The Wrath of God that Saves Us
by Malachi Adcock
“Oh the blood, of Jesus Christ
Oh the wrath that brought us life
Let every kingdom pass away
And with the King Come a Brand New Age!”
I had a professor in my undergrad tell me something that I would never forget. “God’s wrath is most often seen in handing people over to the consequences of their decisions.” That floored me. Although I always understood at some level that Yahweh is gracious and kind, there were scriptures, especially in the Old Testament, that I could not reconcile with that same moral character. These scriptures were violent and felt obscurely vindictive. Many people have pointed this seeming discrepancy out, both believers and unbelievers.
The story of God is not void of violence, punishment, or consequence. It would be understandable to hope that it would be so, yet to hope for such a thing reveals within us a misunderstanding or at least a mischaracterization of what God's wrath is.
So what is the wrath of God, and how can a compassionate and gracious God be wrathful?
Exodus 34:6–7 is one of the most repeated and recycled passages in the whole Bible. This is how Yahweh describes who He is, has been, and always will be. And within these verses we see not a dichotomy but an intrinsic synergy between the wrath of God and the loyal-love of God.
Exodus 34:6–7
Yahweh, Yahweh, a God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, overflowing with loyal-love and faithfulness. He maintains loyal-love for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; yet He won't declare innocent the guilty, He will bring the iniquities of the fathers upon the children and grandchildren, to the third and the fourth.
Yahweh forgives and maintains loyal love by the thousands, but He brings His wrath in single digits.
This is a matter of character, because the same God brings about wrath is the same God that brings about mercy, both are essential to His character. He is the creator and redeemer of creation. His plan is redemption and resurrection out of the grave, back to the garden.
So notice what is not visited upon the children and the grandchildren. Neither sin nor transgression, only iniquity, is visited upon the children and the grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.
In broad strokes, sin is a term of accuracy. The tribe of Benjamin had slingshot warriors so precise they could trim the hair off of someone’s head and not khata, Hebrew for sin. So this being the case, to commit sin can also carry with it the desire not to do so. In the same way that trying to hit a target and missing has a desire to have hit the target. We can sin intentionally, but typically in these cases we sin under the belief that we'll bring about something good even if what we do is bad.
Pesha in Hebrew, transgression in our English translations, again in broad strokes, is about betrayals in relationships: a corrupt and misleading business deal, exploitation of the weak, family lies, and adultery all can be examples and imagery for transgression.
One last broad stroke, Avon, sometimes translated as sin, or elsewhere, like in Exodus 34:6–7, it is translated as iniquity. I like to think of it this way: if sin is a vehicle, iniquity is the system of roads, highways, and byways that allow sin to spread, connect, and grow. Iniquity is a broken, corrupt system. And when iniquity builds a family, that builds a city, that builds a kingdom, this is what Yahweh confronts. Avon physically in the Hebrew language entails pressure and being bent out of shape because of that pressure. What once was upright and operated in health is now broken by the weight of continual decisions, both as individuals and as a community.
We are personally responsible for our own misses and relational betrayals. But we are also responsible for the broken systems that we inherit and perpetuate in God's creation. And while we are not held accountable for the sins and transgressions of the generations before us, we are responsible when we continue to utilize the inherited iniquity.
This is what the wrath of God comes against: systems of iniquity that allow sin and transgression to thrive. Babylon, Nineveh, Sodom, Gomorrah, and Rome are all cities and empires of iniquity within the Bible that Yahweh confronted with His wrath. And while destruction was a component of God's wrath, it was not the purpose of it.
What purpose does the wrath of God play in our redemption?
It is commonly celebrated in Christian circles, and rightfully so, that we have been saved from God’s wrath. But while less celebrated, yet also true, is the fact that we have been saved by God's wrath. If we can properly see that salvation is all of the above—healing from disease to health, deliverance from slavery to freedom, and open space out of Egypt into a broad and good land—we start to see the need for God's wrath in salvation. There is a movement to salvation.
The Wrath of God is an exiling force that drives out what does not belong. Yahweh is slow to exile His people but quick to exile sin. The Wrath of God is against anything and anyone who will not submit to His rule and reign, whether that be a spiritual entity or a human one. He redeems creation by exiling sin, death, and the partnership of demonic and human evil out of His good world.
Many times, especially in the prophets, God claims responsibility as the sender of the invading army headed for Israel and Judah that will take them out of God's promised land. His reasoning for getting them out of the land is because of what the people have let into the land.
Jeremiah 7:31
“And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind.”
Jeremiah 25:8–9a
“Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts: Because you have not obeyed my words, behold, I will send for all the tribes of the north, declares the Lord, and for Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants…”
If the land is Yahweh's possession, and the people are Yahweh's possession, then what happens in creation is His responsibility. Destruction follows Israel's disobedience not because destruction itself pleases God, but because it is the path to exiling what is not of God out of His land. When the people of God allowed idolatry and iniquity into the land notice how Yahweh hands them over to those decisions by bringing in foreign occupation bringing their iniquity and idolatry to it’s nth-degree. There is an increase in the momentum of their wickedness to bring it to its fruition so that Yahweh may exile wickedness and those who support it out of His land.
Israel was chosen above all nations to be a light to all nations. And if the light has become darkness, worshipping idols and operating in the same imperial systems of iniquity, how will the nations see the light and be drawn to the King and be saved, delivered, healed, in open space?
Enter Jesus.
At a boiling point—Israel who had no true King because of their disobedience was desperate to crown a victor to defeat their enemies in the nations. This conjoined by occupation, Rome lording, anxious and threatening, ready to crucify anyone who dared even grumble a challenge to their status—now enters King Jesus.
It's understandable, even justifiable, that Israel desired a King to save them. And maybe, more so than we realize, it was understandable the desire to keep the peace and prosperity of Rome.
Yet this volatile cultural mix helps us understand the strategy and wisdom in King Jesus' humility. Submitted to the Father, He entered ministry from Nazareth, not from capital or prestige. He chose dependency on hospitality over human security and wealth. He emptied Himself of what He was divinely owed and submitted to the Father's glory to the point of death, even death on a cross.
The cross was a Roman exiling device, manipulated by certain Jewish leaders in the Gospels to exile and kill Jesus. It was for criminals, especially rebels and insurrectionists who challenged the Roman state. It was itself an iniquitous system of humanity that was designed to bring about peace and prosperity to the kingdom through violence.
And this is how the Father used it for His purposes. What was meant to exile out Jesus was instead used to enthrone Jesus as the Victor and to defeat and exile out sin, death, and the grave. And His confrontation and defeat of these iniquitous systems both gentile and jewish, gave a path out of this age of wickedness and and into an age of redemption and new life. So now the decisions stands to all people, submit to the ruling King, or reap the death of these fallen and falling rival kingdoms.
And the apostles saw the story of humanity in the same tension, both our decisions and God’s sovereignty.
Galatians 6:7–8
“Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption…”
Ephesians 2:1–5
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.”
It is in the connected consequences of our decisions that Yahweh chooses to bring about salvation. He uses what should've destroyed us to exile out what is not of Him, and to redeem and keep those who repent, turn around and choose Him.
Humanity has been placed in a partnership to rule and reign over this world, sourced in the character and on behalf of Yahweh. And yet so often our rule and reign of creation ignites death, destruction, and sin, which is not the will of the Father. This is the beauty of Jesus! He Himself is the divine-human partnership that rules and reigns over all creation. Jesus on the cross became that exiling path through which the wrath of God was able to defeat and clear out sin and death from creation while ransoming back to God people who choose Him. Now the Son rules and will rule all the more, reconciling the people of God back to the Father.
We wrote the song Brand New Age during the week of Good Friday. As we considered the cross, it was necessary for us to give language that broadened our usual realm of admiration. Like a multi-sided prism, we adored the cross, considering its fullness. Brand New Age speaks of a mostly overlooked perspective, turning and admiring the cross so that we may see the wrath of God not just as what we are saved from, but also a power that we are saved by. We desire that Yahweh would clear our world of the systems of wrong and those who would carry them out. Many people call out such a salvation from corruption, but outside of Jesus it is not possible. This is salvation through Jesus: that all that is vile would be put to death in the cross, and that we would rise, following after Him in the freedom, redemption and resurrection of new creation.
“What else could we have done?
The weight of our kingdoms too much for us.
We chose our paths and our graves,
Yet You sent Your shepherd to break our chains.”
When we build our kingdoms antithetical to who God is and what He stands for, yet within His creation, how can we not expect Him to oppose us? And yet graciously, Yahweh opposes us with the weight of our own choices so that we should repent, leave our kingdoms to the grave, and rule as an ambassador of the One who made us to partner with Him.
We are able to repent and leave these kingdoms behind because Christ Himself takes them to the grave, slaying the demonic beasts that we had partnered with. He reigns victorious over both grave and beast!
“What else could You have done?
The grave broke before You, You’ve risen up!
The Lamb reigns in freedom, the beast is slain
Death has no longer a boast to raise!”
We sing of the day that has come and is coming. When the wrath of God has exiled sin, death, the devil, and those unwilling to relinquish their partnerships with them, the beauty of the Lamb’s rule will be all the more evident. Purged and restored, new creation invites all to the feast, to know and be known at the table of Jesus. To drink the cup and eat the bread. Every nation, every people group, every language present and invited.
This can be the confusing timescape of the Scriptures. The Kingdom and King have both arrived and are arriving. In John 3:16, Jesus declares to Nicodemus that those who believe will receive what we often translate as “eternal life,” not merely a measure of duration, but this phrase exemplifies the quality and character of the life of the age to come. That is to say, the life of the age ahead, where the Lamb reigns both in our faith and in our eyes, has arrived and is arriving.
The challenge is in the now to continue to eat the broken bread and drink from the cup and to invite all people to do likewise; to live even here in a place still full of sin and death, knowing full well that we have been redeemed and are living in a “Brand New Age.”
“Let every table be filled as nations stream to the hill,
All will fall at the feet of Jesus
Let every cup overflow, break the bread so they’ll know
There is power in the name of Jesus!
Oh the blood, of Jesus Christ
Oh the wrath that brought us life
Let every kingdom pass away
And with the King Come a Brand New Age!””
We hope you enjoy and are blessed by our song ‘Brand New Age’.
Additional Material
N. T. Wright has a beautiful metaphor that talks about this in the image of a fox and a piece of sheep's wool. The fox, plagued with many fleas, carries a piece of sheep's wool in his mouth. He climbs into the river and submerges himself until only the ball of wool can be seen above the water. All the fleas once on the fox's body climb to the wool, exiled from the fox. The fox then lets the ball of wool go down the river as he swims back to the land, purged and clean.
Helpful Scriptures
In cahoots with his foreign wives, David's son Solomon, the builder of the temple, builds a high place of worship for foreign gods. Generations later, the people worship these gods, seeking a blessing for the family at the cost of sacrificing their own children.
1st Kings 11:7
“Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem.”
Jeremiah 7:31
“And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind.”
Jeremiah 2:13 & 16–19
“For my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water.
Moreover, the men of Memphis and Tahpanhes
have shaved the crown of your head.
Have you not brought this upon yourself
by forsaking the LORD your God,
when he led you in the way?
And now what do you gain by going to Egypt
to drink the waters of the Nile?
Or what do you gain by going to Assyria
to drink the waters of the Euphrates?
Your evil will chastise you,
and your apostasy will reprove you.
Know and see that it is evil and bitter
for you to forsake the LORD your God;
the fear of me is not in you,
declares the Lord GOD of hosts.”
Isaiah 64:7
“No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and have given us over to the power of our sins.”
Ezekiel 20:25–26
“I also gave them over to bad statutes and laws they could not live by; I let them become defiled by their own gifts…”
Amos 6:14
“For behold, I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel,” declares the Lord, the God of Hosts, “and they will oppress you from Lebo-hamath to the Brook of the Arabah.”
Micah 2:3
“Therefore thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, against this family I am devising an evil, from which you cannot remove your necks; nor shall you walk haughtily, for this time is evil.’”
Habakkuk 1:5–6
“Look among the nations and watch—be utterly astounded! For I will work a work in your days which you would not believe… For indeed I am raising up the Chaldeans…”
Amos 4:10
“I sent plagues among you as I did to Egypt. I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camps, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the Lord.
Nahum 1:14
“The Lord has given a command concerning you: ‘Your name shall be perpetuated no longer… I will dig your grave, for you are vile.’”
Obadiah 1:3–4
“The pride of your heart has deceived you… ‘Who will bring me down to the ground?’ Though you ascend as high as the eagle… from there I will bring you down, declares the Lord.”
Colossians 3:5–6
“Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming.”
2 Peter 2:12
“But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will suffer destruction in their own corruption…”
Philippians 3:19
“Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.”
