Kevin Kinghorn - But What About Gods Wrath?: The Compelling Love Story of Divine Anger

A lthough I am the single writer of this book, the ideas within it are most definitely co-authored. Stephen Travis provided 150 pages (single spaced!) of systematic notes on biblical passages having to do with Gods wrath. His biblical scholarship has been so incredibly valuable, both in terms of analyzing individual passages and in terms of understanding broader themes within the biblical narrative. His notes and comments not only helped shape this book, but have also helped me, more widely, appreciate the devotional richness of parts of the Bible I had previously thought of as tough reading. Above all, he has been an encourager throughout the stages of this project and a joy to count as a colleague.

The bulk of the writing for this project was completed during a sabbatical from Asbury Theological Seminary, whose generosity I greatly appreciate. I am indebted to the editors at IVP, particularly Anna Gissing, for improvements to this manuscript, along with an anonymous reviewer. Thanks to members of my weekly reading groupNick Grounds, Dylan Ziegler, Robert Williams, Evan Drysdale, Corban McKain, and Derek Kingfor providing helpful feedback in discussions of the topic. Thanks to Seth Sizemore for reading an early version of the manuscript and for suggested issues to address. Thanks to Jerry Walls for his initial encouragement to write this book. Finally, thanks to my wife, Barbara, and children, Anna Keren and Joseph, for their continued support of this and every other project of mine.

T heres a sticking point that arises again and again in my conversations with many Christians over the years. Well be talking about the character of God, the significance of the cross, the nature of faith, salvation, and so on. Well be talking about Gods great love for us, his desire that we live abundantly, and his efforts to draw people to himself. Its great theological conversation among fellow believers. But then the sticking point arises.

I myself am in the broad Wesleyan tradition, and many of these conversations have been with fellow Christians who come from a more Reformed theological background. They join me in affirming Gods great love for us. But at a certain point, when drawing out what I think are the implications from this starting point that God is love, they caution me as follows. So far weve only been speaking about Gods love. But what about Gods wrath?

Theres a lot in Scripture about Gods love for us. But theres quite a lot about Gods wrath as well. Is Gods love only one side of Gods character? Is wrath really another, complementary side we must consider? Paul tells us in Romans 11:22 to consider the kindness and sternness of God. In another translation its the goodness and severity of God (KJV). Would it therefore be a weak, tepid, overly feel-good theology that considers only Gods love but neglects to consider Gods wrath?

This book explores the relationship between Gods love and Gods wrath. It does so using two approaches. I myself am a Christian philosopher, and the eight chapters of this book make up a single, sustained line of argument for the conclusion that Gods wrath is entirely an expression of Gods love, in specific contexts. And all the ways God relates to usincluding his expressions of wrathcan be derived from the starting point of Gods love.

The second approach in this book is one of biblical studies. I have worked with biblical scholar Stephen Travis on this project, drawing from his insightful, extended notes on how Gods wrath is understood within the biblical narrative. This book can be described as the outcome of a philosopher and a biblical scholar putting their heads together. Stephen and I end up with the same conclusion about the relationship Gods love has to Gods wrath. His approach is a careful review of the biblical texts. My own approach is to carefully draw out the implications of certain starting points that all Christians will agree on. The eight chapters are, as I said, structured as a philosophical line of argument. But along the way there is equal attention paid to biblical themes and to contextual study, which informs the discussion and moves it forward.

Most, if not all, theological disagreements stem ultimately from differing ways of understanding Gods nature and character. As small children we all wanted to embrace the idea that God is love. This is super simple theology. But a more mature theology recognizes that Gods revelation about his character is more complex. It involves themes of his justice, his judgment, at times his wrath. We must go deeper in our theology than a five-year-olds simplistic picture of God. Yet, what if a deeper biblical and philosophical analysis of Gods character actually leads us back once again to that simplethough this time not simplisticunderstanding that God is love?

An answer here is not immediately obvious. This is because the term wrath can be used to denote a variety of occurrences in Scripture. One kind of repeated reference to wrath seems pretty plainly to refer to an emotion. Consider, for instance, Proverbs 15:1: A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. The context here seems to be how a gentle answer soothes the emotion of wrath. First Kings 14:22 indicates that Gods wrath can indeed be stirred up. Similarly, Jeremiah 32:32 tells how the peoples actions have provoked the Lord. Yet again, we read in Deuteronomy 9:8 that at Horeb you aroused the LORDs wrath so that he was angry enough to destroy you. This is language one naturally associates with the rising and falling of an emotion.