

God loves and shows mercy to all of his creation unequivocably and even his wrath, anger, and punishment only come from his love for us, and cannot be ultimately divided from his will for the best for all of us.

Micah 7:18-19

18 Who is a God like you,
who pardons sin and forgives the transgression
of the remnant of his inheritance?
You do not stay angry forever
but delight to show mercy.
19 You will again have compassion on us;
you will tread our sins underfoot
and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.

[Josh]

Let me know if there are further questions or thoughts on this subject as you ponder it.

[Josh]

A relevant quote from William Paul Young (author of the Shack), from an interview in Christianity Today:

The Bible is replete with language of divine wrath, not just the Old Testament but the New as well.  What do you make of that?

I am not opposed to wrath at all, but what's changed for me is this: I grew up inside a paradigm that said wrath was punitive and retributive in nature.  I now see it as restorative.  And part of that is affective.

Having children changed a lot for me.  If my son was an amphetamine addict, I would like to be a fire and burn that out of my son's life. If I had a daughter who believed a lie about her value, I would want to be a consuming fire-- absolutely.  I'd want to go inside of that and burn it out.  

So to me, fire is something everybody has to deal with, because we all have crap.  It needs to be dealt with, and it's going to be.  To some degree we're dealing with it in this world, but we're going to deal with it at some point.  But it's because of love, not because we fail to live up to expectations.