God's Holiness, God's Wrath
Both of these puzzle me. First, the wrath. From a human standpoint, it is not hard to understand anger...even righteous anger. Psychologically speaking, emotion rises largely as a result of expectations met or frustrated. Then emotion gives birth to action and adjustments in expectation, then again, emotion rises according those new expectations being met or frustrated. All of this is from the perspective of a self-interested person, trying to get what he or she wants.
It seems strange to me that God rages over that which He knew would be the case from before the beginning. It also seems strange that He rages over that which He knows the end result of. The usual answer to this is something to do with holiness, and admittedly, the holiness of God defies categorization. It's hard--no, impossible--to even consider with any degree of understanding. The holiness of God is simply beyond us.
But somehow, in my head, I got the notion that the holiness of God was mostly about moral perfection, the kind that southern women aspire to. It as if God has tender sensibilities, so that to see sin is to send Him screaming from the room, infinitely offended by a foul mouth. It is the rage of "How dare you mess up MY world!" This only makes sense if, again, God created for His own jollies, and is frankly surprised when these little creatures of His called human beings take on a life of their own, eating all the forbidden fruit they can get their hands on.
Obviously not.
So the wrath of God: what's it about? The BIble makes clear that God gets angry, though strictly speaking, He must be perpetually angry if it's sin that makes Him that way. I suppose we can avoid this by saying that the Biblical writers are trying to describe something indescribable and so they resort to the closest analogy they can find, given the limitations of language. So even though it says He gets angry, in fact, He really doesn't. Frankly, this has some appeal, but the Bible becomes very, very iffy if we go that route.
Here's a question: how are holiness and love related?
Futile as it may be, we have wrestle with the Holiness of God. How do we describe the indescribable? The Hebrew word means "set apart," "apartness," and "sacredness." The New Testament is much the same. I need to do lots more work here, but the "otherness" of God is tackled by the biblical writers with pictures of thrones and angels and song and saints in white crying "how long O Lord." There are clouds and fire, burning bushes, transfigurations, voices raining from the sky, ascensions into heaven, earthquakes and storms. The color white in unspoiled radiance, the sun, the infiinite universe, the storehouses where snow is kept, the peering into a mother's womb to watch the formation of the child, the holding in His hand of the very secrets of life and death, so that at a thought civilizations die and galaxies are born. The biblical picture of the Holiness of God seems far greater than the simple notion of moral perfection, but encompasses His entire being and character, including His love.
His love is holy. His holiness is love. Love does not seek its own. Does holiness?
Why the wrath of God? If it seems obvious to you, then skip all this. Tomorrow I'll tackle what I think its about, and again, its all good news, because it points, all of this does, toward His infinite love.
It has to do with His first causes...
6:01:24 AM 
