One of the hallmarks of the evangelical community in the 21^st century is that it readily proclaims the love of Christ, while failing to recognize the justice and holiness of God.  Love is popular, but wrath is ugly, ignored, and often condemned.  The love and mercy and compassion of God is the “Good News of the Gospel,” but it is only half of the message of God’s Word….We are denying an attribute of the Triune God which is clearly taught in the Bible.  God is Holy and wholly righteous! Ignoring or denying that truth, I would submit, is a serious error that ought to be corrected.

Our primary purpose, in these pages, is to search the Scriptures for pictures of Jesus Christ, both in the Old and the New Testaments.  One such picture that fascinates me and which has seemingly been ignored, is that of our Savior as a “double-edged sword.”[i]  That picture, coming directly from Christ Himself, has profound implications for the way we read the Bible and respond to Christ.  The risen Christ, on the road to Emmaus, told his fellow travelers that, “beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.”[ii]  We need to follow His lead and pore over the Old Testament with that in mind.  Will we find pictures there that reinforce Christ’s message and mission, or will we concoct our own theology to satisfy itching ears?

Before we head to the Old Testament, we need to look at the last book in the New Testament, which is all about “the revelation of Jesus Christ.”[iii]  The Apostle John, a prisoner on the island of Patmos, is given a vision which belongs to Christ and is all about Jesus Christ.  In the opening stages of that vision, John sees one “like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest.  The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow.  His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters.  In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.”[iv]  “The one sitting on it (the throne) is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.  …… From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron.”[v] A sharp, double-edged sword conveys a sense of justice and death.  It is difficult to reflect on that image and think of love.  It smacks more of warfare!

Much of the church world, especially in modern America, has lost that focus.  Too many churches put man’s needs and wants at the center of their worship.  Public worship has become, too often, man-centered rather than God-centered.  Too often we hear messages that proclaim, “Jesus loves you!” “God loves you!”  In their parking lots, such bumper stickers abound. Church marquees proclaim that message to thousands of passersby.  Countless pastors make such proclamations.   I have seen and heard those messages hundreds of times.  But, each time I hear such pronouncements, I am prone to wonder:  “Does God love those who hate and reject Him? Does God love those who violate His laws with impunity and then brag about their rebellion?  Did God love the native tribes and peoples of Canaan whom He told Joshua to destroy utterly?  Did God love the people of Sodom and Gomorrah who died in the destruction of those cities?  Did God love the family of Achan whom He commanded to have stoned and buried with all of his family and his possessions?[vi]  Does God love the radical Islamist who beheads Christians solely because they worship the name of Jesus Christ?  Does God love the murderer who performs abortions and kills the very persons that He has so wondrously created?

In such a mindset, of course God loves everybody, even and especially when the spokespersons have no use for God or His laws. In such distorted theology, God loves and approves of sin.  God is merciful and full of grace, but justice and wrath are far from Him.  Our Father in heaven is like a senile, doting grandfather who condones the mischief of all his progeny. In the minds of some liberal theologians, God is a benign, heavenly senior, gray-haired, tolerant, affable, and permissive. If one did a serious, in-depth study of the book of Revelation, as I did, that person would soon have to change his mind.  The book of Revelation has two dominant themes running through it: the wrath of God and repeated calls for repentance.

One of the hallmarks of the evangelical community in the 21^st century is that it readily proclaims the love of Christ, while failing to recognize the justice and holiness of God.  Love is popular, but wrath is ugly, ignored, and often condemned.  The love and mercy and compassion of God is the “Good News of the Gospel,” but it is only half of the message of God’s Word.  If we only preach the love of God,[vii] we are proclaiming a truncated message, a half-truth that cannot be pleasing to the Judge of all the earth.  We are denying an attribute of the Triune God which is clearly taught in the Bible.  God is Holy and wholly righteous! Ignoring or denying that truth, I would submit, is a serious error that ought to be corrected.

One reason why the wrath of God is being ignored in Western society is because the United States, Canada, and most European countries have become secular nations.  In the United States Supreme Court the Everson Case (1947) officially established a “wall of separation’” between church and state.” This is an incredibly flawed decision, but it has become the law of the land.  The net effect of trying to create a barrier or wall between the church and the state is to exclude the Law of God from all judicial decisions and from all public policy.  In rapid succession, the courts banned prayer, Bible reading, sacred songs, and religious exercises from our nation’s public schools.

In 1973 the Supreme Court ruled that women have the right to murder the infants growing in their wombs, claiming, somehow, that the United States Constitution granted them this right under the guise of privacy. In spite of challenges from numerous quarters, the “right” to abortion has become the law of the land. Euphemistically, its defenders dub that “pro-choice.”  The Bible calls it murder.  God condemns murder. 

Norm DeJong is a retired ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church; he and wife divide their time between Michigan and Florida. Excerpts from The Cross And The Double-Edged Sword.  Xulon Press.  2017. Used with permission.

[i] Revelation 1:16; 2:12,16; 19:15; Heb. 4:12.

[ii] Luke 24:27

[iii] Revelation 1:1

[iv] Revelation 1:13-16

[v] Revelation 19:11, 15.  This image also appears in Hebrews 4:12.  All these are clear references to Jesus Christ.

[vi] Joshua 7:25-26

13 The love of God always has to be balanced with the wrath of God.  God is holy and just, but also loving.