Love and Wrath

Spirituality Column #64
January 29, 2008
Current! In Carmel (IN) newspaper

Love and Wrath
By Bob Walters

The wrath of God and the love of Jesus are a theological odd couple.

In the Father-Son-Holy Spirit Trinity, where the three persons of the one God meet as love and community, how can one be good, one be angry, and one – the Holy Spirit – be neutral?

Does that make sense?

The Trinity is our divine example of a perfect relationship, yet too often we tell our Christian story as a saga of punishment and payback rather than a celebration of trust and forgiveness.

If the Trinity is truly three persons of the one God, the Passion of Christ must also be the Passion of God and of the Holy Spirit.

My friend George Bebawi, the religious scholar (and Carmel resident) I often mention, made the excellent point in a recent lecture that he was “tired of meeting Christians who are afraid of meeting God.”

His point was that if you are afraid of God, you cannot mature as a Christian. Our Christian maturity is a function of our relationship with God. If our relationship with God is based on fear … it is the relationship of a slave, not of salvation; it cannot grow.

When we struggle as Christians to adequately explain or exemplify the love of God, it is too often easy and seemingly expedient (and human) to insert fear into the argument and say … “If you aren’t saved, God is going to get you. Look what God did to Christ, and He was innocent! What is God going to do to you?”

A crazy and unbiblical syllogism.

The Cross as an expression of God’s love is a difficult concept: it looks so much like a punishment. But in the New Testament the Cross is never described as either a function of God’s wrath or as punishment. It was how God reconciled our sin so His love for us could include our relationship with Him.

Is God’s wrath coming? I’m afraid so. All hell is literally going to cut loose on the last day, although I can’t imagine what that means or looks like.

The New Testament teaches that the love of the Cross – the love of the Trinity – can save us from that fear, and that fate.

Love God not to avoid punishment, but to build a relationship.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) should probably tell you more about Bebawi. Maybe next week.