Interestingly, the gospel message begins with a statement about the wrath of God. Frankly that’s diametrically opposed to most of our evangelistic techniques. Most of our contemporary evangelism purposely avoids the wrath of God. We talk about love, and we talk about happiness, and we talk about abundant living, and we talk about forgiveness, and joy and peace. And we offer people all of those things and ask them if they wouldn’t like to have all of those things. But we very rarely talk about God's judgment. We err when we do this.
The shortness of life, the brevity of it, the sorrow of it, the tragedy of all of the pain involved, this is all part of what is captured here under this phrase, "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven." No one escapes God's wrath; it is being revealed, and we have to face it. Fear, for most, must be the first pressure applied. This is the case because we will not understand anything about God's love until we understand God’s hatred of sin. We do not understand nor do we appreciate God's grace until we understand the wickedness of our sin.
God’s attributes are perfectly balanced in His divine perfection. If He had no wrath, He would not be God. God is perfect in love, on the one hand, and He is equally perfect in hate, on the other. Just as totally as He loves, so totally He hates. As His love is unmixed, so is His hatred of sin unmixed.
The bad news has to come before the good news, doesn’t it? It’s kind of like going to the doctor and having the doctor say, “I have bad news. You have a fatal illness that has killed many people. But, I have good news. A cure has been found, and I have it right here.” The good news means nothing without the bad news. We must diagnose the disease before the cure can be appreciated. The bad news is God hates sin, and, the good news is God loves us. We must start with His hatred of sin. There must be the diagnosis before there can be the cure.
When mankind chose to ignore God's definition of things, we gave the enemy the right to define us and our world. Thus, we are not defined by God and we are messed up because of it. Of course, as Paul has pointed out in Romans 1:16-17, God moved to remedy our sin problem by sending His Son to remove the chasm what was created by the rebellion of mankind.
When it comes to sin, it is in our nature to water down its definition. We define sin as whites lies, mistakes, disorders. No, sin is deliberate wicked rebellion. It is wicked because we have allowed the one who opposes God and who is wicked to define things for us. Yes, we were deceived but we gave into it.
The wrath of God is the absence of God in our world and our lives.
The greatest demonstration of God's wrath ever was given at the cross of Christ. God's hatred for sin was shown best when He poured out His wrath on His own beloved Son. And, He did not hold it back even from His own Son. This underscores God's love for fallen man. That’s how much He hates sin. And, He had not, we would have been left in our sin, defined and destined by Satan himself.
Notice the order in v.18 -- godlessness and then wickedness. Throughout the Scriptures, this order
is never reversed. It is our godless definitions that produces the wicked
actions that we make. That is why the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against man. Godlessness isn't
necessarily atheism or the belief that God doesn't exist. Godlessness is acting
as though he doesn't exist.
As a result, like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we try to hide or suppress the definition of God of all things by embracing the definitions of Satan. We do not do this knowingly. No, we have been deceived into believing that Satan's definition of things is right and normal. That is until his definition of things begins to bite us in the butt. And then, we want to blame God for that. We act selfishly and we deliberately hurt each other because we disregard God and His definition of things. By means of these hurtful and selfish acts, the truth is suppressed.
As a result, like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we try to hide or suppress the definition of God of all things by embracing the definitions of Satan. We do not do this knowingly. No, we have been deceived into believing that Satan's definition of things is right and normal. That is until his definition of things begins to bite us in the butt. And then, we want to blame God for that. We act selfishly and we deliberately hurt each other because we disregard God and His definition of things. By means of these hurtful and selfish acts, the truth is suppressed.
We live in a world in which the truth from God is all around us, but we are busy covering it up, hiding it, suppressing it, keeping it from being prominent and dominant in our thinking and our living. It is against that attitude of hiding truth and suppressing the truth that the wrath of God burns. The reason why life has turned tragic in so many cases is because the world is deprived of the truth which is necessary for life and liberty and freedom and godliness to be realized.
The wrath of God is the absence of God in our world and our lives.
