The Human Condition
"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him."
Romans 5:9
Two words in this article's title sit uneasily together in the modern mind. Mercy we understand and welcome. Wrath sounds like something belonging to an older, harsher religion — a God of thunder and temper, quick to take offence, whom sensible people have outgrown. Many who are drawn to the God of the New Testament assume they must quietly leave the other one behind.
But the two belong to the same God, and — this is the thing worth staying for — they are not in tension. They meet, fully and without compromise, at a single point in history. Understanding how is the difference between a sentimental religion that cannot help anybody and the actual gospel.
Let us clear away the caricature first, because most objections are aimed at something the Bible never taught.
Begin here, because almost everyone brings a picture to this subject before they bring a verse.
The wrath of God is not a temper. It is not God losing patience, or being provoked past endurance, or reacting the way a man reacts when he has been pushed too far. Human anger is nearly always a loss of control; it flares, it says more than it means, and it is ashamed of itself afterwards. Nothing of that belongs to God.
Nor is it moodiness. God is not warm toward sinners on one day and hostile on another. He is not to be managed, appeased with small offerings, or caught in a better humour. Those are the gods of the heathen, and Scripture holds them in contempt.
And it is not cruelty. There is no delight in it, no relish, nothing arbitrary. That must be said early, because a great many people have quietly concluded that the God of the Old Testament is a bully, and have never been shown otherwise.
"God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent." (Numbers 23:19)
God's wrath is not a temper. It is not a loss of composure, a flare of irritation, or an outburst He later regrets. Human anger is usually like that — sudden, disproportionate, mixed with wounded pride, and often unjust. Nothing of that is true of God.
Nor is it capricious. God is not moody, not dangerous to approach on the wrong day, not looking for an excuse to strike. Scripture describes Him as slow to anger and abundant in mercy — and if He is slow to it, then anger is plainly not His natural resting state.
Nor is it cruelty. God takes no delight in punishment, as we shall see in His own words.
The wrath of God is His settled, righteous, constant opposition to evil. It is not the opposite of His love; it is what love necessarily does when confronted with what destroys the beloved.
What Scripture describes is something steadier and far more serious: the settled, judicial opposition of a holy God to everything that destroys what He made.
Consider what we would think of a judge who felt nothing when a child was harmed. We would not call him gracious. We would call him unfit. Indifference to evil is not a virtue in a magistrate, and it is not a virtue in God.
"God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day." (Psalm 7:11)
"God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked." (Nahum 1:2-3)
Read those two verses of Nahum together, because they sit in a single breath. Furious — and slow to anger. Both, of the same God, in the same sentence. Whatever this wrath is, it is not incompatible with immense patience.
"For our God is a consuming fire." (Hebrews 12:29)
Consider this carefully, because it is the key to the whole subject. Suppose you learned of a man who systematically harmed children over many years, and suppose you felt nothing at all — no anger, no indignation, only a mild wish that things had gone otherwise. What would that reveal about you? Not that you were loving. It would reveal that you did not much care about the children.
Indignation at evil is not the failure of love; it is one of its proofs. A father who is indifferent to what harms his daughter does not love her more than the father who is furious. The capacity for anger at wrong is inseparable from the capacity to care.
Now scale that up to a God who sees every act of cruelty ever committed — every child harmed, every widow defrauded, every innocent condemned, every quiet betrayal that no one else ever knew about. A God who looked at all of it and felt nothing would not be a better God. He would be a monster of indifference, and not worth worshipping.
Because God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all, He cannot be neutral toward darkness:
"...God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." (1 John 1:5)
Scripture does not treat this as a marginal theme. It is stated at the very opening of the great argument of Romans, before anything is said about salvation:
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness." (Romans 1:18)
Mark the word revealed. This is not something men worked out and attributed to God. It is something God disclosed about Himself, and He disclosed it in the same letter that contains the fullest statement of His grace in all Scripture. The apostle Paul does not treat the two as rivals.
"Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience." (Ephesians 5:6)
Let no man deceive you with vain words. He anticipated that there would always be teachers willing to talk this subject away, and he named the practice for what it is.
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness." (Romans 1:18)
Note the target. Not against people as such — against ungodliness and unrighteousness. God's opposition is to the evil, and it falls on persons only insofar as they will not be separated from it.
And note that it is revealed. This is not a secret God keeps until it is too late to matter. It is published, openly, in advance.
Most people who think about this at all imagine wrath as something waiting at the end — a future event that has no bearing on the present. Scripture speaks otherwise, and the tense of one verse is worth examining:
"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." (John 3:36)
Abideth. Not will fall upon. It rests there now, and it remains. The condition is present tense, and so is its remedy: he that believes hath everlasting life — already, not someday.
These are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, in the same chapter that contains the best-loved verse in the Bible about God's love. The One who spoke of God so loving the world spoke also of wrath abiding. We are not permitted to keep one sentence and discard the other; they came from the same mouth on the same occasion.
And what interposes is exactly what we saw earlier:
"But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear." (Isaiah 59:2)
Now comes the turn, and it is stated in words so tender that they are difficult to read without being moved. God swears an oath about His own disposition toward the guilty:
"Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" (Ezekiel 33:11)
That is God under oath — as I live — swearing by Himself that He takes no pleasure in the thing He has warned about. And the same note is heard in the Lord Jesus Christ weeping over a city that was about to reject Him:
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" (Matthew 23:37)
Ye would not. The wrath of God never falls on people He was unwilling to gather.
"Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" (Ezekiel 33:11)
Read it slowly. As I live — God binds Himself by an oath, as if anticipating that we would not believe Him. I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked — not reluctant satisfaction, not grim justice grimly enjoyed. No pleasure at all.
And then the repetition: turn ye, turn ye, said twice, the way you would call to someone walking toward a cliff. And finally a question that is not an accusation but a lament: why will ye die? There is grief in that sentence. It is the voice of One who does not want this outcome and is saying so.
Whatever else you take from this article, do not carry away the picture of a God eager to condemn. It is exactly the opposite of what He has sworn about Himself.
People sometimes ask why, if God is opposed to evil, He does not act at once. Scripture answers plainly, and the answer is uncomfortable in a way most objections are not:
"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9)
"Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?" (Romans 2:4)
Every day the judgment does not fall is a day of mercy, and it is meant to be read as one. But Scripture is equally plain that the patience is not endless, and that a man may presume upon it once too often:
"He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy." (Proverbs 29:1)
"(For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)" (2 Corinthians 6:2)
Now is the accepted time. The word is deliberate. There is such a thing as an accepted time, which implies there is such a thing as a time no longer accepted.
"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9)
The delay is not indifference. It is not weakness. It is mercy holding the door open — not willing that any should perish.
Here is the uncomfortable part. Every day that God delays judgment is a day granted to sinners, which means it is a day granted to you and to me. The very patience that people cite as evidence God does not care is the patience that has kept us alive long enough to read this page. To complain that God is slow to judge is to complain about the reason we are still here.
So we have two facts, both absolutely true, and together they create the deepest difficulty in the universe.
Set the two truths side by side and the difficulty is obvious, and it is not a difficulty invented by sceptics. It is the oldest problem in Scripture, and Abraham put it to God himself: "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Genesis 18:25).
If God simply forgives, He is not just. A judge who waves away the crimes brought before him is not merciful; he is corrupt, and every victim in his courtroom has been wronged a second time.
If God simply judges, no one survives it. Not the worst of us and not the best of us.
"As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one." (Romans 3:10)
"If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?" (Psalm 130:3)
That is the impasse, and no religion has ever solved it. Every system men build either lowers the standard until the guilty can meet it, or lowers the mercy until nobody can be sure of it. Scripture does neither.
God is righteous and must deal with evil. A judge who lets the guilty walk free is not merciful; he is corrupt, and every victim is wronged a second time by his leniency. If God simply overlooked sin, He would cease to be good.
And God is love, and desires to save the very people who committed the evil.
"He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." (1 John 4:8)
How can both be satisfied? Not by God ignoring justice — that would corrupt Him. Not by God ignoring mercy — that would deny His nature. The only possible solution is that the penalty be fully paid, but paid by someone other than the guilty.
And that is precisely what happened, at a specific place, on a specific afternoon.
The answer is not that God relaxed His justice. It is that the wrath fell, in full, upon a Substitute.
"Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." (Romans 3:25-26)
That word propitiation is the hinge of the verse, and it is worth having plainly. It means the turning away of wrath by a satisfaction offered. Not the wrath ignored. Not the wrath forgotten. The wrath borne.
And notice the phrase the apostle Paul uses to describe what the cross achieved: that he might be just, and the justifier. Both. God did not choose between His justice and His mercy. He satisfied the one in order to extend the other, and the place where He did it was Calvary.
"Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." (Psalm 85:10)
Met together. They had been apart, so far as sinful men were concerned, since Eden. They meet at one place only.
"For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." (2 Corinthians 5:21)
"Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." (Galatians 3:13)
This is why the darkness at noon and the cry of forsakenness are recorded. They are not scenery. They are the wrath of God falling — and falling on the only Man who never deserved a moment of it.
"And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46)
Every soul that is spared is spared because that cry was not spared.
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." (Romans 5:8-9)
Watch how the two themes meet in a single passage. Verse eight is love; verse nine is wrath; and the same blood answers both.
At the cross, the wrath of God against sin was not cancelled, waived, or quietly forgotten. It fell — in full, without mitigation — upon a willing Substitute who had no sin of His own. The darkness over the land and the cry of forsakenness were not theatre. Something real was being borne.
This is why the gospel is not God being lenient. Leniency would have left justice unsatisfied and victims unavenged. Instead the debt was paid down to the last coin, and it was the Judge Himself, in the Person of His Son, who paid it.
And this is why forgiveness can be offered without the slightest compromise. Scripture says God is faithful and just to forgive — just, because the account is settled. A pardon that cost nothing would be an insult to everyone who has ever been wronged. This one cost everything.
Every person will encounter the righteous opposition of God to evil. There are only two ways it can happen.
"He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." (John 3:36)
One verse, two men, two conditions, no third option. And mark the tense of the last clause — abideth. It is not that wrath will one day arrive. It is already resting where Christ has not been received, and the only question is whether it will be met at Calvary or met in person.
"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." (Romans 5:9)
"And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come." (1 Thessalonians 1:10)
One is to meet it personally, bearing one's own sin — which is what Scripture means when it says wrath abides on the one who will not believe. Nothing is done to him that is unjust; he simply receives what his own record earned.
The other is to meet it in a Substitute — to discover that when the wrath came, it fell on Another, and that there is now nothing left to fall on you.
That is the whole difference, and it is decided by what a person does with the Lord Jesus Christ.
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23)
"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9)
"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." (John 1:12)
It is worth asking honestly why a subject that fills the Bible has nearly vanished from the pulpit.
Part of the reason is decent enough. Men have heard the doctrine abused — shouted, used to frighten children, wielded by preachers who seemed to enjoy it — and they have reacted against the abuse by dropping the truth. That is understandable, and it is still a mistake. The cure for a doctrine handled cruelly is to handle it as Scripture does: with tears, as the Lord Jesus Christ handled it over Jerusalem.
Part of it is fear of the hearer. A congregation will forgive almost anything sooner than being told that God is angry with sin. So the subject is softened, then avoided, then quietly denied — and the man in the pew concludes that whatever else God may be, He is not seriously opposed to what is destroying him.
But the deepest reason is this: where the wrath of God is not believed, the cross becomes unintelligible.
Ask a congregation that has never heard of wrath why the Lord Jesus Christ had to die, and the answers grow vague — to show us love, to set an example, to identify with our suffering. Each of those is true and none of them required a crucifixion. Love could be shown a thousand gentler ways. An example could be set by a life. Nothing but the bearing of judgment explains a righteous Man crying out that God had forsaken Him.
Take away the wrath and the cross becomes an extravagant gesture. Restore it, and the cross becomes the most reasonable thing that ever happened.
There is a corresponding error on the other side, and it is at least as common.
Many suppose that God's mercy means He does not much mind. That He is broadly indulgent, that the standards were always more relaxed than the preachers said, and that in the end nearly everyone will be waved through.
Scripture never speaks of mercy in those terms. Mercy in the Bible is costly. It is not a lowering of the account but a paying of it.
"But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved)." (Ephesians 2:4-5)
"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost." (Titus 3:5)
"It is of the LORD\u2019s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness." (Lamentations 3:22-23)
Read that last one carefully, because it links the two subjects in a single sentence. It is of the LORD's mercies that we are not consumed. The verse assumes there is something to be consumed by. Mercy is only meaningful where wrath is real; otherwise it is not mercy at all, merely indifference wearing a kinder name.
"The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide: neither will he keep his anger for ever. He hath not dealt with us after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities." (Psalm 103:8-10)
He hath not dealt with us after our sins. That is the whole gospel in eight words — and it is only good news to a man who knows what dealing with us after our sins would have meant.
One last thing must be said, because many carry a divided picture of God without realising it: an angry Father restrained by a loving Son, as though mercy had to be extracted from a reluctant deity.
Scripture will not have it. It was the Father who gave the Son.
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)
"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)
The cross was not the Son changing the Father's mind. It was the Father's own provision, planned before the world began, so that His justice and His mercy might both be satisfied in one act.
Wrath and mercy are not two moods competing in God. They are two expressions of one holy character — and at Calvary they were both fully expressed at the same moment, on the same Person, for the same reason.
A God without wrath could not be good, because He would be indifferent to everything that has ever destroyed a human life. A God without mercy could not be approached, because none of us would survive the meeting. The God who actually exists is both, entirely, and has arranged matters at infinite cost to Himself so that we may have the mercy without the wrath.
He has told us plainly that He takes no pleasure in the ruin of anyone. He has sworn it by His own life. And His question still stands, spoken not as a threat but as a plea from One who would far rather not see it happen:
Why will ye die?
There is no need to. That is the entire point of the cross.
"As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live."Ezekiel 33:11
Our gracious heavenly Father, we come before Your throne of grace through the precious name and perfect merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has opened the way into Your presence.
We thank You for Your beloved Son, and for Him who bore the wrath that we might receive the mercy. We praise You for Your preserved Word, which declares "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8), and which cannot be broken.
We confess before You that we have preached one of Yours attributes and hidden the other. Forgive us, we pray, and cleanse us, for You are faithful and just to forgive us our sins.
We beseech You for every soul reading these words who is yet without Christ. Send forth Your Holy Ghost to convince them of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; open their understanding; and draw them to Your Son before this day is done.
Strengthen Your people who read it. Comfort the discouraged, establish the wavering, and let none go away empty. And use this message to let every reader see both, and flee to the Saviour while it is called today, for Your glory and not for ours.
We pray all of this to You, O God, our Holy and Heavenly Father, in the precious name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by the power and anointing of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Before you close this page, one question matters more than everything you have just read: if you died tonight, do you know where you would be?
You cannot be saved by joining a church, by being baptized, by giving money, or by living a decent life. Salvation is not a wage that is earned; it is a gift that is received. Every one of us has sinned, the wages of sin is death, and there is a real hell prepared for sin — but the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died on the cross in the sinner's place, was buried, and rose again the third day.
If you know yourself to be a sinner, and you are willing to turn from your sin and trust Him alone, then speak to God now. There are no magic words — but if these words are the cry of your heart, pray them and mean them:
Dear Holy and Almighty God, I come to You just as I am. I confess that I am a sinner. I have broken Your law, I have gone my own way, and I deserve the judgment and the everlasting fire that my sin has earned. I cannot save myself, and I bring You nothing.
I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is Your Son; that He loved me and died on the cross in my place, shedding His precious blood for my sins; that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day.
Here and now I turn from my sin, and I trust Him alone — not my works, not my religion, not my goodness — to save me. Lord Jesus, come into my heart, forgive my sin, and be my Saviour from this moment and for ever.
In the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.
1. Tell somebody today. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Romans 10:9).
2. Begin reading the Bible. Start with the Gospel of John, then Acts, then Romans. Read a little every day. "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby" (1 Peter 2:2).
3. Talk to your Father every day. You may now come boldly, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. No appointment is needed and no man's permission.
4. Find a Bible-believing church and be baptized. Not to be saved — you already are — but in obedience, and as the public confession of what has happened to you.
5. Rest in this, and do not be shaken by your feelings. "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24). You will still sin; when you do, confess it and go on — "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).