And now, The Wrath of God.

starring Jesus as “The Wrath”

(Full disclosure: I’m feelin’ spicy. Let’s goooo)

What do we do with the wrath of God in a descriptive Gospel? If the truth of the Gospel is that we're adored and whole and cherished from the beginning as God's favorite creatures, and that none of our sinfulness can ultimately keep us separated from him, where does a destructive and condemning wrath possibly fit? Am I denying the reality of God's wrath against sin and injustice by claiming the Gospel is descriptive?

Nope. But am I going to explore the topic with different lenses? Yep, I sure am. Uncomfortable, extreme lenses, perhaps.

If Peace is the perfect fruition of all things in right relationship with each other, and Justice is the action Peace takes to bring things back into alignment, I would say that Wrath is just Peace, dressed to kill.

Ack! But kill who, tho? Kill sinners? Is the wrath of God the executor of eternal condemnation?

Here, let me explain my premise, starting with my definition for sin:

Sin is misalignment from Love. 

Think about it like your body and chiropractic care: when your body is in perfect alignment, health and peace are what you'll experience, because your blood and all your body's systems are flowing and operating smoothly to nourish and detoxify itself without interruption. When you're out of alignment – when you have subluxations and therefore blockages – your systems are being disrupted in either small ways or big, and you start having backups, stagnation, pain, loss of health, and in the extreme, death itself. And I'm going to go ahead and say that the presence of misalignment is death at work in us (however slowly), whereas alignment is life at work. 

I'll also assert that being in perfect alignment with Love is the Truth of who we are. That state of being is the Truth of who God made us to be. Any misalignment that occurs may be a fact of our experience, but it isn't Truth, and while it can assume our identity, be very convincing, and cause us to behave in atrocious ways, it can't ever fully subvert the Truth. The Truth about you is still true no matter what your experience to the contrary. You were created as Love, by Love, for Love, and that is who you inherently are. 

So let's get back to who exactly that Wrath has it in for, and the hint that I'll give you is it's not you.

What did Jesus come to do? 

Conquer Sin, Death, and the Devil. 

Huh. Are you any of those things? (The correct answer is no.)

What is working death in you? 

Sin: misalignment from your source of being – from Love, the Truth of your very self.

Jesus embodied the wrath of God and dealt death to Death, to do violence to what was doing violence to us. The Wrath of God was satisfied, because Jesus as the Wrath did everything he needed to do* to subvert the Subverter, to overthrow the Overthrower, to free us from the chains that kept us small, stunted, and wicked (twisted, broken, and breaking). He finished with that, and now eternal condemnation need not apply.

BUT. What about all the wickedness we still experience, and even embody and commit ourselves? Healing and adjusting take time, but rest assured, the Lord is coming for those things. He continues to release us from the things we are not so we're free to be the full, true expression of who we are – of who he is.

*which of course, ironically, didn't look like being dressed to kill in any way, and instead like being stripped to be killed. He is a wily Jesus.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 6:23

Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.  1 John 3:2

So we have come to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 1 John 4:16-18

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1-2