May 25, 2010: What’s Missing? (Part 1)

In his message "The Changing (Changless?) Face of Evangelicalism" professor D A Carson expresses concern over the way the gospel is presented in many evangelical churches today. I summarize below his characterization of modern "gospel narrative".

"In the beginning God made everything good. But in our sin and rebellion we set out to destroy everything. We destroyed our relationships with one another, with the world, and with God. But God in his mercy set out to save us. He called out Abraham and set up a whole new humanity. He gave us the law, the sacrificial system, the prophetic word, the modeling of a Davidic king, the institutions of the tabernacle and the priesthood. And in the fullness of time God sent his Son. Jesus inaugurated God's reign, displaying kingdom authority in signs and miracles, in the unraveling of evil, and, finally, in the destruction of death itself. He rose from the dead in anticipation of the great resurrection to come. And we are invited to participate in this kingdom proclamation and lifestyle. We are commanded to do so. We push back by God’s grace the frontiers of darkness and decay everywhere in anticipation of the time when God himself brings in the end: a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness and resurrection existence. Yes, come Lord Jesus."

There is nothing wrong with that message. You will not find a single unorthodox or misleading statement in the preceding paragraph. But something has been left out, and, in some churches and preaching ministries, it is always left out. On occasion, I have even heard the missing element denied!

"What's missing," Carson says, is "any recognition that bound up in our rebellion and decay, at the center of it, is such ugly heinous defiance of God that God stands over against us not only in love but in holy wrath. Six hundred times the Bible speaks of the wrath of God!"

Carson is right. The wrath of God appears often in our Bibles but seldom in our sermons. Just last week my pastor noted that we don't often speak of God's judgment and wrath - and he was right too.

I vividly recall a moment in 1989 when a missionary preacher in Costa Rica stood before our congregation and said to everyone assembled, "God isn't mad at you." My blood ran cold. Listen, if you ever hear a preacher say to anyone and everyone, "God isn't mad at you," you have my permission (for what it's worth) to raise your hand and ask, "Excuse me, sir, but how thick is the layer of dust on the cover of your Bible?"

Below is just a partial list of people with whom (the Bible explicitly says) God was angry:

Balaam (Numbers 22:22)
Moses (Deuteronomy 1:37)
Aaron (Deuteronomy 9:20)
David (Psalm 38:3)
Solomon (1 Kings 11:9)
Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar (Job 42:7)
Uzzah (2 Samuel 6:8)
Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 19:2)
Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 32:25)
Heman (Psalm 88:7)

And below is a (very) partial list of regions that provoked the wrath of God:

Israel (Judges 2:20)
Judah (2 Chronicles 28:9)
Damascus (Amos 1:3)
Gaza (Amos 1:6)
Tyre (Amos 1:9)
Edom (Amos 1:11)
Ammon (Amos 1:13)
Moab (Amos 2:1)

Someone might say, "But that's the Old Testament. God stopped being angry around the time BC changed to AD." Wrong. Below is a list of people who are explicitly subject to God's wrath in the New Testament.

Whoever rejects the Son (John 3:36)
Those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil (Romans 2:8)
All of us at one time (Ephesians 2:3)
Those who are disobedient (Ephesian 5:6)
Those who hinder the gospel (1 Thessalonians 2:16)
Those who worship the beast and receive his mark (Revelation 14:10)

Someone else might say, "But God doesn't get angry with people. He just gets angry at their sin." Wrong again. Take a few minutes to look up the above passages and read them for yourself. They all say that God's wrath is poured out against people.

Until and unless we have a biblical understanding of God's righteous anger, we will not be properly horrified by our sin, nor properly terrified of its consequences, nor properly awed by the cross of Jesus Christ, where God in his Triune mercy made satisfaction for the wrath that our rebellion provoked. When we omit - or even deny ("God isn't mad at you!") - the biblical wrath of the Almighty, we do more than just dishonor God. We also harm people by taking away from them one of Scripture's chief motivations for turning from sin and turning to Christ. More on that next week, Lord willing.