Notwithstanding
some errant comments supporting Sola Scriptura (on this, see Not
By Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura),
Reformed theologian George Smeaton (1814-1889), in his 1870 book, The Doctrine of the Atonement According to
the Apostles wrote the following about the reality of God’s wrath:
Does a wrath of God exist, and in what does
it consist? That there is a wrath of God in respect of sin and against sin, is
declared so frequently both in the Old and New Testament, that they who call
the doctrine in question must deny the authority of a large portion of revelation.
Wrath is the displeasure of the personal God, the moral Governor, against sin,
and the moving cause of that punishment which He righteously inflicts. Some,
indeed, will have it that the anger of God is but another name for punishment,
and maintain that the translators of Scripture would have better expressed the
meaning of the sacred writers had they rendered the term in this way; for they
think of it as the cause put for the effect. But there is no warrant for that conclusion;
and we cannot concede that the term WRATH is used to express only the punishment
of sin, or the effect of God’s displeasure (Rom. i. 18, ii.5, iii. 5). It is no
mere effect, part from the inward affections of a personal God. Were there
nothing further than an impersonal moral constitution of the world, or had God
left the world to take its course, indifferent to good or evil in His creatures,
according to the Epicurean conception of providence, one might speak of the results
of evil irrespective of the moral nature and moral feelings of an intelligent
agent. But the world is not ruled by fate, nor by one indifferent to the moral
actions of men, but by the living personal God, who regards all things in
relation to Himself and His moral government, and who has a holy displeasure at
moral evil. Without out of the turbulent emotion found in us, and which betrays
human weakness, the supreme Lawgiver, from the perfection of His nature, is
ANGRY AT SIN, because it is a violation of his authority, and a wrong to His
inviolable majesty. Though He cannot be injured, as men commonly understand the
term injury, He may be wronged by the creature’s refusal to acknowledge His divine
authority. How can any have such mean conceptions of God, as to make Him an
indifferent spectator of human affairs and conduct involving His own rights?
Can He look with equal indifference and equal satisfaction on piety and
impiety, virtue and vice, wisdom and folly, the morally beautiful and the
morally disordered?
But may not wrath be in some sense reduced to
love, or to a certain modification of divine love, as has often been asserted,
and is maintained by a great number of divines in the present day? We answer most
emphatically, No. however men may perplex their minds in speculating on the
divine attributes, by reducing them to one in their artificial theories, that
conclusion to which I have adverted is contrary to the plain teaching of
Scripture. Wrath is not to be subsumed under love, nor represented as either love-sorrow
or the fire-zeal of love. It is not the feeling of offended love, nor divine
sorrow at the creature’s froward disobedience. These are poor dreams of the
human mind speculating on God, without dependence on the word of revelation, by
which alone we can know Him. It is unbiblical to say, that a God who has wrath
is not a God who loves; but it is scarcely less so to affirm that God is angry
because He loves. Consistently carried out, these speculations run counter to
the forensic idea of satisfaction and are at variance with any due recognition
of law, guilt, or punishment. The objective reality of divine wrath, on the
supposition of sin, is an axiom or first principle in natural theology (Rom. i.
32), as well as in the theology of revelation. All speculations of an opposite
character ignore the fact and criminality of sin.
Wrath, in biblical phraseology, therefore, is
an essential mood of the divine mind in respect of sin; and were we to deny the
objective reality of divine wrath, we should be compelled to weaken and dilute
the meaning of all Scripture. The passages in which the term WRATH occurs
amount to many hundreds, many of which are so definite, that they, beyond all
doubt or controversy, bring before us what is essential to the divine nature.
Thus, when God SWEARS IN HIS WRTH, that is, swears by that essential attribute
of His nature which leads Him to hate and punish sin, no doubt can be
entertained that this is a quality or property of God (Ps. xcv. 11). It is a perfection
having its root in the moral excellence of the living God: it is proportioned
to men’s conduct: and, in a word, it is inseparable from the idea which we
form, and must form, of the activity of a personal God in regard to moral evil
(Heb. iii. 11; Rom. ix. 22).
Nor is it unworthy of God to represent Him by
a phraseology borrowed from human feelings: for this is no mere
anthropomorphism but a delineation of His real displeasure at sin. Hatred, in
like manner, or a real aversion to sinners surrendering themselves to sinful
courses, is ascribed to God; and it is not represented as a figure of speech:
it is an amiable moral excellency (Rom. ix. 13; Rev. ii. 15). And there is no
reason to repudiate this biblical idea—because it has its analogue to man-or to
call the wrath of God a mere anthropomorphism; for the Bible always speaks of
God’s attributes in words borrowed from human qualities, which indeed, with the
due distinctions drawn between the Creator and creatures made in His image, are
common to both. What sort of excellence would it be in man, to be morally
indifferent, and to have neither aversion nor anger at sin? In a word, the idea
of divine wrath prompting retribution for moral disobedience, is involved in
our very idea of God as a personal God and moral governor: it is inseparable
from the fact of sin; it is presupposed in the atonement; and it must be carried
with us into any conception which is formed of future retribution. (George
Smeaton, The Doctrine of the Atonement
According to the Apostles [Peabody, Mass.: Hendickson Publishers, 1988], 310-13)
Further Reading
Robert A. Sungenis, The Immutable God Who Can Change His Mind, The Impassable God Who Can Show Emotion (State Line, Pa.: Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc., 2016)
