Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Good News vs fake news: God is an Angry God

15 Now let me remind you, brothers, of what the Gospel really is, for it has not changed—it is the same Good News I preached to you before. You welcomed it then and still do now, for your faith is squarely built upon this wonderful message; 1 Corinthians 15:1 TLB


13 making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do. Mark 7:13 NKJV

We've been in an extended study contrasting the Good News of Jesus Christ and the fake news of religious tradition. As always, we must keep in mind that we are not fighting people. When we expose the error of tradition by shining the light of the New Covenant, we aren't attacking anyone. People aren't our enemy. Even religious traditional leaders who count us as their enemy, labeling us a preaching a false doctrine.

 So far we've seen God isn't cursing us for not tithing. We saw His answer to sin. He isn't holding it against us. We've seen just how forgiven we actually are. Today, I want to address the issue of God being an angry God. 

11 God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day. Psalm 7:11 KJV
17 The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. Psalm 9:17 KJV

 You see it is clear Scripture. God is angry every day. God is filled with wrath and indignation at the World. He is a vengeful God. 

 Is this really the image of God? Is this really the Scriptural image we have of our Father? Now I won't shy away from these passages. I won't try and tell you the mean something else when we see them clearly making a statement. What I will show you is the proper context and understanding of these passages. To rightly divide passages like this its best, to begin with this simple premise; God has anger, but He is love!

 These passages occur under the Old. There was no mediator between God and man. There was no once for all time sacrifice for sins offered. There was no final payment made for sins and unrighteousness. What though specifically is God angered at?

 If you look at the Old Covenant as a whole, we can find times when God poured out wrath and judgment. What specifically is the anger direct at? God isn't angry at people. God is angry at injustice. God was mad at the desolation and destruction sin and the fall brought. 

 Think of this. What is really is the wrath of God? It's righteous indignation at evil and injustice. When we hear of the evils mankind has wrought upon others isn't there a sense of indignation within you?  This righteous indignation is the simplest definition of God's wrath. 

 When Jesus went to that Cross, He took the punishment all the sins ever committed deserved. He took the punishment the Nazi's deserved for the brutal torture and murder of six million Jewish men, women, and children. He took the punishment violent racists deserved for their heinous acts of terror of lynching African American men, and bombing predominately black churches, in the southern United States. He took the punishment for all sins in His Body on that tree.

 When we understand fully the New Covenant, we will get a better understanding and hold to a better view of our Father in Heaven. God isn't angry any longer. He is forever satisfied with His Son's perfect sacrifice. 

Appeasing the Angry God

Because we don't rightly divide the Word we have embraced a view that our Father is angry and vengeful. In the mind of the religious, God is perpetually angry, indignant and exceedingly disappointed with the World, the Church, and the individual believer. This, in turn, becomes their focus.

 No longer is the motive for ministry, fellowship, and spiritual growth, love and intimacy with the Father. Appeasing the angry god becomes the driving force in all areas of the Christian life. We begin referring to time spent reading God's Word, prayer, and devotion as spiritual disciplines. What spouse or parent wants to hear their loved one say spending quality time with them is a "discipline?"

 We begin to boast about our love for God. We do all we can to make God pleased with us. We are certain if we slip we will disappoint God and He will be mad at us. Whenever we do miss it we sense that God is now dissatisfied with us and can't trust us.

 That isn't a relationship. It's servitude. This isn't relating to our Father, but a servant doing to the bidding of a ruler. God isn't a Father but an austere taskmaster to be feared. Look at how we prepare worship gatherings. We desire to "host Him", so we go to great lengths to sing the "right" songs and such. Here is the real question, in light of His Grace, Jesus Finished Work, and His great love what makes you think He wouldn't want to come visit with you? 

 Reject these notions. God is our Father. God is in a good mood. He isn't angry with you or anyone for that matter. God is love. His love is long-suffering and eternal. He is not wroth or indignant at anyone. Jesus final sacrifice was enough. He bore all the punishment and wrath for all sin and God the Father has accepted this payment. 

 When we perpetuate the angry god image, we are in fact making light of Christ's Finished Work. 
“For this is like the days of Noah to Me, When I swore that the waters of Noah Would not flood the earth again; So I have sworn that I will not be angry with you Nor will I rebuke you. Isaiah 54:9 NASB

God is no longer angry? Hyper-Grace preacher, Paul himself said the wrath of God abideth on people, what about that? Paul did say that. Once again we need to rightly divide what Paul is saying. He calls these the children of disobedience. What is their disobedience? They have rejected the free gift of Grace. By rejecting Grace they aligned themselves with the enemy and become partakers of the wrath that's on him already.

What angered Jesus

 We see an account in Mark that angered the Lord Jesus Christ. When religious leaders hindered God's people from receiving His goodness it angered Jesus. God's love was extended to all. Yet the religious rejected His goodness. They also went so far as to try and hinder others from receiving. This doesn't make our Father happy. The beautiful picture of Grace was manifest as Jesus in spite of religious tradition moved in their midst and made His goodness known bringing wholeness. Let's always side with His goodness. Let's never hinder what He wants to do in anyone's life. 

  In summation, know and understand your Father. He is not an angry Father. He is love. God is love! God so loved the World He gave His Son. If He so loved His enemies how much more is His great love extended and seen toward His own family? Our Father isn't a bitter God. He isn't a perpetually angry God. He is good and only does good. don't perpetuate these negative images of Father God. Remind the World and the Church, we have a Father in Heaven who is faithful and just and loves unconditionally.
Image courtesy of iosphere at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

8 comments:

Gordon said...

God in the NT is actually angrier than in the OT. Eternal life in Hell was not a biblical concept until introduced by Jesus, nor was the father's complete condemnation of the whole world to eternal life in in the lake of fire for the slightest sin outside of Jesus.
In the Old Testament, hell was a dark resting place of the dead until the resurrection and judgement according to ones actions.
Jesus, Paul and James turned that around, revealed that God's judgement is so harsh that one sin outdoes a lifetime of virtues and warrants eternal life in the lake of fire, and revealed that Adam's actions forced us all to be sinners thereby condemned, whether we want to or not.
The God of the OT would burn cities and kill children.
The God of the NT sends all who don't believe his representatives (Christians seeking you as a convert) to have their souls sustained forever and ever in abject torment without interruption or rest day and night, using "death" as a euphemism for this eternal life in torment. The NT God's wrath is INFINITE compared to the OT God.

John W Reed said...

Hey Gordon. I’m glad I know the Lord Jesus and the Father. I’m sorry your view of God is twisted and warped. Jesus demonstrated the Father.

Gordon said...

Don't 'good people' who reject Jesus remain unsaved and go to hell?
Sure, it sounds bad the way I put it, but feelings aside, is my logic wrong other than "because I said so?"

John W Reed said...

Your trying to equate God honoring man’s freewill to choose heaven or hell as God being angry? Jesus loves everyone who ever rejected Him. God did everything to keep people out of hell. Again, look at the cross and see God’s great love for all.

Gordon said...

Is trying to equate the Don honoring the shopkeeper's freewill to choose paying the protection racket or getting concrete shoes as the Don being angry? The Don is a good guy, "nice" to everyone who rejected his offer. The Don did everything to keep people from being killed by his Mob.

Is honoring a toddler's freewill to play with a loaded firearm a loving thing to do to a child? The child cannot comprehend the danger that a loaded gun presents, just as man cannot comprehend the infinite hell that Jesus brought to the world. Before Jesus, there was no firearm to play with. Jesus gave the child the gun. Is that really doing everything you can to stop a kid from blowing his brains out? Tell him not to play with the gun you just put in his hands?

Before Jesus, the kid could only stub his toes or bump his head. Before Jesus, we would receive according to our actions. Now our actions are pointless since any sin sends you to hell.

If God truly loved everyone who rejects them, why does he call it "free will" to not want to play along with these threats and condemnation we are afflicted with for being humans as we were born?

Why does he sustain their souls forever in torment, (immortality only pertains to him, (1 Timothy 6) which means that God is the one keeping them alive) with no chance for being euthanized, reformed, or purged of sin? Why is bodily death the moment it's too late? Why does God's respect for our "free will" expire so arbitrarily?
Is it respecting someone's free will to allow them to be deceived and then only tell them the truth when it's too late to make a truly informed decision that isn't simply choosing the right religion under a threat that is infinitely worse than death? How can you say God loves those who reject him when they don't understand (and cannot understand) what they are rejecting?
How can you say that God is NOT angry when HE is judging the unsaved to burn in hell for all eternity because they were human and didn't use the right escape clause?

If the cross shows Jesus' great love for all according to your version of the cross, why is it that Sin is forced upon us, but the Cross must be actively chosen? Why is Adam's sin still more powerful than Jesus' cross? Why is sin universal upon being born, but salvation needing the luck of the draw, of being born in the right country and meeting the right people, being convinced at the right time?

And if you can answer all of those questions according to your version of Christ and your reading of the Bible, why should I believe you over others who are making the exact same claim as you are making?

Either your version of god is loving, or he's not, and his invitation to "come and reason" means that there has to be something behind it.

John W Reed said...

It’s apparent by your rambling rant that you don’t know God or Jesus and seek a more new age, humanist fashioned, god of your own design. In all your ramblings you forget many truths. One, God didn’t force sin upon any of us. Adam sin and tainted the blood line, but also bowed his knees in submission to satan. All humans regardless of their deeds are spiritually dead, rebellious in nature and selfish to the core. A child though innocent is never taught to be selfish. No they must be taught how to share. God seeing mankind’s condition became the medication needed for full recovery. He gave Himself. He made it possible for all to receive.
The issue with your new age twisted logic is you believe love means one forces themselves onto you. That God should have forced all to be saved regardless of what they want. In essence God becomes a divine rapist. Forcing Himself upon all. You are mistaken when you say only God is immortal. The spirit man is also immortal. Man is a spirit being. He has a soul, his mind and will and emotions and lives in a body. 1 Thess 5:23. The spirit lives forever.
As for the Cross, Jesus made a way. Jesus paid the price. The difference between Jesus and Adam is with Adam’s fall he took all of humanity with him without choice. Jesus made a way to bring all of humanity back to God but only by individual choice not against their will. That is love. A gift given no matter how free must still be received.

Gordon said...

Adam tainted himself. Who forced us to join the tainted bloodline so we would be tainted as well? Who put my soul into a womb conceived in sin (Psalm 51:5) and then knits my evil and tainted flesh over my body (Psalm 139:13)? That was God. You're right. God didn't force sin onto us. He forced us into sin.
"God should have forced all to be saved regardless of what they want." Nobody wants to be sustained directly by God's hand in hell. Is it violating my child's free will when I pull him out of the road? Is it evil to use physical force to prevent a suicide? How much more so hell?!
God already forced me into sin. I'm now addicted to the morphine and he knows it's killing me. A good parent rats his addict kid so he's forced to detox in jail, not giving the addict the choice to stop shooting up or we'll shoot you down.
Your quote in Thessalonians is a blessing Paul gave to believers that God might preserce their souls. It is explicitly written out, however, in 1 Timothy 6:16, that immortality pertains to God allone. Therefore to live forever in hell is done by God's hand.

Love is desiring the best for soneone. It is a policy of benevolence. Setting up a system with a god so unforgiving and angry that you will automatically be sustained in eternal torment if you don't pick the right savior, a savior represented by people who are just as evil as other religions, is not loving.

Jesus turned us from God's followers into his lab rats exposed to poison, and presents an antidote which tastes like garbage.

John W Reed said...

It’s clear you’re angry and bitter at God and blame Him for your poor choices and state in life currently. Jesus is the only way out but your perverted and twisted thinking is hindering you from seeing truth. May God open your eyes and the devil’s blinders be removed in Jesus name