The Wrath of God

This is an exegetical sermon from Romans 1:18. It shows how the wrath of God has been revealed and how without trying we deny and suppress the truth. This sermon was originally preached by Pastor Justin Bragg at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA. Audio unavailable.

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:: The Resolved ::

Justin Bragg (elder)

Romans 1:18

THE WRATH OF GOD
What I owe John Piper

Rom 1:18 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,

Today’s preaching is deficient at many points. No point more inadequate and even contrary to teachings in Scripture than the neglect of “the wrath of God”

Where do most people begin when making a presentation of Christian truth? “Felt need” – a lack or a longing that the listener will acknowledge. Preaching should begin with felt needs because it establishes a point of contact with teacher and listener.
But does it? it might, but this is not the same as establishing contact between listener and God, which is what preaching is about. Nor is it even a connection between listener and truth
Felt needs often not real needs, and even suppress them

2 Tim 4:3 – For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires

Another way to offer the gospel is by promises. Like a carrot, a reward given only if the listener accepts Jesus. A means of getting something.

Prosperity gospel
Personal experience – stressing what Jesus has done for us and commending to others for that reason. Paul does not do this in Romans. Not speaking in terms of happiness or some state of mind or appeal, but in the staggering and amazing terms of the wrath of God

The reason: Paul was God-centered rather than man-centered
Paul knew that in the end, the way we feel, or a meaningful experience is not what matters – but what matters is whether we come into a right relationship with God. We are under God’s wrath and are in danger of everlasting condemnation at his hands.

We humbly present ourselves as disciples of God’s word, taking our cue from Jesus and writers like Paul, rather than modern day success stories. It’s not easy to talk about. It is alarming, frightening, and the natural human reaction is to try to get God off the hook, and make him a nicer, friendly God who loves enough to ignore sin, who doesn’t care much about sin, but is content looking the other way when humanity does wrong. But what we learn from scripture is that this is not a God worthy to be worshipped. This is not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is holy, and perfect, and just, and will not ignore the sin of mankind, but burns in anger against it.

WRATH
Most steer away, because we think of it in human categories rather than in terms of Scripture. God’s wrath not the same as human anger. We are uneasy with the idea of God’s wrath, thinking it to be somehow unworthy of God’s character and at odds with his attributes of love and mercy.

Biblical writers had no problem viewing it as one of God’s great perfections.
JI Packer – One of the most strinking things about the Bible is the vigor with which both Testaments emphasize the reality and terror of God’s wrath.
AW Pink – A study of the concordance will show that there are more references in Scripture to the anger, fury and wrath of God than there are to his love and tenderness

Two main words for wrath in NT
Thymos – to rush along fiercely – a panting rage
Orge¬ – to grow ripe for something – something that builds up over a long time, like water collecting behind a great dam
Orge – is used in every passage in NT, except in Rev.
Leon Morris – “The biblical writers habitually use for the divine wrath a word which denotes not so much a sudden flaring up of passion which is soon over, as a strong and settled opposition to all that is evil arising out of God’s very nature
John Murray – “Wrath is the holy revulsion of God’s being against that which is the contradiction of his holiness”
Remember Isaiah 6 – God is holy, and hates evil

In Romans, God’s wrath is his firm, fearsome hatred of all wickedness is building up and will one day result in the eternal condemnation of all who are not justified by Christ’s righteousness.
Rom 1:17 – the righteous will live by faith – the flip side –
But those who do not live by faith will not live; they will perish

Major turn in the letter of Paul to Romans
1:16-17 is the theme: the gospel is the power of God to save believers from wrath to come. And this gospel – this good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection – has that power to save believers from God’s wrath because in the gospel, every moment, God keeps on revealing his righteousness as a gift to be received by faith and for faith, so that those who have their righteousness from God (and not themselves) will not perish but have everlasting life.

We will come back to this theme in future chapters. But Paul enters on a description of human sin and God’s wrath from 1:18-3:19.

1:18-32 – the condition of the gentile world apart from the gospel and saving grace

2:1-3:8 – more or less directly with the Jewish condition.

3:9-10 – summary conclusion: “what the? Are we (Jews) better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; as it is written, ‘THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE.” – Point of 1:18-3:10
3:10-19 – pile on scripture to support point of universal sinfulness, guilt and rebellion against God in every human heart

Then in Romans 3:21 Paul returns to the theme of 1:17, “But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested.” You see how similar this is to Romans 1:17 – in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. And from here on Paul is unpacking the greatness of the gospel of God’s gift of righteousness.

So what we have in Romans 1:18 to 3:20 is a demonstration of sin and guilt in the heart and life of every human being, both Jew and Gentile. The beginning of that section is what we are taking up tonight is Romans 1:18, and more specifically wrath.

You’re going to hear a lot of talk about sin and wrath. And I suspect that some might ask why we need to spend so much time here, talking about sin and guilt for months. To that thought, I say three things:

1. Superficial diagnoses lead to false remedies.
We need to get a full grasp on the disease itself if we are going to be able to diagnose it and find the cure. If you want to find the cure to cancer, you don’t just study cures, but the disease itself, so you can learn how to beat it

2. Understanding sin and wrath will make you wiser.
Profound understanding of sin and wrath will make you a far wiser person about human nature – your own and others.
And if you are wiser about the nature of the human soul, you will be able to fight your own sin more successfully, and you will be able to bless others more deeply with your insight and counsel. If you run away from the study of sinful human nature – if you say, I don’t like to think about sin – then you run away from yourself, and you run away from wisdom, and, worst of all, you run away from the deepest kinds of love.

3. Knowing the nature of sin and wrath will cause you to cherish the gospel.
Probably the most important thing I would say, and the most firmly rooted in Romans 1:18, is that knowing the true condition of your heart and the nature of sin and the magnitude and justice of the wrath of God will cause you to understand the mighty gospel, and love it, and cherish it, and feast on it, and share it as never before.

And this is crucial because this is the way the gospel saves believers. If you don’t understand the gospel, if you don’t cherish it and look to it and feed on it day after day, it won’t save you (see 1 Cor. 15:1-3; Col. 1:23). Knowing sin and wrath will help you do that.

“For . . . ”
Which brings now to the beginning of Romans 1:18.
Look at the connection between verses 17 and 18 namely, “for” or “because.”

Verse 17: “[In the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”

(18) For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”
Why does Paul introduce verse 18 with the word “for” or “because”?

He does this in order to show that everything he is going to say about sin is meant to support the gospel of verse 17. He does not mention the gospel for the sake of sin. He deals with sin for the sake of the gospel. Understanding sin is the foundation that upholds the preciousness of the gospel, not vice versa.
His main aim is not to lead us from gospel to sin, but from sin to gospel. That’s the point of “for” at the beginning of verse 18.

Deal with all the sin in Romans 1:18-3:20 to let it point us back again and again to the preciousness and the glory and the necessity and the freeness and the joy of the gospel of the gift of God’s righteousness.

My prayer is that we would escape superficial diagnoses, and that we would cultivate a profound understanding of fallen human nature (which we all struggle with), and that we would come back again and again to the necessity and beauty and freeness of the gospel of justification by faith alone.

We Need the Gospel Because the Wrath of God Is Being Revealed
Now how does Paul begin this section in verse 18?
He begins it by giving the reason that gospel and a gift of God’s righteousness is necessary. It’s necessary “because the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” We need the gospel of Romans 1:16-17, we need the gift of God’s righteousness, because God’s wrath is right now being poured out on the whole world of ungodliness and unrighteousness.
Notice the double use of the word “unrighteousness” in verse 18. God’s wrath is being revealed against “unrighteousness” and the truth is being held down in “unrighteousness.”
Surely Paul means for us to see that in relation to the revelation of the righteousness in verse 17.
In other words, the reason we need God to reveal HIS righteousness to us in the gospel and give it to us as a gift through faith is because we are unrighteous and resist the truth in unrighteousness and, therefore, God’s wrath is against us.
We need righteousness. We don’t have it.
God’s wrath is being poured out on us in our unrighteousness.
Is there any hope? Yes, the gospel is the power of God to save because in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.
We can have a righteousness that is not our own, namely, God’s.

“How is the wrath of God being revealed?”
The first thing to notice is that the word “is revealed” is the very same word and tense as in verse 17. There “the righteousness of God is being revealed.”
Here “the wrath of God is being revealed.”
In both cases it is a present tense, continuous action.
In other words it is happening now, not just in the future.
There is a day of wrath coming (Romans 2:5, 8-9; 5:9).
But in advance of that final outpouring of wrath, God’s wrath is also present.

How? In three ways at least that we learn about in Romans.
1. Universal human death is revealing the wrath of God.
From Romans 5 we see that universal human death is a manifestation of the wrath of God.
Death is the judgment of God on the ungodliness and unrighteousness of the human race rooted in Adam. In the middle of Romans 5:15 we read, “by the transgression of the one [namely Adam] the many died.” Then in the middle of verse 16 death is called a judgment and a condemnation: “For on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation.” So you can see that death is seen as a judgment and a condemnation, as an expression of God’s wrath against sin.

Then in the middle of verse 18 you see it again: “Through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men.”
So the first answer is that the wrath of God is being revealed against human sin in universal human death.

2. Universal futility and misery are evidence of God’s wrath.
From Romans 8 we see that universal futility and misery are evidence of God’s wrath against human sin. Start at Romans 8:18: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (19) For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. (20) For the creation was subjected to futility.” Stop there and consider what that means before we read on. I think it means that the sufferings he speaks of in verse 18 are inevitable in this fallen world.

The creation was subjected to futility. In verse 21 it’s called “slavery to corruption.” Romans 8:20 to see where that subjection to futility came from: “The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope.” This means that God subjected the creation to futility.
Satan and Adam could not be the one who did this, because Paul said it was done “in hope.” Neither Satan nor Adam in the Garden of Eden was planning for the hope of the human race. They simply sinned.

But God showed his wrath against sin and subjected creation to futility, not as the last word, but in hope. There would come a day when the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15). But the misery and futility of the world we live in is owing to God’s subjecting creation to futility, and is a testimony to his wrath against sin.

3. The sinking degradation of human behavior reveals the wrath of God.
So the first way God’s wrath is revealed against ungodliness and unrighteousness is in universal human death.
The second way is in the futility and misery and suffering of creation.
The third is the one most immediately in Paul’s mind here in Romans 1, namely, the sinking degradation of human thinking and behavior.
Three times in Romans 1:24-28.
After describing the ungodliness and unrighteousness of man in Romans 1:19-23 Paul says in verse 24, “Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.” In other words, God reveals his wrath against sin by giving people up to be more sinful. Again in verse 26: “For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions.” And again in verse 28: “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper.”
So these are three of the ways that the wrath of God is being revealed now in this age against the universal ungodliness and unrighteousness of man. He has consigned all to death, he has subjected all to futility, and he has given many over to the degradation of their own minds and hearts.

Wrath Mingled with Mercy
One burning question: Is that God’s only response to the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men? The answer to that question is No – neither in the case of unbelievers or believers.

Unbelievers.
Wrath is always mingled with mercy in this age of hope.
Look at Romans 2:4-5. Here he speaks to those who are missing this great truth: “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? (5) But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”

Yes there is kindness in the midst of wrath. God is always doing more than one thing. Jesus said, “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matthew 5:45).

Paul said to the pagans of Lystra, “[God] did not leave Himself without a witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17). He said this to people who were dying and suffering and sinning under the wrath of God.
John Piper says, God warns with his wrath and he woos with his kindness.
He speaks both languages: severity and tenderness.
Remember how Jesus interpreted the coming of John the Baptist as a severe, leather-girded, locus-eating, desert-living, adultery-condemning prophet, on the one hand, and his own coming as a party-going, wine-making, child-healing, sin-forgiving savior, on the other hand? He said, “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.” Instead, you said, “John has a demon and Jesus is a glutton” (Matthew 11:17). The gospel came with both languages, but they would not hear.

To the unbeliever, God is speaking to you in your pain to warn you, and God is speaking to you in your pleasure to woo you. Don’t misread the voice of God.

Death and Suffering and Sin in the Life of a Believer
And to believers, what is our case? According to Romans 1:17 we have the gift of God’s righteousness by faith. God’s punishment of us was poured out on Jesus who died in our place (Romans 8:3 “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as a offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh”).

Romans 8:1 says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:9 says, “God has not destined us for wrath.” What then are our death and our suffering and our sin? Are they still the wrath of God against us? If not what are they?

The answer is that death and suffering and sin are not the wrath and condemnation and punishment of our heavenly Father.
Each one is fundamentally altered by the gospel of Christ crucified in our place.

1. Death is a gateway into paradise.
For believers, the sting and victory of death have been removed. “O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 15:55-57). Death is not the wrath of God toward them; it is the last gasp of a defeated enemy who unwittingly opens a door to paradise.

2. Futility and suffering are pathways to holiness.
For believers, futility is removed from suffering. For those who love God and are called according to his purpose “all things work together for our good” (Romans 8:28). Punishment is transformed into purification. Destructive forces become disciplinary forces. And the seeming chaos and futility of life’s calamities become the severe, but loving, hand of our Father in heaven,

3. The power of sin is replaced with a love of righteousness.
Finally, not only is the sting of death replaced with hope; and the futility of suffering replaced with meaning; but the dominion and degrading power of sin is replaced with a love of righteousness (the point of Romans 6). God does not give us over to a depraved mind, he gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore let us awaken to the truth of Romans 1:18 that the wrath of God is being revealed now in this age against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of man. We can’t understand the world or the gospel without that truth. But let us also awaken to the truth that God is revealing something else at the same time. He is revealing the gift of righteousness for all who will believe on Christ. And with that righteousness there is no wrath or condemnation on us any more. For you who believe, death becomes a gateway to paradise; suffering becomes a pathway to holiness; and sin becomes a dethroned enemy that we fight by the power of God’s Spirit. So let us flee the wrath of God, and take refuge in the precious power of the gospel