[Magdalen] In Christ Alone

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

We talk about God's wrath, but we do not generally talk about why God is
wrathful.

Why do we think that God ought to have wrath?

I've been turning this one over in my head for a long time.  In my
experience, people talk about a wrathful God, but they do not talk about
why God would be wrathful in the first place.  I personally don't believe
that the type of God we are taught to believe in as described in scripture
is ever filled with wrath at us.

It seems to me that, no matter what we have ever done, God has complete
understanding of why we do whatever we do. Understanding why people do what
they do generally replaces wrath with compassion, a sentiment so often
exhibited by Jesus.  He didn't have any question of why we do what we do;
he understands completely and has compassion for us.

Wrath comes from the misunderstanding of an action, "He's just being
willful!" "She's doing that just because she's so evil!"



James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy

On Tue, May 9, 2017 at 6:09 AM, Simon Kershaw <simon at kershaw.org.uk> wrote:

> I think God's allowed to be "wrathful" depending on quite what that means
> and what the consequences are. Are parents allowed to be frustrated with
> their children's choices? But celebrating and singing about God's wrath is
> another thing.
>
> But the real bugbear is perhaps the word "satisfied". God's "wrath" is
> "satisfied" by the death of Jesus on the Cross.
>
> That's not something I accept, and nor do I feel that it is good
> evangelism. The gospel message is not about hellfire and damnation, but
> about having life in all its fullness, as we heard on Sunday.
>
> You can instead sing "the love of God is magnified" or perhaps "the love
> of God is satisfied". But the author, Stuart Townend, will not, as I
> understand it, allow those words to be printed instead of the words he
> wrote, and as he is the copyright owner the law probably supports his
> position. However, it is hopefully not a copyright violation to ignore the
> printed words and sing something else. Or to print the alternative line
> alongside the original and suggest to people that they sing it.
>
> simon
>
>
> James Oppenheimer-Crawford wrote:
> > I was thinking how horrid the words were, happy to see I'm not alone.  A
> > wrathful God is heresy. To say nothing of a deity out of control. I don't
> > really think that's what is going on, although, who knows, I could turn
> > out
> > to be wrong, and God is not much different from Osama bin Laden. I don't
> > think so, but I seem to be a minority these days. That certainly is the
> > driving force behind a lot of the stuff which passes for theology in our
> > political scene.
>
>
>
> --
> Simon Kershaw
> simon at kershaw.org.uk
> Saint Ives, Cambridgeshire
>
>