[Lee Grzywinski]

Hello faithful readers!

In these chapters, we deal with the wrath and severity of God, along with His goodness. Both are overlooked by some, but both are so important for truly understanding grace.

I like Packer’s summary: “just as God is good to those who trust Him, so He is terrible to those who do not.” Packer makes God sound so wholly other in his descriptions of God’s love and anger. He is not like us in either of these attributes. I love his explanation that “God’s wrath in the Bible is something which people choose for themselves.” God is never unjustly wrathful! And how gracious He is to save us from His wrath through Christ’s death!

God is so good to us! But Packer is right that we should contemplate His severity alongside His goodness. We need to avoid the “Santa Claus theology” of many. Packer explains God’s goodness so well, and is again right to point out that God only withdraws it from those who have willingly incurred His severity (just like His wrath). And how gracious of our God that He is so slow to anger, but so very eager to show us His goodness! May we remember that and continue in His kindness.

[Lynne Mazza-Hilway]

Back to the beginning and basics, God is not a puppeteer but gives us free will, as Packer puts it, a choice to retreat/reject the light He shines into our hearts. He gives us over to our preferences. However, we may gain the world and lose our souls. Or lose our life so we can find it. As servants knowing our Master’s will we should do what He wants and get ready. Thankfully He gives us “constant disclosure from heaven that imprints itself directly on our conscience. In the event we choose the wrath of God or His expression of justice, we pass judgement on ourselves. Yet the difference is God’s is a holy wrath, devoid of wounded pride or a loss of self control, a righteous indignation, an adverse reaction to evil, a necessary part of moral perfection.”

I wonder and hope that this problem of evil Packer discusses has become presently more of a focus. Not only are there more documentaries and such on the topic but there has even been discussion of adding it’s characteristics into the diagnostic manual of mental disorders. (Not sure how positive that is but at least people seem to be perhaps acknowledging it’s existence more). So true and sad that so many don’t know what they believe in, who God is and what difference believing in Him makes. Yet it’s His heart that none should perish or “be cut off by the withdrawal of His goodness by those who have spurned it.” Praise Him for His goodness, patience and long suffering that we seek to rise up and emulate, realizing that “all things come from Him, and we have tasted His goodness every day of our lives. He is both your upholder and, in the last analysis, your environment.”

[Lilla Langford]

Packer clarifies the issue that people raise; believing in God’s wrath is like condoning cruelty. The problem being that we ascribe to God, the form that human justice or retribution too often takes and the necessity of reminding ourselves that God is just and that He takes care of retribution. “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.”
A friend told of an encounter with a guy who felt that he was good to go to heaven. Praying inwardly for what next to say, my friend asked him then, “Do you love God?” The man was taken aback and paused, Then blurted out, “Certainly not!”
“Why then would you want to spend eternity in the presence of someone you certainly don’t love?”
Oh that those we encounter would recognize that they are in need of à Savior.
Another woman we met recently had been active with her husband in an evangelical church for many years, but came to the point where she felt neglected by her husband to the point that she divorced him. Returning to this area of France with two daughters, one of whom had great difficultés adjusting to high school and was going to be home schooled the following year, she thought that a church might be a good place to find good friends. And the clincher for actually choosing to come to church was that one of her students (she teaches French to teenage immigrants) texted her: God loves you. May we reflect God’s grace in our relationship with her – a recognition of His goodness and Jesus’ propitiation of God’s wrath.

[Theresa]

I’ve heard “gospel” messages where there is no mention of God’s wrath or repentance. How will they know the truth if they are not given a complete picture? How will they be saved if they don’t understand what they are being saved from? “That Jesus Christ, by virtue of his death on the cross as our substitute and sin-bearer is the propitiation for our sins. If we are Christ’s through faith, then we are justified through his cross, and the wrath will never touch us, neither here nor hereafter. Jesus delivers us from the wrath to come.” What a beautiful Savior we have and what a patient God that He wants no one to perish. Although these 2 chapters were sobering it takes me back to meditating on all that He has done for me and reminds me of the urgency of sharing that with everyone who does not know Him.

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