The Gospel’s Bookends: Wrath and Love
By Elizabeth Prata
SYNOPSIS
I reflect on God’s love with His righteous wrath, using Daniel’s compassion toward Nebuchadnezzar. The essay argues that the Gospel begins with wrath against sin and ends with redeeming love, urging believers to love enemies while warning that repentance is essential for salvation.
We just passed the Christmas season a bit ago. The Christmas season is one where we call for peace on earth and goodwill to men. It is the season of love and joy and harmony. We pray and hope that we display the best qualities of these things to one and all throughout the year and not just those weeks in December.
Do we realize just what a radical love Jesus has called us to?
We think of the sweet babe in swaddling clothes, the still night broken by heavenly glory lighting the fields, angel choruses, and the grace of God. And it is, but these thoughts and visions in our mind are or should be counterbalanced by the reason for them: His wrath.
The reason He sent Jesus is to rescue us…from His wrath.
I’d like to contrast Godly love with Godly wrath in the lives of two Bible people: Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel was taken as a captive away from his homeland as a youth or early teenager. He was trained and put to work in Nebuchadnezzar’s court. He was threatened with death, his three closest friends were thrown into a fiery furnace, and he had to serve a pagan king with all its godless disgusting practices around him every minute. Yet, Daniel was compassionate and he loved Nebuchadnezzar as God would want us to love our enemies.
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| Nebuchadnezzar |
When it came time for Daniel to reveal the interpretation of a particularly fearsome dream to the king, Daniel gave a disclaimer first. Here is the scene:
“Then Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, was dismayed for a while, and his thoughts alarmed him. The king answered and said, “Belteshazzar, let not the dream or the interpretation alarm you.” Belteshazzar answered and said, “My lord, may the dream be for those who hate you and its interpretation for your enemies!” (Daniel 4:19).
Daniel knew that the dream meant God was going to cut Nebuchadnezzar down like a tree and make him go insane for seven years. The king was going to be crawling around on all fours eating grass like an animal. Daniel’s level of compassion was such that not one ounce of chortling, glee, or gloating came over him. He was troubled, dismayed, and didn’t even want to tell the king because he did not want the king to be troubled himself.
How many times do we get a bit of news where someone else was going to be cut down to size, and we cannot wait to share it? If it is an enemy all the better. Yet Daniel was compassionate toward the king, who was holding him captive and at any time could take his life for any reason or for no reason. THAT is Godly love.
Now the wrath. Why did God cut Nebuchadnezzar down and make him go insane for seven years? At the end of the interpretation, Daniel said to the king, “O king, let my counsel be acceptable to you: break off your sins by practicing righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed,”
God’s wrath always comes because of unrepentant sin. Romans 1:18 says, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”
Is wrath of God too much for your mind to contemplate? It is a fearsome thing, but does it trouble you because you wrongly believe “My God would never be this angry, He is a God of love!”
Yet, “This is how Paul begins the message of the Good News of Jesus Christ:he wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness,” as John MacArthur said. (source)
The good news begins with wrath. It ends with love.
MacArthur again, “Our Lord had more to say about judgment, more to say about destruction, more to say about damnation, and more to say about hell than anybody else recorded in Scripture. And if you think it unusual that this great epistle on the doctrine of salvation opens with this statement about judgment it’s because you really haven’t thought very long about how the whole New Testament opens.”
Daniel’s radical love of Nebuchadnezzar was Godly because God loves the sinner. His grace saves the repentant sinner and when we convert, we remember His love and the fact that there but for the grace of God go I. So Daniel loved even his enemy, and wanted the best for him. And what a glorious thing that was, because in each chapter Nebuchadnezzar the king gets closer to the dramatic moment when finally, finally, he converts.
Note that when Daniel shared the news about God Daniel did not say, “God loves you and has a great plan for your life.” He urged the king to stop sinning. Eventually Nebuchadnezzar did:
“Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.” (Daniel 4:37).
And the second part of Daniel’s message was the multiplying part- stop sinning and show mercy to those who are.
Wow. That is what Godly love does. It multiplies, and we continue in that love because we remember His wrath. We love because He first loved us, (1 John 4:19), but we remember that sin brings wrath. The whole story must include those two bookends- wrath and love.
“Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot shall slip; for the day of their calamity is at hand, and their doom comes swiftly.” (Deuteronomy 32:35).
The Lord will punish the sins of His people in due time. His wrath will be unleashed but He sent Jesus as the love offering and rescue from that wrath. How can any part of the Good News omit that?
The effect of the entire Gospel story is one of multiplying miracles. Leave off the wrath and you only have a smarmy story of an invisible God who saves us for some reason. Don’t leave off the reason.
