The Day of Wrath

In this morning’s Bible reading, the phrase “the day of wrath” stood out to me. It is from this verse:

Because of your hardened and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath, when God's righteous judgment is revealed. (Romans 2:5 CSB17)

Anger is a very unpleasant emotion. Most human anger is unrighteous anger, which is why the Bible tells us to get rid of it (Ephesians 4:31).  But even in the rare cases when I think my anger towards some injustice or evil was truly righteous anger, the emotion was not pleasant. I wouldn’t want to stay angry forever.

Although God’s anger in entirely righteous, I don’t think anger feels pleasant to God. God says, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezekiel 33:11 CSB17). Jeremiah witnessed God’s wrath on Jerusalem. In his lamentation, Jeremiah says about God, “. . . he does not enjoy bringing affliction or suffering on mankind” (Lam. 3:33 CSB17).

We often think of how terrible eternal torment would be for the unrighteous. But have you thought about how it would make God feel to inflict such a punishment? A terrible consequence of interpreting the Bible to teach eternal torment is that it results in a view where God is experiencing anger forever. In this view, God is eternally engaged in an activity which brings Him no pleasure and which He does not enjoy.

We all occasionally have to perform unpleasant tasks. This will continue as long as we live in a fallen, imperfect world. Because God loves us, it is not surprising that He reserves the most unpleasant task of all for Himself. God wants everyone to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9). But God must either allow evil to continue forever or eventually He must destroy those who refuse to love His truth and repent. It makes sense to me that God will carry out this unpleasant task in order to maintain justice and cleanse the world from all evil. It does not make any sense to me that God would want this necessary, but unpleasant, task of destroying the unrighteous to involve a process that goes on forever.

I realize that sometimes the Bible uses the word “day” in a non-literal way to refer to a period of time. And I understand that with the Lord, a thousand years can be like a day. But I don’t think “the day of wrath” refers to an eternity of wrath. Romans 2:5 is not the only verse that indicates that God’s wrath is limited to a “day”:

Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will shake from its foundations at the wrath of the LORD of Armies, on the day of his burning anger. (Isaiah 13:13 CSB17)

Their silver and their gold will be unable to rescue them on the day of the LORD 's wrath. The whole earth will be consumed by the fire of his jealousy, for he will make a complete, yes, a horrifying end of all the inhabitants of the earth. (Zephaniah 1:18 CSB17)

By the same word, the present heavens and earth are stored up for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. (2 Pet. 3:7 CSB17)

In the last verse quoted, notice that the “day of judgment” is also the day of “destruction of the ungodly”. Due to the incorrect doctrine of eternal torment, I think we often imagine that when the Bible speaks of “the day of judgment” it is only referring to the act of declaring the unrighteous guilty and of proclaiming their sentence. The execution of the sentence is then thought to go on forever. However, based on 2 Peter 3:7 (and I think the Bible in general supports this), it seems more accurate to view the “day of judgment” as referring to the time when God both declares judgment and carries out the sentence. This sentence ends in “the destruction of the ungodly.”

Let’s consider one more passage which teaches this same truth. The most natural way to interpret “eternal destruction” is that it refers to destroying the unrighteous in such a way that they will never again exist as conscious, living people. It cannot refer to a process of destruction which goes on forever because Paul tells us when they will be destroyed:

They will pay the penalty of eternal destruction from the Lord's presence and from his glorious strength on that day when he comes to be glorified by his saints and to be marveled at by all those who have believed, because our testimony among you was believed. (2 Thess. 1:9-10 CSB17)

Hebrews 13:16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others . . .

If you are interested in learning more about this topic, and about the brotherly debate between annihilationism (also called conditional immortality) and eternal conscious torment, you may find these posts helpful:

What is Conditional Immortality?

Downburned and Ashified, the Annihilation of the Unrighteous

What is the Second Death?, Part 1 Symbols and Meanings

Also, you may want to check out the very helpful Rethinking Hell website.

Romans is Like a Great Commission Sandwich

The book of Romans is glorious. It contains an in-depth explanation of God’s great plan for salvation. Romans is rightly known as a book containing deep, sometimes difficult to fathom, theology. However, it would be a tragic mistake to think that Romans is merely intended to feed our academic interests (although it does do that). The book of Romans is written by a man whose life in consumed by the Great Commission. Our Lord’s Great Commission drives all the content of the book from the opening chapter to the last chapter.

The Great Commission call us to preach the gospel (Mark 6:15, Luke 24:47). In Romans 1-8, Paul is inspired to explain this great gospel so that we can preach it accurately.

Great Commission ministry does not end when people hear the gospel, believe, and are baptized. In the Great Commission, Jesus also calls us to teach them “to obey everything I have commanded” (Matthew 28:20). In Romans 12-16, Paul models exactly that. He is teaching us to obey all that Jesus commanded. Of course, all that Jesus commanded cannot be contained in the last five chapters of Romans, but these chapters contain practical instructions applied to a number of areas based on the commands of Christ.

And what about those challenging middle chapters, Romans 9-11? Here, Paul is dealing with a question which was very painful to him personally. Why were most of the Jews rejecting Christ? Paul’s answer is bound up tightly with God’s Great Commission plan to send the gospel to all the nations.

Romans is not theology in a vacuum. Romans is theology born out of an intense struggle to carry out the great work Jesus has given us to do. It is intended to equip, strengthen, and motivate us to continue this task. Don’t miss this!

Let’s look a little more closely at the Great Commission in Romans.

The Calling and Obligation of the Great Commission (Romans 1)

Paul begins his letter by declaring his own calling to serve our Lord in the Great Commission work of sharing and teaching the gospel (Romans 1:1-5). Notice how closely the language in Romans 1:5 reflects the language of the Great Commission as given by Jesus in Matthew 28:18-20. Take some time to study the image below. I’ve color coded parts of the two passages which are similar:

The similarity between the two passages is slightly obscured in English translations because the same three Greek words translated “all nations” in Matthew 28:19 is translated “all the Gentiles” in Romans 1:5. Also, it is not obvious to English readers that the word “apostleship” in Romans 1:5 initially literally meant “a sending away”, thus linking it conceptually to the command to “Go”. Yet, even in English, the similarities between the passages are striking.

Paul goes on to explain that he has an obligation to preach the gospel to all people (Romans 1:14). It’s not the type of obligation that comes from someone giving you something so that you are obligated to pay them back. Rather, it is the type of obligation that comes from receiving something from someone that you are supposed to pass on to another. Paul has received the wonderful good news of salvation by faith in Christ Jesus. He has an obligation to pass it on. So do we!

Before Paul transitions to explaining why we need to be saved, and why we cannot save ourselves, he addresses a potential hinderance to Great Commission ministry. Namely, a feeling of shame which may come from the opposition and persecution the world directs at gospel ministry. Paul writes:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. (Rom. 1:16 CSB17)

May God also make us “not ashamed of the gospel”!

The Logic of the Great Commission (Romans 10)

In Romans 10 we find Paul’s relentless, Holy Spirit inspired, logic for the necessity of Great Commission ministry. The goal is for people to be saved. Earlier in Romans, Paul has carefully explained how this salvation works. But it won’t work at all unless people hear it, and that requires Great Commission sending and preaching.

It’s Teamwork! (Romans 12)

Because some of the Great Commission passages mentioned so far focus on preaching, it might lead some to believe that if they aren’t called to preach, or at least to do a lot of personal evangelism, then they don’t have a role to play. Nothing could be further from the truth! Paul understands that it takes a big team consisting of people with many different types of gifts to grow God’s Church:

Now as we have many parts in one body, and all the parts do not have the same function, in the same way we who are many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. According to the grace given to us, we have different gifts: If prophecy, use it according to the proportion of one's faith; if service, use it in service; if teaching, in teaching; if exhorting, in exhortation; giving, with generosity; leading, with diligence; showing mercy, with cheerfulness. (Rom. 12:4-8 CSB17)

We know from similar passages that the above list of gifts is not a complete list of gifts. Paul is just giving examples. Whatever your good at it, do it with all the strength God gives you. Use your God-given gifts to build up His Church, both locally and around the world (1 Corinthians 14:12). There is a special focus on reaching “all nations”. God’s mission does require some to cross oceans, but don’t forget that He also often asks us to cross the street. Neighbors near and far need the love and truth of Christ.

The Passion to Complete the Great Commission

The last two chapters of Romans are saturated with Great Commission thinking.

As Romans comes to a close Paul shares his plans and his heart. His goal was to continue to go to places where the gospel of Christ was not known.

To get the full impact of Great Commission thinking in Romans 15 and 16, remember these two facts about the word ethne, translated “Gentiles” twelve times (Romans 15:9, 2x; Romans 15:10; Romans 15:11; Romans 15:12, 2x; Romans 15:16, 2x; Romans 15:18; Romans 15:27; Romans 16:4; Romans 16:26).

1. As mentioned above, the Greek word ethne also means “nations” and is the same word used in the Great Commission where we are commanded to make disciples of “all nations”.

2. The word ethne in Greek did not refer to a political nation as much as it referred to what missiologists call a people group. A people group is a group of people usually with their own language and with their own culture and identity which are different enough from other people groups to require cross cultural mission work to reach them. Some political nations have many hundreds of different people groups living in them. Today, many people groups are still unreached. You may explore the map shown above and find information on the people groups represented by each dot at this web site. You can zoom in enough to see individual dots, click on a dot, and then click on the people group profile for that dot.

Paul closes Romans with a burst of praise. The ultimate goal is to bring God glory. The penultimate goal, the means through which God is glorified, is reaching all nations with the gospel so that many saved people learn to obey our Lord because they trust Him. This is called “the obedience of faith”. It is the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

Now to him who is able to strengthen you

according to my gospel and the proclamation about Jesus Christ,

according to the revelation of the mystery kept silent for long ages

but now revealed and made known through the prophetic Scriptures,

 according to the command of the eternal God

 to advance the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles--

to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ-- to him be the glory forever! Amen.

(Rom. 16:25-27 CSB17)

Hebrews 13:16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others . . .

If you found this article encouraging, you may also be encouraged by these:

Love in Romans

The Thai Cave Rescue as a Picture of Great Commission Work