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.
We face a conflict between civilisation and culture, which used to be on the same side. Civilisation means rational reflection, material wellbeing, individual autonomy and ironic self-doubt; culture means a form of life that is customary, collective, passionate, spontaneous, unreflective and arational.
Let it crumble! Let the rocks revile me and flowers wilt at my coming. Your whole universe is not enough to prove me wrong. You are the king of gods, king of stones and stars, king of the waves of the sea. But you are not the king of man.
Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.
When we ask for the abolition of the State and its organs we are always told that we dream of a society composed of men better than they are in reality. But no; a thousand times, no. All we ask is that men should not be made worse than they are, by such institutions!
Some of the best people that ever lived have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you ought not to consider poverty a crime.
Every man's path is for himself; let him accomplish his own desires that he may thus be able to rise above them to the eternal goal.
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