The Wrath of God

I listened to Mark Driscoll’s message on the doctrine of propitiation today while I was at Starbucks. I’m still not sure how I feel about everything especially all his, “God hates you” statements. He gave plenty of verses but I’m not sure of the context exactly so I’m hesitant to jump on board. I'd like to study that idea a little further before I would cash in my chips with that. He talks about how many people think "God loves me but just hates my sin", but if sin lives inside of us and is part of who we are then God hates us as well. Any thoughts on that? Obviously there is a side of God that is angry but I have yet to understand fully God's anger. I need to read more Scripture about it. Just as a Father would only get angry with his son if he really loved his son, God gets angry with us out of love. The idea that Mark presents that "God hates us" does however make Jesus dying on the cross more powerful with that idea in mind however, that God would die to save the people he hated because of their sin.

One of the things that struck me most in this message was what he said about God’s wrath in its passive form and what that looks like in a person’s life. This is tricky territory and I am always hesitant to proclaim something as God’s wrath seeing that i'm not a prophet (unlike some people who are self-proclaimed prophets like Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell who love to proclaim God’s wrath and get some kind of demented joy out of it). But he talked about Romans 1:18, 24, and 26 about God’s wrath being that “He gave them over to their sin”. Driscoll said, “When God lets you do whatever the hell you want, you’re in serious trouble because God has given up on you. He is not trying to save you, He is not trying to fix you, He has let you go so you can sin and then He can pour out His wrath”.

Some people will say, “My life is great, my sex life is amazing, I’m rich, I’ve got everything I need, I must be blessed, God must be okay with what I’m doing”. But if God leaves you alone to do whatever you want without hindrance-that is the wrath of God. Scripture says that God disciplines those He loves. And it’s so ironic that prosperity preachers teach that if people have faith they will get everything they want and will be blessed in every way and life will be perfect and happy and on and on. That goes so much against what Jesus said, or what Paul said, or the experiences of those who were with Jesus. If that happens, you may want to reevaluate things. Not that life isn’t ever good, or that you can’t go through spells of prosperity in the material sense. That doesn’t necessarily mean that something is wrong. But if you are doing something habitually that you know God doesn’t approve of and life is still perfect, you might want to evaluate what you’re doing.

For example Mark said that if you are out “whoring around” (he's not one to be sensitive, sometimes to a fault) but everything in your life is still perfect, it is not that God is blessing or condoning what you are doing but has given you over to your sin and given up on you and now you await God’s wrath. That is pretty frightening when you think about it. I think a lot of people view a good life as evidence of God's blessing when it might just be that God is letting you go. I can think of times in my own life where I actively choosing my own way over Gods where things in my life were great. I was succeeding in my career, I was financially stable, and life was awesome. And I realize now that God had given me over to my sin and pretty much said, “You have chosen sin over me and now you can have it”. Thankfully there is such a thing as repentance and forgiveness or I would be screwed.