Our Anger, God's Wrath and Propitiation

In his sermon on the sin of anger, Brooks encouraged people who struggle with anger issues to meditate on God's wrath and how God appeases it. This blog post has some of my meditations.

God's Wrath

Romans 2:5

But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.

Ephesians 5:6

Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

Revelation 19:15-16

From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.

One of the points that Brooks made about God's wrath is that He does not become angry like we do. God does not explode in anger or wrath. His anger is righteous. His wrath and displeasure against sin are constant and eternal. Here are two quotes on God's wrath by Stephen Charnock, a puritan writer from the 17th century. Both quotes stress that humankind should not expect God to change His character toward sin. His argument is that if God changes His attitude toward sin, He ceases to be God.

Stephen Charnock

There is not an atheist, an hypocrite, a profane person, that ever was upon the earth, but God’s soul abhorred him as such, and the like he will abhor forever; while any therefore continue so, they may sooner expect the heavens should roll as they please, the sun stand still at their order, the stars change their course at their beck, than that God should change his nature, which is opposite to profaneness and vanity; “Who hath hardened himself against him, and hath prospered?” (Job ix.4.). The Existence and Attributes of God

“God be immutable, it is sad news to those that are resolved in wickedness, or careless of returning to that duty he requires. Sinners must not expect that God will alter his will, make a breach upon his nature, and violate his own word to gratify their lusts. No, it is not reasonable God should dishonor himself to secure them, and cease to be God, that they may continue to be wicked, by changing his own nature, that they may be unchanged in their vanity. God is the same; goodness is as amiable in his sight, and sin as abominable in his eyes now, as it was at the beginning of the world. Being the same God, he is the same enemy to the wicked as the same friend to the righteous. He is the same in knowledge, and cannot forget sinful acts. He is the same in will, and cannot approve of unrighteous practices.”(Ibid)

D. A. Carson, a seminary professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, stated the following a recent interview.

Not that He [God] has lost His temper, but His wrath is a determined, holy response to human sin. God will never change His stance toward sin and the sinners. The only thing that can change is the sinner and God sent His only Son to accomplish that change. (https://rodiagnusdei.wordpress.com/category/theologians/d-a-carson/)

Propitiation

As Carson alluded in the quote above, there is good news. God sent His Son to bear the punishment for our sin for us. This process where Christ is our sacrifice is called propitiation. Brooks, in his sermon on anger, spent some time explaining propitiation. There are four verses in the New Testament that teach us about propitiation. The first verse is

Romans 3:25-26

whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Wayne Grudem uses Romans 3:25 to define "Propitiation" as:

Romans 3:25 tells us that God put forward Christ as a “propitiation” (NASB) a word that means “a sacrifice that bears God’s wrath to the end and in so doing changes God’s wrath toward us into favor.

The greek word used in Romans 3:25 is ἱλασμός. I heard a long time ago that in translating this word ἱλασμός, the translators had to choose between the terms "expiation" and "propitiation." If Christ's sacrifice is an expiation, it simply means that God wiped away the sins. However, if Christ's sacrifice is a propitiation, it means that not only did Christ's death wipe away our sins; it restores our relationship with Him. God now smiles upon those He saved. I haven't seen a good reference for this, but the following quote is close.

ESV Study Bible Notes on Romans 3:25

Jesus’ blood “propitiated” or satisfied God’s wrath (1:18), so that his holiness was not compromised in forgiving sinners. Some scholars have argued that the word propitiation should be translated expiation (the wiping away of sin), but the word cannot be restricted to the wiping away of sins as it also refers to the satisfaction or appeasement of God’s wrath, turning it to favor (cf. note on John 18:11). God’s righteous anger needed to be appeased before sin could be forgiven, and God in his love sent his Son (who offered himself willingly) to satisfy God’s holy anger against sin. In this way God demonstrated his righteousness, which here refers particularly to his holiness and justice. God’s justice was called into question because in his patience he had overlooked former sins. In other words, how could God as the utterly Holy One tolerate human sin without inflicting full punishment on human beings immediately? Paul’s answer is that God looked forward to the cross of Christ where the full payment for the guilt of sin would be made, where Christ would die in the place of sinners. In the OT, propitiation (or the complete satisfaction of the wrath of God) is symbolically foreshadowed in several incidents: e.g., Ex. 32:11–14; Num. 25:8, 11; Josh. 7:25–26.

Here are the other 3 verses that use the term propitiation.
Hebrews 2:17 ESV

Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

1 John 2:2 ESV

He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

1 John 4:10 ESV

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

This last verse explains how propitiation changes us.
Hebrews 9:13-14 ESV

For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Brooks mentioned two books that helped him to mortify the sin of anger. The Calvary Road and Uprooting Anger: Biblical Help for a Common Problem