Christians!! This is a serious question, not a mickey-take?

Question

God is loving, merciful and forgiving to everyone, right?

Why then, is 'the wrath of God' referred to in the Bible so many times?
Surely wrath is born of anger, and to suffer the wrath of God would mean that he is to punish the person.

Is that not an act of vengeance? And is vengeance not the exact opposite of forgiveness?

Doktor Christ, I like your toes analogy. No I would never get angry with you. I would have removed my toes from your stomping-ground, and then learned to understand your actions long before my toes could get sore.

And my forgiveness would be automatic.

Answer 1

I stomp on your toe, you forgive me. You forgive me because you love me. So I stomp on another toe, again you forgive me. You forgive me because you really love me. I stomp on another toe, before long your toes are sore. But I just keep stomping. Soon will I not face your wrath? Yet, you still love me. Though now I suffer your wrath, I have learnt "don't step on his toes". And I see that though you are angry you still love me. So I make it a real point to never stomp upon your toes. I have repented, you still really love me, forgive me.

Answer 2

Have you heard the quote, "Vengeance is mine saith the Lord"?
God is more than just loving, forgiving and merciful. He is also Just. Everything is weighed in the balance. He will not suffer evil or sin. It is the whole point of the sacrifice of Christ. The sin of man needed to be redeemed, payed for. God could do anything He likes, and what He likes, as has been revealed to all of us is that His mercy and wrath are both beyond human comprehension. When you have a balance of both, you have the concept of justice. Would you forgive the criminal and show him ultimate mercy no matter what the offence. If you did, you would not be offering justice, you would be encouraging evil.
I suggest you tout unrestrained justice instead of unrestrained mercy or wrath.

Answer 3

God is spirit and emotions are chemical reactions so God does not have emotions the way we do. Jesus,who is fully and truly human as well as truly and fully God and He does have human emotions,including anger (which now would be transformed by resurrection.

The Wrath of God is the effect on us(not on God) of our rejection of His love,providence,law and grace.

The Bible,especially the OT,uses human imagery to depict and explain God and natural and social situations and disasters. 2500 years ago people in power were often explosively emotive when their power was slighted ,let alone rebelled against, and more open about it than most of todays rulers show (I think todays rulers are just as egotistic but better at "spin".)

I don't take literally the murderously nasty lanquage of the OT or Revelation in many places. I interpret the Bible in the light of Apostolic Tradition(God is Love and Just),Reason/Natural Law (God is Responsible) and His Church( God is truly righteous).
God is all Good,All Just, All-Merciful.but he cannot be true to His all Goodness and All-Justice and acquit those who do not repent of,that is turn from and reject their evils.

Answer 4

God is merciful and forgiving to those who ask. The mercy and forgiveness is open to everyone if the ask sincerely and try to live a christian life afterwards. If they choose ignore God and go on with their sinful ways, that is where God's wrath enters in. We have a choice, just like Adam and Eve did.God gives the choice. its up to us to choose the consequences of our actions.

Answer 5

God is a two-sided person, if you will. Look at men and women, who bear God's image. Men have God's righteous anger, just side. (or at least they're supposed to have RIGHTEOUS anger but being humans we mess everything up). And women have God's forgiving, merciful side. God is never wrong in His anger. His is always a righteous anger. And God is both justice and mercy. We don't understand it, but what kind of God would He be if we understood Him?? A pretty puny God, huh. And what kind of God would He be if He were only loving/angry? It's like being a parent. I understand if you would be confused about God being both justice and mercy. A lot of things, being a Christian, you just have to accept and move on to grow.
There's a great book by Bill Myers, called 'The Bloodstone Chronicles : a journey of faith' also titled as 'Journeys to Fayrah'. It's a young adult book but explains a lot of things in words you can understand, not all that christian-code.

Answer 6

God is the yin and yang. So while He can bless you and keep you, He can also get really pissed off and take His vengeance upon you.

Look what He did to the Jews in the desert -- He told them to not worship idols, but while Moses was up on the mount getting the tablets of the ten commandments, they were worshipping a golden idol. That pissed Moses off, who broke the commandment tablets, and it pissed God off, who told them they would not be allowed to see the promised land.

But if you notice, He says He is the only one who is allowed to take vengeance against another. That is because He is the only one allowed to judge.

And BTW, I do not believe He forgives everyone everything. I am probably the only Christian who believes that.

Answer 7

After researching 18 versions of the Bible I found that the most the term 'wrath of God' was mentioned in any of them was 12. That doesn't seem to high a number to me. And the only way that we can provoke the wrath of God is by being stupid for a very long time, or by continually being in a cycle of repentance and sinning. To the point that we become pseudo sorry. If you know what I mean. God Bless

Answer 8

i dont know if im rite but this is my take of it...
so God already been loving, merciful and forgiving to everyone. but we all have a lifetime to choose Him over other gods. and to those chose to seek Him and love Him during their time on earth will be continued to enjoy loving, merciful, and forgiving. but if u chose against Him the wrath of God would be on u.
and when the Bible say something about the wrath of God being on u when u sin. i think it means that when u die and your Day of Judgement has come, the wrath of God would come then.

Answer 9

I'll admit, it's been a while since I've picked up the "good book", but it has been my understanding that most of the vengeful, spiteful God was represented in the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the story of the covenant that God made with the Jewish people (in a nutshell - "follow these rules, and you'll be good with me for all time. Break these rules, and I'll be pissed"). Well, people being people, they broke and bent the rule constantly.

So, God pulled a cosmic do-over and sent Jesus. Along with JC came the end of all the old rules, and the creation of one simple, yet incredibly difficult, rule - "Love thy neighbor as thy self". Much, much easier said than done.

That's how I see it, anyway. Hope it helps!

Answer 10

You must realise that the books in the Bible were wrote thousand's of yrs before Christ, and the wrath as you put it .
is mostly in the old testimony
.That's the old Judea cultures and words of that particular time in history, example we have moved on from executing and whipping people in public.
.Forgive me for being blasphemous' but I think the old testament needs attention' and coming up to date.
.

Answer 11

In Romans 1,it states that the wrath of God is upon these
types of people. He gives everyone a chance to believe
in Him. John 1:9. If they reject His wrath is automatically
against them. People don't seem to understand, when man
was born into sin (because of Adam), Jesus the second Adam came to release us from sin. The Father gave His
Son as a sacrifice for all the sins of mankind and to reject
that sacrifice is almost unthinkable. But people do it all the
time. He will not mess with your free volition.