DIVINE ANGER by Mich. Christian Advocate

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 22, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 16.

DIVINE ANGER.

By Mich. Christian Advocate

It is not to be supposed that God is moved by angry passions such as characterize human life. He is never worked up into a fury of sudden wrath, vindictively pouring out his vengeance like a thunder-storm upon offenders. His anger is of a different kind. It is a principle rather than a passion. It is the law of his being and government by which he proposes to punish sinners. It is called his wrath, and is said to abide upon those who believe not on the Son of God (John 3:36). It is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.

Punishment of sin is the effect of this wrath. The hard and impenitent heart treasures it up against the day of wrath. The accumulation of this wrath is the sinner's own act. God renders to every man according to his deeds. He gives eternal life to those who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory and honor and immortality, but metes out indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil. Read the second chapter of Romans for particulars of this awful visitation of the anger of God upon such as are contentious, and do not obey the truth. Language more terrific cannot be framed to show the inevitable harvest of woe which despisers of divine goodness shall reap.

Man is inexcusable for willful sin. He knows the truth and the way of life. After prolonged obstinacy he cannot hope to escape the judgment of God. Divine anger is the permanent, just, vengeful cloud which overcasts the sky of every persistent wrong-doer, and in time must inevitably break in overpowering destruction upon the soul. We read that "God is angry with the wicked every day." His anger against sin is constant. Wickedness is opposed to his nature as well as to his laws. It is a moral impossibility for him to look upon sin with allowance. He abhors it. It is as unlike himself as fire is unlike water, or as darkness is unlike light. He hates sin, denounces it, and will punish it. Sin is the only object of his anger. For misfortune, affliction, unavoidable ignorance, he has compassion, but he has no compassion for sin.

Sin must be either forgiven or punished. To provide for its forgiveness he has done all he could, and the responsibility now rests upon man alone. That responsibility is tremendous. It could not by any possibility be greater. It ought to make every sinner tremble. The old prophet observed that, "the sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites;" but it is to be feared that sinners and hypocrites in our day are not so easily alarmed. They are reckless, stupefied, dead. Unbelief has hardened their hearts. Yet God's anger changes not. He whets his sword against the wicked, and hath prepared for him the instruments of death. None may stand in his sight when once the cup of his anger is full and the word of judgment is spoken. The time is coming in the existence of every human soul when the awful reality of the divine wrath will be manifested, and either through grace escaped from, or through lack of grace entered into. Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. There is a death which is eternal.