Is God's Wrath Too Severe?

Is God's wrath too severe, his holiness too intense, his judgment too heavy? After World War II a play in West Berlin made a deep impression on the city. It was The Sign of Jonah by Günter Rutenborn. In a courtroom scene all the actors are found guilty in the evils of the war they have survived, and all transfer the blame to God. God is accused, found guilty and sentenced to become a human being, a wanderer on earth, deprived of his rights, homeless, hungry, thirsty. He shall know what it means to die. He himself shall die! And lose a son, and suffer the agonies of fatherhood. And when at last He dies, He shall be disgraced and ridiculed.

God's amazing grace has done more than the most bitter blasphemy could propose. God's wrath has been poured out on earth already, and God himself has borne all its fury.

The Bible itself presents a scene in which God is tempted and accused by his own people. It is the incident of Masseh-Meribah that followed the exodus of Israel from Egypt (Ex. 17). God guides the wilderness march to Rephidim, where there is no water. The people strive with Moses in judicial fashion. They are ready to initiate court-martial proceedings to execute Moses as a traitor who has led the nation into a deathtrap. Moses protests that their case is not just against him but against God. The people are accusing God of unfaithfulness to his covenant promise. The word Meribah does not mean merely a controversy. Meribah means a law-case. In Micah 6 the prophet uses the term to describe God's law-case against Israel as he summons the mountains and the foundations of the earth to bear witness to his faithfulness.

God is a righteous and just judge. If the people demand a court hearing, a trial will be held. God tells Moses to pass before the assembled people and to call the elders of the people into session. Moses is to take in his hand the rod of judgment, the rod with which he smote the River of Egypt, turning the Nile to blood. In the Pentateuch, the rod is both the symbol and instrument of the infliction of judgment. A guilty man in a controversy was to be beaten with the rod before the face of the judge (Deut. 25:1-3).

But now Moses takes the judicial rod and lifts it to inflict the sentence of judgment. In Isaiah 30 the prophet describes the descent of the rod of God's wrath upon the Assyrian enemy: For through the voice of the Lord shall the Assyrian be dismayed; with his rod will he smite him. And every stroke of the appointed staff, which the Lord shall lay upon him, shall be with the sound of tabret and harps. (Is. 30:31-32)

Dread fell upon Israel as Moses lifted the rod of God. Upon whom would the wrath of the Lord descend? Here is one of the most amazing verses in the Bible. God says to Moses, "Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock" (Ex. 17:6).

Nowhere else in the Old Testament does God say that he will stand before a man. God is the Judge. Men come to stand before him. Provision is made for hard judicial cases that can be appealed to the priests, Levites and judge in the place where God will set his name (Deut. 17:8-9).

But here God stands before Moses, the judge with the rod of judgment. God has been accused, and he stands in the prisoner's dock. God is symbolized by the rock on which Moses stands. In the Pentateuch, Rock is a name for God: "Ascribe ye greatness unto our God, the Rock, his work is perfect" (Deut. 32:3-4). The psalms that speak of Masseh-Meribah call God the Rock (Ps, 95:1, 8; 78:15-17, 35).

God commands Moses to smite the rock. It would be impossible for Moses to smite the Shekinah glory of God. God bears the smiting, and living water flows forth to the people. For this reason John bears witness in his gospel that when the spear was thrust into the side of the crucified Savior there flowed forth blood and water (Jn. 19:34). The Rock in the wilderness was Christ (1 Cor. 10:4) and great was Moses' sin in striking the Rock a second time (Num. 20:10-13).

The mystery of God's mercy foreshadowed in the Old Testament is fulfilled in the New. The measure of God's love shows the reality of his wrath. Do not tell the Father his wrath is too great when he must direct it against his Beloved Son!

How much does the Father love the Son? The Son, who was in the bosom of the Father before the world was ... the Son, the firstborn, of whom God says, "I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son" (Heb. 1:5) ... the Son in whom the Father's heart delights ... the Son who prays, "Father, glorify thy name! " How much does the Father love the Son at Calvary as he takes the cup and is obedient unto death?

What would God not give for his Son? "For the Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand" (Jn. 3:35). "For God so loved his only begotten Son that he gave the world that he might not perish ... ! " No, that is not John 3:16! "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life."

In giving his Son, God gives himself, and here is the measure of love.

I cannot understand that. I cannot explain that. Can you? I cannot begin to enter into the mystery of the love of God. But I can say this to you. What do you think it cost the Father to abandon the Son? Abraham took his son Isaac out to the mountain, but Abraham did not have to plunge the knife into his son. The promise was "The Lord will provide." And the Lord did provide. The Father sent the Son, and the Son bore the wrath. And Jesus Christ in the will of the Father hung upon the cross. There upon the cross Jesus Christ cried out, "Eli, Eli, lama Sabachthani": "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Mt. 27:46). In that act, Jesus Christ endured the lostness, the judgment, the doom, the poured-out wrath, because he came to bear that wrath in the place of man.


Jesus Christ and the Lostness of Man, Edmund Clowney