Wrath, unlike love, is not one of the intrinsic perfections of God. Rather, it is a function of God's holiness against sin. Where there is no sin, there is no wrath-but there will always be love in God. Where God in His holiness confronts His image-bearers in their rebellion, there must be wrath, or God is not the jealous God He claims to be, and His holiness is impugned. The price of diluting God's wrath is diminishing God's holiness.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes that God's wrath is a response to sin, distinct from His everlasting love. It asserts that true holiness involves a reaction against rebellion, supporting the concept of divine justice.
D. A. Carson articulates a theological perspective where God's wrath is not an inherent quality but a reaction to sin that arises from His holiness. He argues that where sin exists, God's holiness necessitates a response of wrath, which affirms His moral standard. The quote contrasts God's love, which is constant and unchanging, with His wrath, which is contingent upon human rebellion. By stating that diminishing God's wrath compromises His holiness, Carson underscores the importance of recognizing both aspects of God's nature in understanding the divine character and justice.
In practice
During a sermon discussing God's nature and attributes, one might quote this to illustrate the balance between love and justice.
Both God's love and God's wrath are ratcheted up in the move from the old covenant to the new, from the Old Testament to the New. These themes barrel along through redemptive history, unresolved, until they come to a resounding climax - in the cross.
It is a cheap zeal that reserves its passions to combat only the sins and temptations of others.
Many of us in our praying are like nasty little boys who ring front door bells and run away before anyone answers.
There is a certain kind of maturity that can be attained only through the discipline of suffering.
The kingdom of heaven is worth infinitely more than the cost of discipleship, and those who know where the treasure lies joyfully abandon everything else to secure it.
Failure to believe stems from moral failure to recognize the truth, not from want of evidence, but from willful neglect or distortion of the evidence.
The only thing America respects is power and power concedes nothing. After the LA Riots, they tried to calm us down and nothing changed since.
One who previously made bad karma, but who reforms and creates good karma, brightens the world like the moon appearing from behind a cloud.
Show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually clean kitchen, and 8 times out of 9 I'll show you a man with detestable spiritual qualities.
On the philosophical level, both Buddhism and modern science share a deep suspicion of any notion of absolutes, whether conceptualize as a transcendent being, as an eternal, unchanging principle such as soul, or as a fundamental substratum of reality. ... In the Buddhist investigation of reality, at least in principle, empirical evidence should triumph over scriptural authority, no matter how deeply venerated a scripture may be.
The man of power is ruined by power, the man of money by money, the submissive man by subservience, the pleasure seeker by pleasure.
There is no contradiction between effective law enforcement and respect for civil and human rights.
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