Tag: chastisement

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Thoughts on Divine Wrath (part 2): Direct and Indirect Wrath

By Jim Spiegel

In my first post about divine wrath (Sept. 11, 2015) I suggested that God’s chastisement of people, though painful and often even involving death, always serves a redemptive purpose, such as rebuke, discipline, and purification. Such ends are valuable for prodding people to greater virtue. And since to love is to be interested in a person’s growth in virtue, it makes sense to say that divine wrath is consistent with perfect love.

Now there are some distinctions to be made that are potentially helpful in analyzing and categorizing particular instances of chastisement.  Thus, we may distinguish between direct and indirect wrath. By “direct” divine wrath I mean those cases where God immediately causes death or suffering, whereas in cases of “indirect” wrath God uses some other agency, whether human, animal, or angelic. Biblical examples of each of these categories are plentiful. Beginning with instances of indirect wrath, we find plenty of wrathful deployments of human beings, such as God’s use of the Israelite army to bring “vengeance” on the Midianites in Numbers 31. Similar instances are to be found throughout the Old Testament and God explicitly declares as much in such passages as Isaiah 10:5 (“Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger, in whose hand is the club of my wrath!”) and Ezekiel 25:14 (“’I will take vengeance on Edom by the hand of my people Israel, and they will deal with Edom in accordance with my anger and my wrath; they will know my vengeance,’ declares the Sovereign LORD.”)

As for divine use of animals to execute wrath, here is one memorable example:

From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys. (2 Kings 2:23-24)

Another case is where the Lord struck the Israelites with venomous snakes in response to their grumbling and complaining during their desert wanderings (see Numbers 21:6).

And as for third category of indirect wrath, where God uses angelic beings to execute his wrath, biblical instances include Exodus 33:2 where God  promises to “send an angel before you and drive out the Canaanites, Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites” and 2 Sam. 24:15-17, where the angel of the Lord strikes the Israelites.

Possibly the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is an instance of divine deputizing of angels, as regarding the city of Sodom the angels declared to Lot, “we are going to destroy this place” (Gen. 19:13). There are also references to God’s use of a “destroying angel” to execute judgment in such passages as 1 Chron. 21:15, Ps. 78:49, and 1 Cor. 10:10.

As for cases of direct divine wrath, apparent examples include the worldwide flood (Gen. 6-9), the Egyptian plagues (Exod. 7-12), the plague on Israel because of their golden calf idol (Exod. 32:35), and the case of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11). I say guardedly that these are “apparent” cases of direct divine wrath because it is possible that God deployed some deputy agency as well to bring these chastisements, though the texts do not inform us of this. This possibility seems evident in the fact that many of the aforementioned cases of indirect wrath are referred to elsewhere in Scripture (and among extra-biblical writers) simply as cases of divine chastisement without any mention of the secondary finite agencies involved. If it makes sense to refer to these cases in such terms, then it is conceivable that all divine wrath is similarly executed through secondary causes.

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Thoughts on Divine Wrath

By Jim Spiegel

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of divine wrath.  As often as it is displayed in the pages of Scripture, it is interesting to note how little it is discussed by Christian scholars these days.  Why is this?  And, more fundamentally, what is divine wrath after all?  Does God still exercise his wrath today?  If so, is it possible to identify instances of this?  And if it is, then what sorts of criteria might one use in order to conclude that a particular event is a case of divine wrath?  This November at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Philosophical Society I will present a paper on this subject where I address such questions.  I thought it would be an interesting exercise to process my thoughts in the form of blog posts as I prepare for this.  So this is the first of what will likely be several installments of my ruminations on the topic.  Naturally, I welcome any comments, criticisms, or suggestions you might have to offer.

For starters, it is important to note that there are many instances of divine wrath described in Scripture, and these include both Old Testament and New Testament narratives.  Here are some examples:

  • The worldwide flood (Gen. 6-9)
  • The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19)
  • The Egyptian plagues (Exod. 7-12)
  • The death of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11)
  • The death and illness of those who abused communion (1 Cor. 11:29-31)

There are many other biblical events that may be regarded as instances of divine wrath, but these all seem to be paradigmatic cases, as they all involve the termination of human lives.  I select these cases for just this reason, as one might object that narratives where God causes suffering or discomfort without killing anyone (e.g., Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” described in 2 Cor. 12:7-10) are too mild to properly be described as wrathful.

Still, despite the consistent theme of death, there is a certain variety in the narrative accounts listed above.  Some involve the killing of thousands of people, while others involve a more surgical strike on one or two people.  Some are preceded by warnings, while others seem sudden and unanticipated.  Yet what they all have in common is divine chastisement for human sin.  Such chastisement appears to serve a number of functions, including retribution, rebuke, discipline, and purification.  And it is here where things get especially interesting, as far as I’m concerned, regarding divine wrath and our usual way of viewing it.  For at least three of these functions may be construed as potentially redemptive.  That is, God’s wrath may be seen as serving a positive or constructive aim, namely to correct, improve, enlighten, or purify people.

Some biblical reinforcement of this idea of a redemptive function of divine wrath can be found in this passage from the book of Jeremiah:

The word of the Lord came to me.  He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord.  “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.  If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned.  And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.  Now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the Lord says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you.  So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.’” (Jeremiah 18:5-11)

Here God’s aim in threatening “disaster” is to prompt Israel’s repentance from the evil in which they currently indulge.  In cases where God actually exercises his wrath rather than merely threatening it, the effect can be even greater.  Jude tells us that God’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah served “as a warning of the eternal fire of God’s judgment” (Jude 1:7).  Regarding God’s inflicting sickness and death on those who abused communion, Paul says, “when we are judged in this way by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be finally condemned with the world.”  And in the case of Ananias and Sapphira, Luke tells us that “great fear seized the whole church” when they heard of the sudden death of these two dishonest people (Acts 5:11), which we may assume resulted in an increase of moral seriousness among the early Christians.

So as severe and disturbing as these events must have been to the communities who witnessed them, they do seem to have served the end of prompting repentance and motivating more virtuous living among the people of God.  And, of course, this is very redemptive.  So if, as I suspect, the reticence of the contemporary church regarding the doctrine of divine wrath is due to the perception that the subject is entirely negative, this is serious mistake.  While certainly divine retribution is an uncomfortable idea—as any instance of severe punishment is—we should be encouraged by the notion that God (1) does not tolerate human wickedness indefinitely and (2) he is committed enough to our moral improvement to go to extremes to warn, chide, rebuke, and prod us to greater obedience and virtue.  And this certainly seems consistent with genuine love.