A Pepper Grinder Post

Is God Angry or Loving?

It seems that many Christians tend to come down on one side or the other on this question. The people who see God as an exacting being who is intolerant of sin do not seem very common in modern America. The Puritans come to mind. They were trying to create a purer society, and so, they did tend to take a harder line on sin than many modern Christians would. On the other hand, I think that Puritans have become one-dimensional stereotypes in the modern mind, and the real flesh and blood people were probably much more complex.

Closer to home, I remember a particular strain of Mennonite in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, who would post signs in their yards which had quotations from an older English translation of the Bible. Often these seemed to be passages that focused on warning sinners to repent. One that made a special impression on me said (as I recall), “The rich man said, ‘I am in agony in this fire.’” I was left with the impression of dour, finger-wagging believers who would be quick to point out someone’s sin to him or her. But, I have to say that I never personally met someone from this group, so I have no idea if this is the whole story or not.

Then there is the church that has gained national publicity by holding up signs at soldiers’ funerals announcing that he or she is in hell or who display messages such as “God hates fags.”

If you are like me, none of the examples of people who focus on the anger of God are appealing. Calling someone puritanical is always an insult, and who would want to join a group of angry, judgmental people?

We are much happier focusing on the kindness and love of God. God is love! He sent Jesus to die so that we could turn to him and be filled with his joy and power. I am not, for a moment, suggesting that these statements are not true. However, the question I want to ask today is how the Bible presents God. Does it show him as:

1. Angry
2. Loving
3. Both of the above
4. Neither of the above

There is a particular passage in Jeremiah that I want to focus on, but I want to start by giving a little historical background for the book of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah’s ministry began in the reign of King Josiah. This was some time after God’s final judgment had fallen on the northern kingdom of Samaria and they had been defeated and deported by the Assyrians. The southern kingdom of Judah had managed (just barely, with divine assistance) to withstand the Assyrians, and had shown their appreciation to God during the long and wicked reign of King Manasseh, by rebelling against God even more flagrantly than the northern kingdom had. Manasseh’s son Amon wasn’t much better than his father, but he was assassinated after reigning just two years, and was succeeded by eight-year-old Josiah. Josiah showed a remarkable determination to serve the Lord, but the efforts of one king were not enough to change God’s intention to overthrow Judah, just as he had overthrown Samaria. From the time of Manasseh on, events were in motion that ultimately led to the defeat of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 586 BC.

It was during the reign of good King Josiah that Jeremiah’s ministry began, continuing right on through the defeat of Judah and beyond. Jeremiah is often referred to as the weeping prophet, and if you read the books of Jeremiah and Lamentations (also attributed to Jeremiah), it is not hard to see why. He does not seem to have had what we might think of as a prophet’s temperament (strong, abrasive, and emotionally impervious). He didn’t want to be a prophet (see Jeremiah, chapter1). He was the victim of treachery and betrayal, even by those closest to him. He was hated for his message, even though he was terribly saddened by the message of judgment he was called to present.

Now, I would like to look briefly at a few passages in the book of Jeremiah that come before the verses I want to focus on (all quoted in the NIV).

"If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, should he return to her again? Would not the land be completely defiled? But you have lived as a prostitute with many lovers-- would you now return to me?" declares the LORD. "Look up to the barren heights and see. Is there any place where you have not been ravished? By the roadside you sat waiting for lovers, sat like a nomad in the desert. You have defiled the land with your prostitution and wickedness. Therefore the showers have been withheld, and no spring rains have fallen. Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute; you refuse to blush with shame. Have you not just called to me: 'My Father, my friend from my youth, will you always be angry? Will your wrath continue forever?' This is how you talk, but you do all the evil you can."
Jeremiah 3:1-5

"Do not pray for this people nor offer any plea or petition for them, because I will not listen when they call to me in the time of their distress."
Jeremiah 11:14

"My inheritance has become to me like a lion in the forest. She roars at me; therefore I hate her. Has not my inheritance become to me like a speckled bird of prey that other birds of prey surround and attack? Go and gather all the wild beasts; bring them to devour. Many shepherds will ruin my vineyard and trample down my field; they will turn my pleasant field into a desolate wasteland. It will be made a wasteland, parched and desolate before me; the whole land will be laid waste because there is no one who cares. Over all the barren heights in the desert destroyers will swarm, for the sword of the LORD will devour from one end of the land to the other; no one will be safe. They will sow wheat but reap thorns; they will wear themselves out but gain nothing. So bear the shame of your harvest because of the LORD's fierce anger."
Jeremiah 12:8-13

Then the LORD said to me: "Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before me, my heart would not go out to this people. Send them away from my presence! Let them go! And if they ask you, 'Where shall we go?' tell them, 'This is what the LORD says: " 'Those destined for death, to death; those for the sword, to the sword; those for starvation, to starvation; those for captivity, to captivity.' "I will send four kinds of destroyers against them," declares the LORD, "the sword to kill and the dogs to drag away and the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth to devour and destroy. I will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh son of Hezekiah king of Judah did in Jerusalem.”
Jeremiah 15:1-4

This is just a small sample. In the book of Jeremiah and the rest of the prophets, we read predictions of destruction of the land, slaughter of the inhabitants, enslavement of the people who are left, and even that the people will be driven to cannibalism while under siege. All this because they turned away from God. If you are able to fit this into a picture of God who is only sweet and kind, then you have more imagination than I do!

And yet, this is not all we see. Interspersed with the messages of judgment, we also see God longing for reconciliation with his people. For example, shortly after the first of the passages quoted above, we read:

"Go, proclaim this message toward the north: 'Return, faithless Israel,' declares the LORD, 'I will frown on you no longer, for I am merciful,' declares the LORD, 'I will not be angry forever.'"
Jeremiah 3:12

At the same time that God is telling Judah of her impending doom, he is calling the already-judged northern kingdom to return to him.

Just after the passage from Jeremiah 12 quoted above, where he actually says that he hates his inheritance (that is, the people of Judah), he makes a promise concerning the non-Jewish nations around the southern kingdom of Judah. He promises that, after they have been exiled, they will be brought back to their lands and established among God’s people, if they learn to follow God’s ways.

And then there is our passage.

The Lord says, “At that time, I will be God to all the families of Israel, and they will be my people. The people surviving the sword will find favor in the desert—I am coming to give rest to Israel.” Long ago the Lord appeared to me, saying, “I have loved you with an eternal love, and so I will show you kindness. I will build you, and you will be rebuilt, O Virgin Israel. You will pick up your tambourines again and join the joyful dance. You will plant vineyards again in the hills of Samaria. The farmers will plant and play the pipes.”
Jeremiah 31:1-5, my translation

Imagine that you were a man in your 30s or 40s who met and fell in love with a woman in her late teens or early 20s. This woman had had a rough background and was staying in a homeless shelter when you met her. Her hair was unkempt, her clothes were shabby, and she smelled bad. In spite of all this, there was something about her that captured your heart. You wooed her, married her, and brought her to live in your gorgeous home. You bought her the best clothes and an expensive car. Whenever she needed help, you were there for her. You adored her.

And yet, as time went on, she seemed less and less interested in spending time with you. She proudly proclaimed that she was your wife, but spent more and more time on shopping trips and going to parties with friends. At first, you told yourself that she was young and should be able to have some fun, but then came the heart-breaking discovery that she was being unfaithful to you. She became wilder and wilder as time went on. Her adultery was not a one-time fling, but happened over and over with many different men. She would have sex with them in the back seat of the car you bought for her. You even discovered that when you were away, she would bring them right into your own bedroom and make love to them on the beautiful bed you had bought at her request.

You spoke to her. You told her you loved her, but that she was destroying your relationship. You pleaded with her; you threatened her. Nothing made any difference. Finally, in utter frustration, filled with hurt and anger, you told her that you were kicking her out of the house. You told her that she should go live with one of her boyfriends and see how well he treated her. You took away the closets full of clothes and the car keys and put her back on the streets. You were heartbroken, and you were furious.

Up to this point, I imagine that we (especially the men) can put ourselves in the position of this wronged husband and relate totally to his feelings of hurt and anger. If this had happened to me, I suspect that I would have felt devastated, but would have tried to move on with my life and forget that I had ever been so foolish as to love that wretch.

But this isn’t what God did. Although he knew that he was utterly justified in dealing with the Jews in the harsh way that he did, and that it would have been unjust not to punish them severely, he did not turn his back on them forever and try to forget them. No, he began planning how he could bring them back.

Picture a girl, young and innocent, playing a boom box in the back yard on a beautiful day. She gets caught up in the music and starts to sway joyfully with the breeze blowing her long hair. Soon she is dancing with joyful abandon. This is like the picture presented in Jeremiah 31 of Virgin Israel picking up her tambourine and joining the joyful dance. This is what God dreams of and promises to the people who have broken his heart. He doesn’t want to be married to the unfaithful slut that his wife has become, but neither can he forget her. His desire and his plan is to restore her to the state of joy and innocence that she was in when she first became his.

Why on earth would God do this? Because he has loved her with an eternal love. His is not the selfish, temporary love that lasts only as long as it gets what it wants. His is the love that never gives up and never quits.

Back to our original question, does this mean that God is loving, not angry? This passage might make us think that loving is the right answer, but what about all the anger that we saw expressed in other verses? In a way, it was a trick question. The problem is that we often think of anger and love as being mutually exclusive. We assume that if someone is angry about what another person is doing, he must hate her.

This is what is behind some of the accusations of hate speech that fly around our politically correct atmosphere. If I say that what someone chooses to do is wrong, that MUST mean I hate him.

Or does God have some form of bi-polar behavior, furiously angry one minute, and loving and merciful the next? Our problem with understanding God is that we try to picture him as being as limited as we are. Since we have trouble loving and forgiving people who have made us angry, we paint a god in our image. The god we create cannot be both angry at sin, and deeply loving the sinner, so we have to make a choice. Given that choice, who in his right mind wouldn’t choose the loving god?

The trouble with this approach is that we are not worshipping and serving the living Yahweh, but a creation of our own minds. If we do this, we have become idolaters, just as surely as the Canaanite bowing down to a stone statue.

We cannot choose whether to believe in an angry or a loving god, because God is completely both. He loves us more deeply than we have ever loved anyone in our lives, AND he is angrier at sin than we have ever been at anything. I believe that a part of the reason God expresses such fury at sin is that he sees with incredible clarity how it ravages and ruins his beloved.

Is God angry or loving? Yes.

- Pepper
Posted 2018-07-04