The Righteousness and Wrath of God in Romans 1
My juxtaposition of “righteousness” and “wrath” is drawn from Rom. 1:17-18, where the Apostle Paul juxtaposes the two words in a surprising parallel.
Romans 1:16-20
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith.”
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; . . .
Romans 1:16-17 is Paul’s thesis statement for the letter to the Romans. A brief summary could be: “In the Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed . . .” The similarity of this thesis statement with the next verse is striking: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven . . .” Such a parallel does not occur by accident. If we consider the conventions of Hebrew poetry (something Paul would be acquainted with and accustomed to using, because he was a Jewish Rabbi before his conversion), it would be normal to assume that he is repeating the same idea with slightly different terminology. This sort of repetition is common in the Psalms. But this particular contrast is striking because Paul seems to be saying precisely opposite things in vv. 17 and 18.
But if we look deeper at what Paul is saying, we discover he is indeed offering us a poetic parallel which helps us understand the concept of divine wrath. When vv 18-20 are considered as a whole, the context of “the wrath of God” is not how God up in heaven is feeling about things, but rather how humans are responding to God’s revelation down on earth. God’s revelation is clear within creation itself, both “his eternal power and divine nature.” Paul makes it clear that this natural revelation is not as complete as the Gospel, but it is divine revelation nonetheless. But humans have “suppressed” this truth.
This suppression of the truth grows out of a fundamental attitude toward God. “Though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him” (Rom 1:21). In other words, they didn’t like God as God. They didn’t like to be around their Creator and Lord. They wanted a god, but on their own terms, not on God’s terms. “They exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles” (Rom. 1:23). But Paul doesn’t say God was angry with them. God didn’t take it out on them as if his honor demanded it. Instead, he gave them precisely and specifically what they desired. “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen” (Rom. 1:24-25). Twice more (vv. 26, 28) the text says that God gave them up. Given their attitude, there was nothing more he could do with them.
This relationship, where the human is at enmity with God, and not the other way around, is the key to understanding divine wrath. Even though these people create gods they are comfortable with and seek satisfaction and fulfillment from their passions rather than their Creator, taking them far from the will of God, God is still present. “His eternal power and divine nature” (Rom. 1:20) are present and that presence stands in contradiction to what they have created to suit their own desires. This life opposed to God lived in the presence of God (for God is always present everywhere) is the essence of wrath. It is not an attitude of God toward them, but rather their experience of the same God that believers experience as righteousness (v. 17) and love.
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This is not an exegesis of divine wrath as it is expressed everywhere in scripture. It is only an explanation of Rom. 1. The word “wrath” is used 270 times in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible and an exploration its complete meaning is outside the scope of this study on the parables. But I suspect that Paul’s juxtaposition of wrath and righteousness in Rom. 1 offers an important pointer to a proper understanding of divine wrath in scripture. Often there is a deep and hidden meaning behind the stories of the Old Testament. God’s ways are not our ways and humans often have to settle for very imprecise descriptions of God’s person and actions. If Rom. 1 is any indication, I suspect this is the case when we carefully consider divine wrath.
Copyright © 2006 James E. Nelson (Just Another Jim). All Rights Reserved.
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