The Wrath Of God 's Testaments

God’s righteousness can also be seen in his wrath. We first see the wrath of God in the Old Testament.

Our God is loving, kind and merciful, but there is another side to His personality, the side that defends and fights for His people. Paul declares we must know the “goodness and severity of God.” To understand the full character of God we must read the entire Bible. God is a lover of His creation and He is a warrior who fights for those whom He loves. The author makes an excellent point that since we are made in His image we must take on every aspect of the character

God as almighty and powerful as he is has a wrath so striking we should fear all the possible schemes he has for us. “The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow..,” portrays the use of a metaphor comparing God's wrath to a bow and arrow to create the image of how direct God can be with us. This implies that God could take us out as trouble-free as he can however it is to his satisfaction that you live to experience the torture you have set yourself up for with the sins you

God is depicted in the Old Testament with a very bad reputation. David Lamb is an old testament professor and he addresses some of the reasons for this bad reputation. In Lamb’s book, God Behaving Badly: Is the God of the Old Testament Angry, Sexist and Racist? In his book, there are seven specific citations addressed that provide proof and evidence for those who would believe “God behaves badly.” The examples that Professor Lamb chose are: angry or loving, sexist or affirming, racist or hospitable, violent or peaceful, legalistic or gracious, rigid or flexible, and distant or near. With each chapter that Lamb writes, it provides multiple biblical narrative accounts and establishes a basis for the particular argument aimed against God.

The Old Testament is the largest part of the bible nestled behind the leather binding in the front of the book. Unlike most books, told from one-person or even two this is comprised of multiple, some stories even having two different versions in another point of view; over time it has become a large collection of ancient texts written and re-written by different authors and editors over the many years. The stories show the ancient Israelites, they show the laws, and rituals, which make up their religion and the small embers, which will one day, turn to a flame that is Christianity. The Jewish people view these stories as collected in what they call the Torah, is the collection for what makes up their history and the promise that God gave to them, as well as their laws and what they worship today. For the Christians the Old Testament is still seen as sacred, but most place a stronger importance to the New Testament.

“the fiery floods of the fierceness and the wrath of God, would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come upon you with omnipotent power”. The alliteration is attention-grabbing and provokes a feeling of fear. Also, God’s power is demonstrated in this imagery. The phrase “rush forth with inconceivable fury” shows power since flood waters wipe out everything in its path. The idea of God’s power is further demonstrated in the phrases “inconceivable fury” and “omnipotent power”. There are black clouds of God’s wrath now hanging directly over your head, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder;” Edwards stirs fear by creating a dreadful image of a storm. The image of black clouds and thunder over their heads is fearful. People are often fearful of storms and natural disasters. This metaphor compares a large storm to the size of God’s wrath. This provokes the audience to also fear God’s wrath. Also, the metaphor makes God’s wrath comprehendible to the audience.

A very good question to ask a Christian is: What is the gospel? Shockingly many Christian have the same belief, but different answers. Reading this book opened up my eyes and helped me understand more about what the gospel is. In this book it explains in four chapters these four main points: God, Men, Christ, Men. First, it explains who God is, he is the creator of the heaven, earth, human and animals, he is also perfect, almighty, and compassionate. Yes, all those things are true about god, but there is also a view of god that people do not like to hear. God does not leave the wicked unpunished. God loves righteousness and justice. In Genesis 6:11 the bible says that the world was corrupted and full of violence so god said to Noah that he was going to put an end to it and he did. Since god is a perfect god and cannot see sin in order to clean the world of sin he had to send down his wrath.

by this and explains, “…if you do not do well, sin is lurking at your

In addition, he claims that the war is punishment from god to appeal to emotions and plant fear in their fragile hearts, "He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came."

“For we know him who said, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay.’ And again, ‘The Lord will judge his people’” (Hebrews 10:30).

Omniscient God only have the power, knowledge and control over human; to maintain that superiority God typically responds to human behavior with what they deserve. God blesses the righteous and punishes the evil man to remind their limitation and worship to the God.

The first question that Lamb raises is if God’s anger in the Old Testament is justifiable. In other words, can God be concerned with Love and still kill people in his anger? Lamb argues that God 's anger, although sometimes extreme is justified and necessary. To prove his point, Lamb uses the story of Uzzah (2 Sam. 6:1-8). In this story, King David recovered the Ark of The Covenant and paraded it throughout Israel in the back of an ox cart. In front of a large crowd of Israelites the Ark became unstable and Uzzah reached out to steady it, because of this God killed Uzzah instantly. At first this seems completely unjustified, it looks as though Uzzah was just protecting the Ark. But, the more we look into God’s motives, the more it makes sense. First, God commanded the Israelites to carry the Ark by two long poles that attach to the side of the Ark, and he was very clear about this. Second, by killing Uzzah in front of all of these people, God sent a message that said his laws shall not be disobeyed. It

In the Western Christian world, God has often been seen as a punishing deity that is easily angered and swiftly hands out discipline. Not remedial discipline to change the behavior of people, but vindictive, punitive judgment that only serves the desire for revenge. This vision of God usually twists people into being self-deprecating, guilt-laden zombies with a mindset not that different from the Flagellants. Many religious people today seem to constantly hold themselves in contempt, perpetually highlight their shortcomings, and denigrate themselves to no end. It is a blatant dishonesty to call such a god “good.” Instead, this is how a slave responds to a cruel master or a child to an abusive parent.

The second portion asks if he is able but not willing. This would make him malevolent. God is supposed to be omnimalevolent, all loving and all good. A God who is able to stop all evil but doesn’t is clearly not loving then, correct? Christians would respond that this apparent ignorance from God is actually human sin and not God turning his back on us.

God develops many special relationships with His people throughout the Old Testament. Another word to describe the relationship between God and his people is covenant. The word covenant goes into the details of the relationship. Within the five books of the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), Historical books, Poetical books, and the Prophet books, one may pick up on the relationships being developed between God and humanity. God has an unconditional love for His people; He is always faithful to them. On the other hand, humanity has more of a conditional relationship with God. Humanity continuously falls short, making the love seem “conditional,” but are given a choice to either follow God into a relationship and receive love and benefits of the covenant or not. “No child of the covenant who presents to Him a faithless and insincere heart shall be included in its blessings.” Going off the idea of love being unconditional and conditional, this paper focuses on how the Old Testament is about God, humanity and their relationship.