Is Wrath Only to be Associated with God and not Christ?

By Mark W. Christy, PhD

Unfortunately, many who come into contact with Scripture (in one way or another) often perceive the Old Testament (OT) to be portraying a wrathful God, while the New Testament (NT), so they think, portrays Jesus as a loving God who abounds in grace and is markedly different than the God of the OT. If one employs a cursory glance at both Testaments, one will likely agree. Afterall and unlike the NT, the OT has many accounts that speak of God’s overt, temporal, and public display of wrath against humanity. As one combs its pages, one will find, for example, the annihilation of all humanity (other than Noah and his family) in the Noahic Flood (Gen 7:4), the divine retribution that killed all of those left in Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19:24-25), the genocidal slaughter of the inhabitants of Canaan by Joshua and the Israelites at the Lord’s command (Josh 1-12), the multitude of violent judgments against Israel for its rebellion, and other such judgments against surrounding peoples. Given these extreme acts of violence committed in the temporal dimension and their seeming contrast with Christ who died on the cross, this article will offer a brief comparison of God’s wrath with that of Christ.

With such open displays of God’s wrath emanating from the pages of Sacred Writ, many are tempted to run to Jesus as if He were somehow disconnected from the God revealed in the OT. As they read the NT once again with little more than a cursory glance, they observe Christ’s many miracles, His emphasis of love even toward one’s enemies, and above all His humble death on the cross. During His earthly life, Jesus’ actions demonstrated a marked lack of violence, and yet if one considers His words, one will find wrath hovering under the surface. Whereas God’s wrath in the OT seems often to play out in a more immediate and extreme manner, the wrath exhibited by Jesus was far more eschatological. In His earthly ministry, Jesus actually provided far more discourse on hell than any other contributor to Scripture.

When one ponders Christ’s eschatological role as recorded in the Revelation of John, one will be hard-pressed to disassociate Him from God as He is portrayed in the OT. According to John’s prophecy, the wrath of Jesus becomes preeminent in the end times. As he notes, Jesus will be the one who breaks the seals on the book with seven seals (Rev 5). As He does so, Jesus will go “out conquering and to conquer” (Rev 6:2), “take peace from the earth” (v.4), extend His authority “to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth” (v.8), and cause all who live to flee in terror from His wrath (v.16). When Christ breaks the final seal, seven trumpets will sound and the seven bowl judgments will come upon the earth (Rev 8, 16). The many horrific judgments that ensue with Christ’s action include a third of the earth being burned up (8:7), a third of the sea creatures dying (vv.8-9), a third of fresh water sources becoming undrinkable (vv.10-11), a third of the sun and of the moon being darkened (v.12), and many other plagues (Rev 9).

From the aforementioned foray, albeit short, into Scripture, it should be obvious that both God and His Son harbor extreme wrath against their enemies when one avoids the shortsightedness of those focused only upon the temporal dimension and favors a more wholistic, top-down understanding of God’s revelation of Himself and His Son. As has been shown, the wrath revealed in Jesus’s teaching on hell and the wrath He will unlock in the end times is certainly not less overwhelming than that displayed openly by God in the history of the Israel.