Where does God's Wrath Go?

[Zaatar71]

True, but beware of extrapolating the universal case from the general case, which isn't permissible. And ψυχικός (which is translated "natural") is not associated directly with babies or infants in the bible, but only with sinners ruled by their flesh. Even in Israel there were "righteous men" whom Christ concedes, he "did not come to call" Luke 5:32.

Do you believe that "all died in Adam"? If not, how did any escape.

 

[cjab]

His belief is the end result of the TULIP theory.

But let's give him time to figure that out for himself.

TULIP seems to emphasize human wisdom rather than God's wisdom.

 

[cjab]

Do you believe that "all died in Adam"? If not, how did any escape.

The statement is causal, and relates to the death of the person, via the death of the body. All sinned, so all die. Just because you sin, and die, doesn't mean you're not credited with righteousness through faith. Abraham sinned and died, but he still went to heaven.

 

[Zaatar71]

The statement is causal, and relates to the death of the person, via the death of the body. All sinned, so all die. Just because you sin, and die, doesn't mean you're not credited with righteousness through faith. Abraham sinned and died, but he still went to heaven.

You do not believe men are spiritually dead?

 

[Zaatar71]

TULIP seems to emphasize human wisdom rather than God's wisdom.

It is scripturally based. Perhaps you can show otherwise?

 

[Dave G]

God distributes punishment (wrath) for breaking his holy law; God's wrath originates from the attributes of God’s holiness, righteousness, and justice.

I see punishment as something that is a result of God's willingness to show His wrath, and to make His power known to men.
To me, they are not one and the same.

I also see that His wrath is expressed as a result of what offends Him.
Since He is holy and since everything that He does is righteous, then justice must follow out of His desire to make those things known to us.

Retributive justice is key to propitiation.

On that we'll have to agree to disagree.

I'll need to see where, in the Scriptures, that this is independently declared.
For now, I see nothing clearly declaring that the Lord Jesus took upon Himself the punishment of those who would later believe.

Furthermore, I conclude that if He took upon Himself the sins of all men, then that consistency should apply across the entire race.

In other words, if He went to the cross for everyone's sins, then each and every person's sins are atoned for.
No person whose sins were laid upon Him, will ever be judged for them.
No person who will ever experience God's wrath will ever be able to say that their sins were forgiven, when the Lord's willingness to judge them will still take place.
What's more, no person who will ever experience God's wrath will ever be able to say that God loves or has loved them.
God's love is a love in action, and that action resulted in His doing something for those that He loved.

This is why the Lord Jesus Himself will tell those that God the Father did not love, "I never knew you", in the past tense.
They will be told, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels"...

Not, "Well done thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord" or " Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: "

 

[Dave G]

Wrath and peace are outward expressions of internal attitudes;
They are diametrically opposed to each other.

Wrath, which is a result of His anger at something that God finds displeasing and which grieves Him and His holiness, will be expressed to those who have angered Him and refuse to repent and turn from that behavior, in a just and righteous manner.

Peace, which is a result of His understanding and patience towards someone on the behalf of His Son's imputed righteousness towards them, will be expressed to those whose hearts and minds He has changed in a gracious and loving manner.

As I see it, there is no "in-between".

Out of love for his people, the Father sent his Son to substitute himself for the sinner in order to pay the penalty for the sinner’s transgressions—namely, the wrath of God.

In order for me to agree with all of this, I'll have to see the Scriptures that outright declare it.

To say that the Lord visited upon His Son His own wrath for their sins, would not be consistent with His love for them, or for His Son.
To put it plainly, I don't see how the Lord can ever be angry with those that He does not ultimately hold responsible for their sins;
Nor do I see Him ever being angry ( and willing to even show the barest hint of His wrath and disfavor ) towards His beloved Son.


When I see God's word plainly declaring that He laid His own wrath itself upon His Son at the cross, or that His Son paid the penalty for mankind's sins ( which is everlasting punishment in the Lake of Fire ), then perhaps we'll be able to get closer to agreement.

 

[Dave G]

Isaiah 53, for example, doesn't describe an angry Father towards His Son;
To me, it describes a Father who allowed bad things to happen to His Son, so that a greater purpose would be fulfilled.

Contrary to the idea that God's wrath being laid upon His Son was what really happened, I see the Scriptures plainly declaring this:

" Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am [he], and [that] I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.
29 And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him. " ( John 8:28-29 ). <----This tells me that God the Father was never angry towards His Son, nor did He ever actually leave Him alone and forsaken.

" But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
5 even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved
6 and hath raised [us] up together, and made us sit together in heavenly [places] in Christ Jesus:
7 that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in [his] kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. " ( Ephesians 2:4-7 ). <---- This tells me that God the Father was never angry towards His elect.

For those who hold to the Penal Substitutionary Atonement theory, I need more to go on to convince me of it.

 

[cjab]

You do not believe men are spiritually dead?

Why should I credit Abraham, Noah, Moses, Elijah etc. as "spiritually dead?" That is for you to prove.

 

[cjab]

It is scripturally based. Perhaps you can show otherwise?

I see TULIP as trying to go beyond scripture, which invalidates it. Jesus never said "ALL were lost," particularly in relation to the lineage of Adam in the bible: e.g. Noah, Abraham etc. He never said "MY sheep cannot hear or respond to my voice." He never said "Faith is unconditional" in that he actually said "Faith requires work." And he never suggested that a man being depraved, apart from God, was other than self-evident: the question is therefore: is it necessary for EVERY man to become "apart from God?" The biblical answer is NO. Not every man who ever lived fell into the state of being "apart from God." See especially John the Baptist who had the Holy Spirit from birth. So I find TULIP to be using obscure terminology that doesn't resonate with biblical language (e.g. unconditional election is NOT in the bible).

I also find the exegesis of certain passages in John by adherents of TULIP to be objectively faulty, in that they appear not to grasp that Christ is distinguishing apostates from non-apostates. Not every man falls into the "apostate" category, even if most fall into the "lost" category. "Lost" doesn't mean "apostate". Paul also distinguishes faithlessness from apostasy. The distinction is vital. Apostates, whether from Moses or from Christ, are difficult to reach with the word of God, as they cannot hear it, but as always it's up to God.

Only the perservance of the saints I find to be a plausible thesis as stated, but I don't find it articulated quite as Christ articulated it, for he stressed the providential protection of God keeping his children safe from satan, whereas Calvinism limits the point to those whom God has chosen before the foundation of the world, which is true, in that such are all destined to become God's adopted children, at some point, but which isn't quite to the point of what Christ was talking about, in terms of the dynamic of God's relationship with his adopted children, but which still allows for them (or at least those who pass for God's children) to apostatize in opposition to the will of God (e.g. Israel in the Old Testament). IOW, Christ is stressing that if you are God's child, God will keep you safe, but if in the end God lets you go, you cannot blame it on God, but only on your own decision to apostatize despite God's protection. This ties in with viewing Christians as having very different degrees of spiritual maturity: some are blown about by the wind, some have deep roots etc.

 

[Dave G]

To answer the OP:

God's wrath doesn't "go" anywhere.
It is either shown and results in terrible things happening to those who are the objects of it, or it is not shown because there is no wrath.

God's people have been delivered from the wrath to come;

That means we will not be party to it, it will not be directed at us, and there is nothing to fear for those who are in Christ Jesus...
Not because the Lord Jesus propitiated the wrath, but because He propitiated ( made satisfaction for ) the offenses that were against us by His being crucified and shedding His innocent blood.

Offenses against God are what provoke Him to wrath.
Since the Lord Jesus appeased the sins, then there was no accompanying wrath to appease.
It simply never existed.

Also, Christ did not "take our place" on the cross...
He was made sin for us:

" 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 ).

Our sins were laid upon Him, not God's wrath.
That is how I see it.

 

[JonC]

"If you believe I am not He, you shall die in your sins."

You see, not the sin but the rejection is the source of God's wrath.

We see this in John 3 as well.

 

[Zaatar71]

I see TULIP as trying to go beyond scripture, which invalidates it. Jesus never said "ALL were lost," particularly in relation to the lineage of Adam in the bible: e.g. Noah, Abraham etc. He never said "MY sheep cannot hear or respond to my voice." He never said "Faith is unconditional" in that he actually said "Faith requires work." And he never suggested that a man being depraved, apart from God, was other than self-evident: the question is therefore: is it necessary for EVERY man to become "apart from God?" The biblical answer is NO. Not every man who ever lived fell into the state of being "apart from God." See especially John the Baptist who had the Holy Spirit from birth. So I find TULIP to be using obscure terminology that doesn't resonate with biblical language (e.g. unconditional election is NOT in the bible).

I also find the exegesis of certain passages in John by adherents of TULIP to be objectively faulty, in that they appear not to grasp that Christ is distinguishing apostates from non-apostates. Not every man falls into the "apostate" category, even if most fall into the "lost" category. "Lost" doesn't mean "apostate". Paul also distinguishes faithlessness from apostasy. The distinction is vital. Apostates, whether from Moses or from Christ, are difficult to reach with the word of God, as they cannot hear it, but as always it's up to God.

Only the perservance of the saints I find to be a plausible thesis as stated, but I don't find it articulated quite as Christ articulated it, for he stressed the providential protection of God keeping his children safe from satan, whereas Calvinism limits the point to those whom God has chosen before the foundation of the world, which is true, in that such are all destined to become God's adopted children, at some point, but which isn't quite to the point of what Christ was talking about, in terms of the dynamic of God's relationship with his adopted children, but which still allows for them (or at least those who pass for God's children) to apostatize in opposition to the will of God (e.g. Israel in the Old Testament). IOW, Christ is stressing that if you are God's child, God will keep you safe, but if in the end God lets you go, you cannot blame it on God, but only on your own decision to apostatize despite God's protection. This ties in with viewing Christians as having very different degrees of spiritual maturity: some are blown about by the wind, some have deep roots etc.

Why should I credit Abraham, Noah, Moses, Elijah etc. as "spiritually dead?" That is for you to prove.

Hello Cj, Do you believe Adam died Spiritually on the day he ate the fruit in the garden ,at the fall? Do you believe in what is known as
Original sin?

 

[cjab]

Hello Cj, Do you believe Adam died Spiritually on the day he ate the fruit in the garden ,at the fall? Do you believe in what is known as
Original sin?

There is nothing to indicate Adam "died spiritually", excepting the Manichaean legacy, which posits all flesh as evil. Didn't Abel offer a pleasing sacrifice to God? Was Abel "spiritually dead?" So, such confounds forfeiture of immortality, part of Adam's punishment from God, with apostasy, which entails spiritual death. It is my belief that much theology in this area is influenced by Manichaean Gnosticism, which I believe John Calvin became embroiled in also.

Original sin means different things to different people. There is the Weslyan doctrine of original sin, which mandates little more than all being sinners, just from being "in Adam", and also from "sin being in the world" (Rom 5:13), but which does not go nearly as far as the Augustinian version of original sin that again has a Gnostic flavor, in maintaining that sin is directly "inherited from Adam." The Augustinian theory has many issues: not the least of them being the inability of Ausgustine and his successors to identify the science of how "original sin" is "inherited" by children from their parents, formal proof of which has become an insurmountable task for philosophers in the Augustinian tradition. Another faux pas comes from the supposed removal or "original sin" by baptism. The question then becomes: why do the children of baptized parents still "inherit" "original sin?"

Other variants suggest that all mankind is somehow imputed by God as guilty of Adam's own sin, such that its consequences are inevitably visited on all men. But again, all such theories are difficult to prove where from Ezekiel onwards, it is clear than a man will only be held responsible for his own sin and not those of his father. Prior to Ezekiel, it is clear that the limited human lifespan and the demotion of mankind from paradise arose from God's public decrees. The snares of Manichaeism are I feel widespread in this area, which one would do well to take cognizance of.

So many problems with your question, which employs non-biblical terminology, fails to define its terms, shows no regard for the historical encroachment of aberrant philosophies such as Manichaeism, and merely assumes "original sin" (in the Augustinian tradition) is a proven fact, whereas to my knowledge, it has yet to be formally proven. You should also be aware that the Eastern church doesn't follow Augustine (guilt can only result from an act which one has committed).

 

[Zaatar71]

True, but beware of extrapolating the universal case from the general case, which isn't permissible. And ψυχικός (which is translated "natural") is not associated directly with babies or infants in the bible, but only with sinners ruled by their flesh. Even in Israel there were "righteous men" whom Christ concedes, he "did not come to call" Luke 5:32.

So, are you saying there are unsaved sinners who are not under the dominion of the flesh?

 

[Zaatar71]

There is nothing to indicate Adam "died spiritually", excepting the Manichaean legacy, which posits all flesh as evil.

Did God tell Adam in the DAY you eat, dying, thou shalt surely die? let me ask you...what died that day? Did he physically die? or was he spiritually separated from fellowship with God as he sinned? I would further ask you at this time... are sinners born spiritually dead, because of Adam's sin being passed on, to all men. Rom 3:23...all sinned at one point in time in the past. I am saying as scripture does that it was at the fall into sin and death. rom 5:12-21...I do not see scripture directly introducing and Manichaean legacy as you suggest.

Didn't Abel offer a pleasing sacrifice to God? Was Abel "spiritually dead?"

All men are born spiritually dead. Abel was born spiritually dead. Only God can grant Spiritual life to any sinner.

So, such confounds forfeiture of immortality, part of Adam's punishment from God, with apostasy, which entails spiritual death.

We are not born neutral, tabular rosa, but rather we are conceived and born sinners from conception. Can you show from scripture any person who was not conceived as a sinner, other than the Incarnate Son of God?

It is my belief that much theology in this area is influenced by Manichaean Gnosticism, which I believe John Calvin became embroiled in also.

You are free to believe what you want, however, the teaching comes from scripture itself and does not depend on what any man believes. Are you suggesting that any who wrote scripture inspired by God, were first influenced by Manichaean Gnosticism? All of us are aware of such websites of those who cannot refute the biblical teaching, who invent ideas, and ascribe this label to those who understand and believe the doctrines of grace. For example you mention Calvin. Do you have a direct quote from him saying I got my ideas from Manichaean Gnosticism???Or are you and the others ascribing it to him>

Original sin means different things to different people.

No.. it does not. The first sin found among men, was in the garden, and it is scripturally ascribed to Adam.

There is the Weslyan doctrine of original sin, which mandates little more than all being sinners, just from being "in Adam", and also from "sin being in the world" (Rom 5:13), but which does not go nearly as far as the Augustinian version of original sin that again has a Gnostic flavor, in maintaining that sin is directly "inherited from Adam." The Augustinian theory has many issues: not the least of them being the inability of Ausgustine and his successors to identify the science of how "original sin" is "inherited" by children from their parents, formal proof of which has become an insurmountable task for philosophers in the Augustinian tradition. Another faux pas comes from the supposed removal or "original sin" by baptism. The question then becomes: why do the children of baptized parents still "inherit" "original sin?"

Your whole paragraph does not address the scripture, at all.

Other variants suggest that all mankind is somehow imputed by God as guilty of Adam's own sin, such that its consequences are inevitably visited on all men.

Scripture teaches that Rom 3:23 all sinned at one point in time past. Romans 5;12-21 describes the origin of the sin. You explantion seems to want to bypass, or negate the fall.

But again, all such theories are difficult to prove where from Ezekiel onwards, it is clear than a man will only be held responsible for his own sin and not those of his father. Prior to Ezekiel, it is clear that the limited human lifespan and the demotion of mankind from paradise arose from God's public decrees. The snares of Manichaeism are I feel widespread in this area, which one would do well to take cognizance of.

Again, two different things spoken of, and you are relying on your Manichaean Gnosticism excuse to avoid the issue.

So many problems with your question, which employs non-biblical terminology, fails to define its terms, shows no regard for the historical encroachment of aberrant philosophies such as Manichaeism, and merely assumes "original sin" (in the Augustinian tradition) is a proven fact, whereas to my knowledge, it has yet to be formally proven. You should also be aware that the Eastern church doesn't follow Augustine (guilt can only result from an act which one has committed).

Thanks for offering your opinion!