Some people have this image that there is a God of Wrath in the Old Testament then we have Jesus full of love and mercy in the New Testament. So which is it? Let me start by telling you the answer is both. However, it is not that simple. There is so much more to that answer. Don't you dare settle for the easy answer.
Growing up with an unpredictable father, I was okay with Jesus, but I had issues with God the Father.
Then a few years ago I was wrestling through some of this and I came across this verse.
Hebrews 1:3a The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being,
Jesus is the exact representation of God the Father. We do not have two separate and opposite Gods.
So if we want to get to know God we need to get to know Jesus. I can go on and on about who is Jesus, but that is not where I want to focus tonight. I want to focus more on the how.
Before we can do that we need to start with a problem. That is, what is in the way of getting to know God?
In the beginning God created man and placed him in the Garden. God created woman from man. God walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening. They know God. They talked to him face to face. All is well, but then something happened.
Flip over to Exodus and we see this interaction between God and Moses. Moses has been hanging out with God and seen some incredible things. Plagues, Red Sea, Manna, Water from Rocks. It says that when Moses would come back from being with God they would put a veil over his face because it was shining. However something was different.
One day Moses says to God “I want to see all of you.” But in Exodus 33:20 God answers, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!”
So we have gone from Adam and Eve hanging out with God face to face to God saying no man can see my face or they will die.
What happened?
Is God so angry that he can’t look at us? Is he saying “Get out of my face! I don’t even want to look at you.”?
No! The opposite is true. God’s desire has always been relationship with us, but God is a holy God. He is described numerous times in the Bible as a consuming fire. His holiness consumes and destroys evil and sin. Because of Adam, Romans says, "we have all sinned." We all bear sin in us. It is like a cancer. When you attack a cancer cell you destroy the host of that cell too. When God comes in the presence of us His holiness consumes the sin. However, the host of that sin is destroyed too. That is us. So God loves us so much that he placed distance between us and him so we would not be destroyed. God placing distance between us was an act of love.
This was not to be a permanent thing. In Genesis 3, immediately after Adam sins, God starts promising a solution. Ever since the fall of man, man has tried to make themselves right with God. In fact, if you look at all other religions, they are all based on trying to fix this problem. They are all focused on being good enough for God. The truth of the matter is thatf we can’t fix the problem. It says in Romans 5:6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Christ died for us while we were helpless. He does not ask us to get ourselves right and then come to him. He says, "Come in your helplessness. Come with your mess. Come with your sin. Come as you are. That was your condition when I died for you."
Jesus is the only way to know God. There is no other way.
John 14 starting in verse 6 "Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. 7 If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.'”
God is a God of wrath. The real question is "What stirs up his wrath?' His wrath is not towards you. He is a good father. Like any good father, his wrath moves towards anything that would hurt his children. His wrath is towards sin. His wrath is towards evil. He loved you so much that He did everything he could, even sending Jesus, to protect you from evil and heal your hurt caused by the evil.
So again the answer is yes to both. He is a God of wrath and a God of love. His wrath is not towards us and he pours out his love on us.
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