Living Understanding Pt 28: Angry at Sin

Romans 1:18-23                    18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

The wrath of God.

We sit now in a time when Christ has already come once—as the Lamb.  We understand that his focus was to free people from their bondage to the Law of Sin and Death (see Romans 8), and so we see God as loving, caring, and forgiving.  Certainly, Jesus did tell the woman caught in the act of adultery to go and sin no more, but he did not condemn her as her accusers were doing.  In fact, he stopped them from stoning her!  But we must remember God is a holy and righteous God; his very nature requires that he be angry at sin and evil.  We find it easy to accept that God has wrath against evil because we see evil as a sort of broad issue generally not embodied in human beings.  But some find it abhorrent to accept a God who is wrathful against sin, because all human beings sin.  We think, “I sin, is God angry at me?”

But at his return Christ will appear as the Lion, coming to destroy sin and evil for all time.  This is a good thing as the planet is cleansed, made even more beautiful and pleasant.  But nonetheless, many, many people will die.

The wrath of God is not the same as the wrath of man.  Let’s be careful not to anthropomorphize too much here.  When human beings get angry, it is usually because they are offended because of some perceive injustice or hurt.  God is not egotistic or capricious, nor does he take personal offense, but he is righteous and holy.  So of course, God is angry at sin:  There are divine standards, a sort of set of rules, the violation of which angers him, but it is not as if he has to defend his dignity.  God is perfectly just in being wrathful:  He revealed just enough of himself to draw curiosity, but people have rejected him anyway, and so they are indeed without excuse.

Suppress the truth.

When Paul uses the word ‘suppress’ he indicates that people know the truth of God but deny it.  That God exists is proven by natural revelation (see below) and universal moral standards.  One cannot suppress what one does not already know.  People suppress God by replacing him with their own ‘god’ of sin expressed in idolatry (yes, even in the 21st Century), or sex, or self-determination.  They choose not to worship the God but a God of their own design and fall further and further into condemnation.

Modern atheists deny there is any God and claim the world happens and continues through natural processes.  They use the Big Bang as a starting point but fail to explain how something can come into existence from nothing all by itself.  They fail to explain just how it is that a certain set of conditions like distance from the sun, tilt of the earth, presence of a large moon, or the density or ice as examples are necessary for life and the lack of any one of them would deny it.

Plain to them.

When we smell the air after a spring rain, or gaze at a particularly beautiful mountain sunrise, we sometimes remark that “this is a beautiful day”.  In the background of that remark is the realization that such beauty cannot be an accident.  This is called natural revelation, and it means that God created in such a way as to show us something of Him.  This beauty and intricacy of the universe points to a Creator.  It cannot be accidental that the tilt of the earth is just the right amount to create seasons and regular distribution of heat and moisture, nor can it be accidental that the chemical qualities of water are such that its solid form is less dense than its liquid form so it therefore floats.

Although such things do not say much about the nature of God or His character, they do show that there is a God.  Every culture on earth, even the most animistic, recognizes that there is a Higher Power because they look at the world around them and see Him in action.  So, when atheists deny the existence of God, they are denying the obviousness of Him and so are without excuse.

What about me?

What is there in your life that you put before God?  Is there a sports figure or movie star that you ‘idolize’?  Is there an activity you regularly do which has become an excuse to avoid worshipping God?  Do you more commonly play a round of golf rather than attend church on Sabbath?  Do you actively worship Father, Som, and Holy Spirit?  God deserves such worship, and the other things are put in our lives by Satan in active attempt to keep us from doing so.  There is a moral law that we humans must face the consequences of our decisions, but because we are weak and frail, beset by a tendency to sin, we almost never make the right decision.  Unless prompted by God’s grace, we usually don’t turn towards God; we think we’ve got everything figured out.  But we are wrong.

Since you are reading these words, I must assume you are already a believer or at least curious about God.  Then God’s self-revelation is doing its job.  He is drawing you to Himself, but it is you who must take that step.  I encourage you to submit your life to the Father.  Accept the Son as your Savior.  Allow the Holy Spirit to guide you, shape you, and lead you into a better life.