Wrath Among the Perfections of God's Life by Wynne Jeremy J

Author:Wynne, Jeremy J.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK
Published: 2010-02-27T16:00:00+00:00

I. Sinners under God’s Wrath

A conceptualization of wrath as a mode of divine righteousness depends, first of all, upon a consideration of those for whom God acts, and so wrath’s object and occasion. When Paul writes that all have sinned under the law and so are shut up in alienation from God (Rom 3.23), such that there is no distinction among human beings, he is summarizing the broad discussion of the extent and depth of human guilt which precedes our passage. Even the briefest sampling of Paul’s descriptive language from the Verdammnisgeschichte of 1.18–3.20 yields a startling picture. The ungodly and wicked (1.18), he writes, are all fools (1.22) and impure (1.24); they applaud the death-meriting sin of others (1.32), bear hard and impenitent hearts (2.5), and live lives marked by hypocrisy (2.21–24), untruth (3.4) and worthlessness (3.12). Though examples from scripture could be multiplied, the summary would remain the same:

Man is the dark corner where wrong can settle and spread and flourish in all its nothingness as though by right. It is therefore man who evokes the wrath of God, who comes into conflict with the righteousness of God, upon whom it breaks as crisis, as catastrophe, as mortal sickness. He is the one who is impossible and intolerable before God, who cannot remain in His presence but can only disappear.16

The claim that human beings, one and all, have proven themselves by their willful denial of God to be this “dark corner” intimates the corresponding judgment which belongs to them. A close reading of Romans 1.18–3.26, therefore, will not bypass the question of judgment, proceeding as it were to the fact that when Paul announces redemption, it is precisely all these people (cf. , 3.23), in the full extent of their rebellion against God, selfishness, and injustice, to whom the inheritance belongs.

Indeed, “all” are justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ (3.24–25), but the content and significance of salvation is conveyed partly through analysis of the connection between sin and wrath which Barth’s language so effectively highlights. All humanity, as sinful, stands under the definitive judgment of God’s wrath (1.18; 2.5; 2.8; 3.5–6). Jew and Gentile alike, having chosen against life in all the ways just named, have made death their part (1.32; 2.12; 3.9; 6.21, 23). In affirmation of his righteousness, God has determined his wrath for the destruction of all sin. The origin of the wrath introduced in Romans 1.18, however, particularly considered alongside the righteousness of the preceding two verses, is a matter of considerable disagreement. The contemporary debate is shaped by two dramatically opposed positions, and possibly a third intended to mediate between them.

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