The holiness and wrath of God sound like two incompatible words stringed together. How can a holy God have wrath? In this article, we will explore the holiness and wrath of God as an attribute of God showing us his moral perfection and hatred for sin. Then we will look at the implication for us and how, in Christ, God’s wrath is satisfied and sinners are reconciled to Him.
The Attributes of God
Theologians expansively treat the character of God under the attributes of God, using anthropomorphic language to address God's character as revealed in Scripture. Though God cannot be fully known, yet he can be known and related to because he has shown us in his holy Scripture all we need to know of him. Louis Berkhof in his Systematic Theology addressed this as The Knowability of God.
The Christian Church confesses on the one hand that God is the Incomprehensible One, but also on the other hand, that He can be known and that knowledge of Him is an absolute requisite unto salvation. 1
The Thrice Holy God
The attributes of God, as deduced from biblical teaching help us know and speak truly of God as He has revealed Himself. “The God of the Bible is, from start to finish, the God who makes himself known” 2 Holiness occupies a uniquely prominent place in Scripture’s revelation of God. In Isaiah Chapter six, the Prophet leads us into the presence of God in his own vision and opens our eyes to a majestic grandeur and awe-stricken revelation of who God is. He is, as we see in the chapter, the thrice holy God: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (). In this vision, the seraphim covered their faces with their wings before God on His throne in worship.
At the core of this vision is the Holiness of God. The repetition of the word holy is a literary device for emphasis in Hebrew just as we underline words, use italics or bold fonts to emphasize words.
The angels in their worship therefore point us to the weight of God’s holiness. He is most holy, superlatively holy. He is perfectly pure, holy, and righteous—utterly distinct from us and from all creation.
Our translation for holiness comes from the Hebrew word qadowsh which means "to cut." To be holy means to be cut off, or separate, from everything else. It means to be in a class of your own, distinct from anything that has ever existed or will ever exist. Qadowsh means a second thing: to be holy means to be entirely morally pure, all the time and in every way possible. 3
A Call to Holiness
Because God is holy, we learn from the Scriptures that he summons his people to holiness with Himself as the standard: "You must be holy because I am holy.” ( NLT). That is unsettling. Since the Bible judges all human beings as sinners, bereft of any desire for God and holiness, how can we be called to be holy as he is? The Prophet Isaiah had a first-hand experience of his unworthiness in the realization of God’s holiness: “...Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the king, the LORD of host (). The revelation of God’s holiness opened his eyes to his own hollowness, a sinner empty of any virtue. So are we also.
This is a consistent testimony of Scripture. When people gaze into God's holiness, they are dazed by their sinfulness. It happened at the foot of Mount Sinai. The Israelites were terrified to death at the presence of God (). When the apostle Peter encountered the holiness of God in Christ Jesus, in the miraculous catching of fish, he ran for cover from Jesus: “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” ().
How then does God call us to be holy like him? By coming into a saving relationship with him through Jesus Christ whom he sent into the world to live a holy life and die on behalf of sinners so that those who will put their faith and trust in him will be forgiven of their sins and given the power to live a holy life as required by God. What God requires from us, he supplies the means to accomplish it. Our holiness is not the ground of our acceptance with God; it is the necessary fruit of union with Christ and the Spirit’s sanctifying work. God's holiness displayed in us is not self-willed, but Spirit-filled. He works his will in us (; )
Because God is perfectly holy, He cannot regard evil with moral neutrality. His wrath is His righteous opposition to everything contrary to His holy character.
The Wrath of God
Now God in his holiness does not merely call us to imitate him. The saints are summoned to shun sin since he abhors it (). God has a holy anger towards sin and will punish it: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth" ()
The word wrath in the original language can be interpreted also as anger, indignation and vengeance. But, how can a holy God have wrath? To say God is Holy and God has wrath may not sit well especially with the common idea out there that a holy God cannot have anger. Indeed, many people only see God as a God of love and nothing else. Because God is love, therefore, they argue it is inconceivable to ascribe anger to God. He is love, love, love because in our human thinking, the two are incompatible. They are light and darkness.
A Display of God’s Wrath
Some Christians are fond of saying God is angry with sin, but not the sinner. That's unbiblical. God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day. ( KJV). God's wrath is displayed in many places in Scripture. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of their sin and God's wrath displayed in judgement: “Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.” ().
In ; , Uzzah died after God’s anger was displayed in judgement on him for touching the Ark. From a merely human perspective, Uzzah’s action may appear understandable, Uzzah touched the Ark to stabilize it from falling. But we are told "And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error, and he died there beside the ark of God." He was killed because God had given clear directives on handling holy things in worship (). Uzzah died because God’s commandment was broken. Rightly, the Bible tells us God is a consuming fire. He will justly punish sin (; ).
In his famous sermon “Sinners in the hands of an Angry God”, Jonathan Edwards painted a graphic image of the anger of God which struck a terrifying terror amongst his hearers.
On this day in history, Jonathan Edwards started a sermon that he did not finish. Such was the impact of his preaching that the people listening shrieked and cried out, and the crying and weeping became so loud that Edwards was forced to discontinue the sermon. 4
What did Edwards say?
God is substantially angrier with a large number of people who now remain on the earth... God always remembers and resents the wickedness of people. It’s a mistake to imagine that God is forgetful or ignorant about these things and that’s why he doesn’t remove his hand of mercy and cut off the wicked. God is not like people at all in this regard, even though the wicked may imagine that he is like us. On the contrary, God’s wrath burns against them. Their damnation never sleeps. The pit is prepared and the fire is ready. The furnace is now hot and set to receive them. The flames are raging and glowing, even now. The glittering sword is sharp and is wielded above them. The pit has opened its mouth beneath them. 5
Many have issues with God's wrath because of an erroneous anthropomorphic attribution. They juxtapose God's anger with human anger and conclude that what humans display is what God displays. It is worth clarifying that God’s anger is not arbitrary and a burst of rage. It is not mood swings.
God’s wrath must not be confused with sinful human rage. His anger is never irrational, uncontrolled, capricious, or produced by emotional instability. The historic doctrine of divine impassibility teaches that God is not subject to involuntary passions or change as creatures are. Yet Scripture truly reveals God as loving righteousness and expressing holy indignation against sin. His wrath is therefore not a defect in God but the settled, righteous opposition of the holy God toward evil.
Sin Must Be Punished
God will deal with sin because it is an affront to his holiness. Since God is holy and just, the sinner must justly pay for their sin. We are all justly condemned as sinners who will face the wrath of God in judgement one day.
But in his lovingkindness, God has provided a way of escape from his wrath and judgement. God has put Christ forward as a propitiation: a sacrifice that satisfies His righteous wrath against sin. In Jesus, God is satisfied because he died to deliver sinners from God's wrath. Therefore those who have put their faith in Jesus have escaped the wrath of God to come (; ).
At the cross, we see neither God’s holiness compromised nor His wrath ignored. Sin is judged, justice is satisfied, and mercy is extended to sinners through Christ. The holy God who rightly condemns sin is the same God who, in love, gives His Son to save His people from the wrath to come. Those who are in Christ are therefore not only delivered from judgment but set apart to become holy as He is holy.
Amen
Notes
Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth, 2000),29
Kevin DeYoung, Daily Doctrine: A One-Year Guide To Systematic Theology (Wheaton,Illinois: Crossway, 2024) 21
Paul Tripp, “The Doctrine of Holiness”, 10th September, 2018, https://www.paultripp.com/articles/posts/the-doctrine-of-holiness-article
Josh Moody, “This Day in History: Jonathan Edwards Preaches “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” Crossway, 8th July, 2018, https://www.crossway.org/articles/this-day-in-history-jonathan-edwards-preaches-sinners-in-the-hands-of-an-angry-god/
Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners In The Hands of An Angry God”, trans, 2014, Jason Dollar, Kindle