There is a widespread belief that God is wrathful rather than loving in the Old Testament, and loving rather than wrathful in the New Testament. Many Christians will even speak of “the God of the Old Testament” and “the God of the New Testament,” and wonder how we can reconcile these two apparently different Gods. Theological liberals use this supposed contradiction to reject those parts of the Old Testament they dislike, while critics of Christianity use it to argue that Christianity is incoherent and therefore false.
But is this widespread belief that the character of God as revealed in the New Testament is less wrathful than the character of God as revealed in the New Testament true? I argue that a close reading of the New Testament will show that this idea is completely false. In fact, if anything, the opposite is the case.
The Old Testament God of Love
When Moses asked God to show him His glory (Ex 33:18), God passed in front of Moses and proclaimed: “The LORD, the LORD, a god merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex 34:6). This description of God’s character, as “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love,” appears numerous times throughout the Old Testament Scriptures (Numbers 14:18; Psalm 86:5, 15, 103:8, 145: 8; Joel 2:13). This is the basic and central teaching of the Old Testament about the character of God: He is loving, and slow to anger.
Yes, the Old Testament does have plenty to say about the wrath of God, but that is within the context of a story centered in God’s love for His creation and for His covenant people. Wrath and love are not contradictory. God is not wrathful in spite of the fact that He is loving. God is wrathful precisely because He is loving. Because God so passionately loves His creation, He is passionately opposed to anything that harms His creation or stands in the way of His plan to bring salvation to it. Just as a doctor who truly cares for His patient will cut off a cancerous tumor or gangrenous limb when they are a threat to the health of the patient’s body, so God sometimes acts in wrath to destroy sinners who are a threat to the health of His creation. In the Old Testament, God is both loving and wrathful, and He is wrathful because He is loving.
Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild?
Many people are under the impression that Jesus came to preach about and to demonstrate God’s love, leaving behind all the Old Testament’s talk about the wrath of God. However, even a cursory reading of the Gospels shows that this is not at all the case. If we know anything at all about the historical Jesus, we know that he was an apocalyptic prophet who came warning Israel about God’s coming judgement and the impending destruction of Jerusalem. In his public ministry, Jesus frequently made reference to the wrath of God and warned his audience that if they did not repent, they would be on the receiving end of it and be destroyed.
Just looking at the Gospel of Matthew, we have the following passages in which Jesus clearly teaches about God’s wrath, Judgment and Hell: Matthew 5:22, 28-29, 7:13-14, 21-27, 8:12, 10: 14-15, 28, 11: 20-24, 12: 31-37, 41-45, 13: 40-42, 49-50, 16: 27, 18: 6-9, 32-35, 21: 40-46, 22: 1-14, 23:1-38, 24: 45-51, 25: 1-46. This is quite a good portion of Matthew’s Gospel, and if we look at the other three Gospels, we can see many more such passages. The idea that Jesus avoided talking about God’s wrath in order to focus on God’s love is completely and utterly false. God’s wrath and judgment were a central part of Jesus’s teaching.
God’s Wrath in the New Testament
When we look at the rest of the New Testament, what we see is similar to the Gospels. The New Testament (like the Old Testament) certainly has a lot to say about the love of God. However, it also has a lot to say about the wrath of God. In the Acts of the Apostles, God strikes Annanias and Sapphira dead for lying to the church (5: 1-11) and strikes King Herod dead for his hubris (12: 20-23). And in their preaching, the apostles do not just go around telling people that God loves them and has a wonderful plan for their life; they tell people about the wrath of God and warn them that they need to repent of their sins in order to avoid God’s judgment (17: 30-31).
Similarly, the New Testament epistles frequently mention God’s wrath and the Final Judgment (e.g. Rom 1: 18-2: 16). Sometimes, New Testament authors refer to God’s coming wrath on evildoers in order to encourage Christians to remain faithful while enduring persecution at the hands of an evil world (2 Thess 1: 7-10). Other times, they refer to God’s coming wrath in order to warn Christians themselves that they need to repent of their sin, or else fall under God’s wrathful judgment (Eph 5: 1-6). And their references to God’s wrath are not restricted to warnings about a future Judgment; Paul tells the Corinthian Christians that some of them have died as a penalty for dishonoring the body and blood of Christ in the Lord’s Supper (I Cor 11: 29-30).
Of course, no New Testament book has more to say about the wrath of God than the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation is so full of descriptions of God’s wrathful judgment on an evil world that it would be tedious to list the citations for all the verses. And it is in the book of Revelation that we can see most clearly the difference between Old Testament and New Testament teaching about God’s wrath. Almost always, when the Old Testament talks about God’s wrath and judgment on evildoers, it is a reference to temporal punishment, in which the worst consequence is death. Only in a couple of late Old Testament texts (Isa 66: 23-24; Dan 12: 2) do we see hints that there might be a post-mortem punishment as well. In contrast, the book of Revelation is very clear that there will be a Final Judgment in which the wicked will be raised from the dead, and then cast into Hell, a Lake of Fire in which they will suffer eternal punishment, being “tormented day and night forever and ever” (Rev 20: 10-15). Jesus himself also clearly taught about this Final Judgment, after which the wicked will “go away to eternal punishment” (Matt 25:46). This goes far beyond anything the Old Testament has to say about the wrath of God.
The fact is, God is not revealed as less wrathful in the New Testament. On the contrary, the New Testament’s teaching about the Final Judgment and everlasting punishment reveals God’s wrath to an even greater extent than the Old Testament does. The author of Hebrews compares God’s wrath during Old Testament and New Testament times, and warns that Christians who turn away from Christ will receive a “much worse” punishment than Old Testament believers who disobeyed the Law of Moses (Heb 10: 26-31). The New Testament provides a clearer and fuller revelation of the character of God than the Old Testament. God’s love is more fully revealed in the New Testament, but His wrath is more fully revealed as well. God is both wrathful and loving. In this the Old and New Testaments are as one.
Practical Implications
There are some important practical implications of this. First, there is no contradiction between the Old and New Testaments regarding the character of God. Those who try to argue that Christianity is incoherent because “the God of the Old Testament” and “the God of the New Testament” have contradictory attributes are making a faulty argument. Second, Christians should have a robust and healthy fear of God’s Holy wrath. God’s wrath did not disappear when Jesus came along. Some Christians will tell people that it doesn’t matter what they do; no matter what sins they commit, it will not change God’s love for them or the attitude God has towards them. Such a teaching runs counter to the many warnings the New Testament gives Christians about needing to live lives of repentance and faithfulness in order to avoid God’s coming wrath. We are certainly saved by grace through faith, and not by our merits. But at the same time, there is no such thing as salvation without repentance and obedience, and those who live lives of sin, disobedience, and unfaithfulness will be recipients of God’s wrath.