Wrath and Mercy

The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord. Genesis 6:5-8

Reading the Bible, beginning at the beginning, with Genesis, we quickly see a pattern. God creates, revealing His love and passion for life. He communes with people revealing His desire for intimate relationship. People rebel, revealing their desire to be in control, to make the rules, to be like God. In response, God enforces the consequences of their actions, balancing judgment with mercy. People return to Him for a time, but then take His mercy for granted, misinterpret patience as approval, and continue pushing their rebellion until He once again enforces the consequences of their actions. Through the events we see God balance compassion, love and mercy with judgment and wrath, and we see people mistaking God’s patience as approval.

In the first two chapters of Genesis, we see the two accounts of creation, and in chapter three we see the fall. Adam and Eve desire to be like God, they desire to make the rules, they desire to be in control, and they rebel. As a result, they are separated from God, but out of mercy, God provides for their physical needs and protects them. We see Cain and Abel making offerings to God (see Genesis 4:3-5) and people praying to God (see Genesis 4:26), and even after Cain murdered his brother, while God punishes Cain by casting him out to the wilderness, God also placed His seal of protection upon Cain (see Genesis 4:12-16). God allows the consequences of sin to unfold but He also extends mercy. Soon we see His wrath, but even through His wrath we see His love.

A mere two chapters later we read,

and

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth. And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; now I am going to destroy them along with the earth. Genesis 6:11-13

In the first six chapters of Scripture, we see creation, the fall, God’s judgment and mercy, and then His wrath, all displayed in rapid succession. Through the flood, God destroyed every living creature on the earth except a tiny remnant.

I hear you asking, how does destruction reveal God’s love? I have heard God’s judgment and imposition of wrath through the flood compared to life-saving surgery. Sometimes a body is so sick, the only way to save it is by removing the corrupted portions. In the late 1980’s my brother was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer, in his thigh. Sarcoma is so aggressive it must be removed from the body to preserve life. At that time, the commonly accepted treatment protocol involved severing the limb – it was thought to be better to lose a limb and live, than risk allowing the cancer to continue spreading.i

Although at times caused by outside influences, cancer is a body’s own cells acting in ways they were not designed to act, eventually threatening the very life they were designed to support. When cells become unhealthy, abnormal, corrupted, and turn cancerous, they must be removed to preserve life. In Noah’s time, God’s creation had become so corrupt, it was apparently beyond repair, and the only way to save God’s creation was to remove the cancer and allow the righteous remnant to prosper. Noah was righteous, and God used Noah as His righteous seed.

The events reveal (i) God’s creation, love, compassion, mercy and patience, (ii) people’s rebellion, (iii) God’s judgment and wrath combined with elements of loving mercy, (iv) the righteous seed rebuilding, and (iv) a connection between God’s mercy and human righteousness. Through repetition in Scripture we see a pattern. As an example, the pattern repeats itself in the account of God’s judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah. The cities were so evil God sent angels to destroy them, yet in His mercy, God allowed Lot and his family to escape because Lot was righteous (see Genesis 18-19).

Highlighting the connection between God’s mercy and personal righteousness, Ezekiel writes,

The word of the Lord came to me: Mortal, when a land sins against me by acting faithlessly, and I stretch out my hand against it, and break its staff of bread and send famine upon it, and cut off from it human beings and animals, even if Noah, Daniel, and Job, these three, were in it, they would save only their own lives by their righteousness, says the Lord God. Ezekiel 14:12-14

And Peter, discussing the specific rebellion of false prophets, explains the pattern of rebellion and the connection between God’s mercy and human righteousness writing,

For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment; and if he did not spare the ancient world, even though he saved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood on a world of the ungodly; and if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction and made them an example of what is coming to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man greatly distressed by the licentiousness of the lawless (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by their lawless deeds that he saw and heard), then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment – especially those who indulge their flesh in depraved lust, and who despise authority. 2 Peter 2:4-10

The passages present righteous people escaping God’s wrath by their righteousness. If this is true, the question of utmost importance is how do we become righteous? How do we gain this quality that protects us from God’s wrath?

We gain righteousness through Christ Jesus. The path to righteousness goes through the cross. Christ Jesus offered Himself as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Through His death, He provides the path by which we might be reconciled with God and justified by God and made whole. Through Him we gain relationship with God and the ability to commune with Him. Paul writes, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

This sounds nice and pleasant, but when we consider God’s wrath and the fact that we deserve it, the notion takes on an entirely different level of magnitude and urgency, because God’s wrath is nothing to be trifled with. God’s wrath looks like a flood covering the entire earth that only eight humans survive – stop for a moment and try to imagine the carnage floating in the water around the ark. God’s wrath looks that and like sulfur raining from the sky destroying a region.

As we consider God’s wrath and His love and His mercy, we know that God is perfect, so they all work together perfectly as He applies them, even though we may be unable to comprehend it. And we see them, blended with hefty portions of evil, all on shocking display through the cross. Through His love and mercy, each beyond our ability to imagine, God offered His Son so that we might gain life and through His imputed righteousness, avoid God’s wrath.

God’s holy word presents humanity’s repeated pattern of rebellion. God is merciful, loving, compassionate and patient, and we are at risk of misinterpreting His patience as approval. But His holy word is true. It is the standard, revealing who God is and who we ought to be in and through Christ Jesus. We must each consider whether our lives are consistent with our claim of association with Him, or whether we are living in active rebellion to Him. Are we healthy cells living lives consistent with our purpose or have we become corrupted, and in our corrupted state, do we threaten the very life we are intended to support? I pray I am not a cancerous cell slated for surgical removal.

May God grant you eyes to see Him for who He is, may you experience His indwelling Holy Spirit in a real and meaningful way, may you truly seek Him and His holy transformation, may every aspect of your life reveal His Presence abiding in you, may you reveal the image of Christ Jesus to everyone in your realm of influence. Amen.

i. Fortunately for my brother, through a series of remarkable events, doctors were able to remove the sarcoma and save his leg.

Randy AllenApril 29, 2021