A Rabbinic Opinion
But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He? (I am speaking in human terms.) Romans 3:5 NASB
Inflicts wrath – Is it right for God to inflict wrath (Greek – epipheron orgen)? That might sound like a rather silly question, but today a lot of people would say, “No, the God I know would never do that. He is full of love and goodness and kindness. Any God who would hurt people isn’t a God I could serve.” In fact, this fallacious thinking often opposes the “God of the Old Testament” with the “God of the New Testament.” The Old Testament God is a God of anger; the New, a God of love. All of this simple-minded thinking is based not only on this false dichotomy, it is also the product of ethical ignorance. Apparently Paul had to deal with the same kind of thinking.
What kind of God do you really want? Do you want a God who loves unconditionally? Wouldn’t that kind of God become powerless in the face of evil? Wouldn’t He simply overlook sins and Sin (capitalized) as some sort of inadvertent mistake? So the Holocaust, the Killing Fields, the slaughter of Stalin—they were just mistakes by men who really had psychological issues. They needed counseling, not punishment. A God who sends such men to hell is Himself evil, right? Perhaps the examples are a bit too general (unless you happen to be a victim). Let’s ask this question another way. If you are harmed, physically injured, tormented, abused—do you want the perpetrator to simply be given a “pass” because God is love? Do you want him to escape without consequences because God is so good He can’t bring Himself to punish anyone? Is that justice? In the face of personal evil, what good is a God of all-love? Moses recognizes the necessity of wrath. So does Paul. We, the modern people of Kool-Aid ethics, are the ones who have lost sight of true righteousness. Perhaps it’s because we have lived such sheltered lives in the shopping mall bubbles.
But most of the world, even today, doesn’t live in the mall. It lives in a world where evil is a real, present reality. Where life and death walk on either side of the street. Where one of my brothers or sisters has been abused, perhaps murdered. When torture is a constant threat. People who live in that world—the one not artificially filled with dazzling goods for exorbitant prices—know what they need. They need justice and justice does not come from a judge who never acts. Righteousness is the other side of the coin of wrath. One without the other can’t be spent—here or in eternity.
God inflicts wrath. Epipheron orgen. He “brings on anger,” and it is a very good thing that He does. God is passionately concerned with revenge of the righteous. No one in Paul’s generation seriously entertained the idea that the gods did not punish. But Paul adds something Hebraic. God does not punish without reason or purpose. Greek and Romans gods are entirely fickle in their responses to men. Fate is an expression of divine wrath, and just as unavoidable. That is not the God of the Bible. His wrath is not only perfectly predictable, it is also perfectly avoidable. He even instructs His people how to avoid the inevitable consequences of straying off the path. The wrath of God is necessary in the moral government of the universe. Living without it is a cosmic nightmare. But it isn’t the end of the story, and in Paul’s opinion, the rest of the story is the reason wrath is overcome by grace.
Topical Index: wrath, orge, epipheron orgen, Romans 3:5, justice, ethics
We all need to be corrected. We all need to be overcome and hauled back to a true starting point. The curses lie heavy on us as the means by which we are persuaded to want a change of course. The curses are a punishment, if you will, that stand in the places where we chose death, as a means to give us another chance to choose again. We all need a real chance – many, many chances – to want the way of love, and to see for ourselves what that way is. It is a sad fact that wicked people are invariably those to whom great wickedness has most likely been done to. The Hitlers and Stalins of this world did not exactly get raised in lovingkindness, I daresay. They need chances, too. The suffering that some people go through by means of other people is also a chance – for both, I would have to say. Suffering tends to clear out the fluff and bring us hard up against the bare essentials of why love has to be for us to exist. Many a martyr has persuaded many a persecutor to want something else. The innocent get mown down like grass, but there is Someone Who is adjusting the scales of justice and the books of accounting accordingly. Suffering CAN be a shortcut to the saving truth for us on both sides of it – those who inflict it, and those who endure it. What I cannot see is that EVERY choice I make in sin has caused suffering. It is the mercy of the Lord that keeps us all from just killing ourselves and each other by those choices, either advertently or inadvertently. Suffering and death are NATURAL consequences of sin, not unnatural responses of a vicious god. I would like to say that what is ‘unnatural’ (outside normal cause and effect) is the mercy that overrides what we chose, and lets us choose again.
All that being said, we have been promised a day when the playing field gets leveled: when the righteous (connected) get to stay that way, and the unrighteous (unconnected) get to stay that way, too. In that day, it will still be mercy that steps aside and says “enough suffering – enough chances (which is what suffering is). Let the choices be what they are.” In that day – the promised day of wrath – everybody ends up in the musical chair that they find themselves in. I pray that I stay in the connections that my true Big Brother has offered me – His right standing, or, relationship – with heaven, myself, and all others. Yes, there is a fine line between His mercy and His wrath. Justice demands that we get what we have paid for – what we have chosen. I pray that we choose life – His life. The wicked have already chosen to be consumed. The day of wrath is the day they get what they chose for others – what they did to those around them. Wickedness is what we do when we attempt to put off onto others (cause for them) what we have really chosen for ourselves. I pray that what I have chosen to do to others is to forgive. In the day of wrath, I am told, what I have chosen for those around me is what I get. Wrath or forgiveness; what goes around is going to come around. My choice, as always.
My Jewish friend says she cannot trust in a God Who looked away while the Holocaust was taking place. How do I answer her?
I will be writing about this in the next couple of days. We can talk in Israel.
Hello Skip and others,
I struggle with the word righteousness, because in my faith education, it has been portrayed in the negative. Righteousness equals filthy rags, none ar righteous, self righteous, etc. Conversely, Hebraic, right standing, right track, initiated by God in His hesed, are new definitions for me of this seeming complex word, as is your “the other side of the coin to wrath.”
How does “righteous” help one regret leading to forsake, their favorite sins be they addiction, gluttony, same gender attraction, etc?
Thanks.
David R
I believe this is why it is so important to read Romans 3:22 as the faithfulness of Yeshua rather than faith in Yeshua. I believe, contra Carson, that this fits much better an Hebraic view of the letter, and especially of Paul. What this means is that God’s acceptance of me is not based in what I do but rather in what the Messiah did. I am not filthy rags because Yeshua’s claim over me extends the first fruits to me. That God accepts me as I am leads me to gratitude, and that is the basis of my willingness to honor and serve Him.
But see D A Cardson for an opposing view http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/faith-and-faithfulness/
It is the ultimate faithfulness of Yeshua who was our example living as a son as prescribed in Torah, doing the Father’s will, versus having our faith based IN Yeshua, believing, trusting IN him, “putting emphasis in the wrong place”. Yeshua is living out Torah, equated as “The word, the living Torah, The word made flesh”..
It is indeed YHWH GOD’s faithfulness in His chesed and rachamim towards mankind as Redeemer, Moshiach and Deliverer.
My believing/ trusting IN YHWH is my righteousness, not my own self-righteousness which are as filthy rags before HIM, when we are not doing what is pleasing and acceptable in His sight, serving Him in humility, not in pride as ministering TO Him, as His faithful servants.
It is our Covenant with YHWH, from the beginning of time, not with Yeshua, that keeps us going on this journey of faith, having our trust in YHWH, walking in His instructions.
Good article, Skip. Todah!
Throughout the history YHVH has permitted his people to be harmed. Why because he is a jealous God… Or be it because he is a loving father that knows that death units his loved once with him instead of losing them…
Wrath and anger is direct from YHVH, Moses had first hand experience, the rescued people witnessed it and it scared them to even try and contact YHVH…
David and Isaiah said the earth trembles when it hears his voice… Do we tremble or do justify ourselves.
Righteousness is more than doing right or treating the same. It is being a just and fair judge, doing what is beneficial at the time not regretting the consequences…
Haven’t we done something righteous yet a lot of others have judged and condemned us… That is part and parcel of being an example unto others.
There are times when I want God to inflict His full wrath on the wicked. This is especially true when there is no chance of the wicked repenting. If there is a chance for future repentance, discipline is in order; but, I don’t equate that with the full wrath of God annihilating the wicked. Just saying…
Do you want a God who loves unconditionally? Defintiely NO!
“If you are harmed, physically injured, tormented, abused—do you want the perpetrator to simply be given a “pass” because God is love?” A resounding NO! Especially when one has been threatened!
Righteousness is the other side of the coin of wrath. Both compassion and judgement signify Divine power.
“The Eternal has the power to bestow compassion and to withhold compassion, as the Eternal also has the power to bestow and withhold grace and love – and punishment.
Us humans, the created, nevertheless, like God, has the power to destroy, as well as to create: E.g. Cain kills his brother Abel because God is more favourably disposed to Abel’s offering.
The mitzvot, ‘commandments’ provide a framework for behaviour and action in the family, in the community, and in the wider world, which includes both ritual and ethical dimensions
“I am the Eternal your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” According to Jewish teaching, God is a liberator, and created in the image of God, human beings are called to be liberators, too.
In Exodus chapter 34, that there is a close connection between the Hebrew understanding of compassion, Rachamim, and of love, Chesed, often translated as ‘loving kindness’. From the perspective of Jewish teaching, while both compassion and love are attributes of the Divine, when it comes to human action, the emphasis is on our responsibility to perform deeds or acts of love.
This form of love –chesed- is intimately connected with DEEDSs.
The TaNaKh, in particular, the Torah and the books of the prophets, includes many exhortations to act justly and righteously – chiefly, towards the vulnerable and the marginal – most frequently designated as ‘the stranger, the orphan and the widow.’ Deut. 24
Tz’dakah by contrast, is based on the root Tzadi Dalet Kuf to ACT justly or righteously, and is related to the word, tzedek, meaning ‘justice.’ In Deuteronomy chapter 16,
Exodus, chapter 23: “Do not oppress a stranger, for you know the nefesh of the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
We need rules and regulations to guide us to engage in righteous and ethical conduct. (AMEIN)
By indicating that the drive to construct, produce and create is ‘the evil inclination’ at work undertaking action that is vital to human life, this commentary implies that the good inclination is not, on its own, good enough.
Created in the image of God, the human being is neither good nor evil, but rather is created with the ‘inclination’ to do ‘good’ – yeitzer tov – and the ‘inclination’ to do evil – yeitzer ra.
The psychoanalytic notion that human beings are propelled by inner drives – and that the drive to create and destroy are essentially one. The wisdom of the system of mitzvot lies in harnessing all our drives to the practice of righteousness and compassion.” – Rabbi Elizabeth Tikvah Sarah (all emphasis is mine)
Sharing this study, stirred by Skip, with you, hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! Shalom!