Although each of these has its own distinctive meaning and is not to be fused into a melting pot of attributes, these can be seen in connection and correlation with the truth that God is holy. The attributes to be considered are the eternity of God, the constancy of God, the wisdom of God, the knowledge of God, the power of God, the jealousy-anger-wrath of God, and the glory of God.
I. THE ETERNITY OF GOD#
A. BIBLICAL MATERIALS#
In the Old Testament the Hebrew word ʿôlām is used to convey the everlastingness of Yahweh, and in the New Testament the Greek word aiōnios used to convey the concept that God is eternal.
According to the psalmist, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God” (Ps. 90:2, RSV).
In Isaiah Yahweh’s sole deity was affirmed so as to imply his eternality (43:10c; 44:6b).
Habbakuk asked the question: “Art thou not from everlasting, LORD my God, my Holy One? We shall not die” (l:12a).
In the New Testament “the King of kings and Lord of lords… alone has immortality,” and to him is to be ascribed “eternal dominion” (l Tim. 6:15b-16).
To “the only God” are to be attributed “glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and for ever” (Jude 25).
A similar threefold formula appears in Rev. 1:8: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
B. THEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION#
- God, according to the Bible, is conscious of and vitally related to the temporal order
The eternal God is not divorced from the world of time and space. This means that the biblical concept of God’s eternality is not identical with Platonic timelessness and the negation of time, or time “as the shadow of the eternal.” It also means that the biblical concept of time is not necessarily to be identified with Søren Kierkegaard’s concept of the infinite qualitative distinction between eternity and time.
God transcends and is not limited by time, but God relates to the temporal order in creation, sustenance, and redemption. In Jesus Christ God “took time and made it His own … [and] was able Himself to be temporal.”
- The biblical concept of God as eternal, together with God’s creatorship, leads to the conclusion that time has been created by God.
Contrary to this conclusion was the view of Origen, who held that time is the product of the fall of eternally preexistent spirit beings. But mainstream Christian thinkers followed not after Origen but rather after Augustine of Hippo.
With the motion of creatures, time began to run its course. It is idle to look for time before creation, as if time can be found before time…. We should, therefore, say that time began with creation rather than that creation began with time. But both are from God
- The concept of God as eternal means that God was before time and God will be after time.
This was the testimony of the psalmist (90:2). According to Paul, God “decreed” his wisdom “before the ages” (I Cor. 2:7) and “chose us in him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4). Moreover, God will continue after the Son of God has delivered the rule to him (l Cor.15:28).
“For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever” (Rom. 11:36, RSV).
Karl Barth emphasized the aspect of simultaneity:
The being is eternal in whose duration beginning, succession and end are not three but one, not separate as a first, a second and a third occasion, but one simultaneous occasion as beginning, middle and end. Eternity is the simultaneity of beginning, middle and end, and to that extent it is pure duration…. Eternity is just the duration which is lacking to time….
But, it may be asked, is the concept of eternity as “infinitely extended time” an adequate concept, and is it the biblical concept of eternity?
Oscar Cullmann asserted that such a linear view of time and eternity was the biblical concept
John Marsh (1904-), answering negatively, insisted that in the Bible eternity is “qualitatively different from time” because in the incarnation the eternal has entered history, thus making it impossible to think of eternity as linear or successive.
Henry found that both Cullmann and Marsh had denied the true ontological base for God’s eternity, and James Barr found that both Cullmann and Marsh had stretched the biblical data, the former concerning time and eternity and the latter concerning time.
Millard Erickson has connected eternity with the will of God.
There is a successive order to the acts of God and there is a logical order to his decisions, yet there is no temporal order to his willing. His deliberation and willing take no time. He has from all eternity determined what he is now doing.
II. THE CONSTANCY OF GOD#
Most Protestant theologians during the modern era have identified this attribute of God as His “immutability”. Some, however, have chosen alternative terms:
John L. Dagg, Emil Brunner, James Oliver Buswell, Shirley C. Guthrie, and J. Rodman Williams have opted for “unchangeableness” or “unchangingness”.
Karl Barth referred to God’s Bestandigkeit, a term translated as “constancy”, and Dale Modody and Millard Erickson also employed “constancy”
A. BIBLICAL MATERIALS#
In Balaam’s second oracle one finds a declaration and a question: “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?” (Num. 23: 19, NIV).
According to the psalmist, “The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations” (Ps. 33:11, RSV). In contrast to the heavens and the earth, “you remain the same, and your years will never end” (102:27, NIV).
In a context of the postponement of punishment and a call to repentance Malachi records the words: “I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed” (3:6, NIV).
The Epistle to the Hebrews refers to God’s showing to “the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose” (6:17, RSV).
According to James, “Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father oflights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” ( 1: 17, RSV).
B. THEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION#
- God’s constancy or changelessness is consistent with biblical anthropomorphisms.
Objection has been raised against divine changelessness on the ground that certain anthropomorphisms show that God does change. Take the statements that “the Lord repented” concerning something:
making Saul king of Israel (1 Sam. 15:11)
judgments by locusts and by fire (Amos 7:3, 6)
of calamity if the nation should turn from evil (Jer. 18:8)
the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians (Jer. 42:10)
imminent punishment of Ninevites (Jon. 3:9)
Do not these texts, it has been asked, make it impossible to conclude that the Old Testament teaches that God is changeless? No, these texts rather bear out the truth that God “changes in response to” or “reacts” to the changing attitudes and actions of human beings. Indeed God “has changed” and “does change” in the creation, in the incarnation, in reconciliation, and in answer to petitions and intercessions.
- God’s changelessness should not be equated with immobility.
E.Y. Mullins warned that immutability, when ascribed to God, should not be taken to mean immobility. Konig has warned against a “metaphysical immutability.” God is free to initiate new actions; in this sense God “changes.”
- Constancy, on the other hand, is denied by process philosophy and the theologies built on process thought.
A.N. Whitehead with his “organismic” view of the universe as process interpreted God as “the Principle of Concretion in Creativity” that is responsible for “the selection of eternal objects for ingression into the process as subjective aims” and “limiting the multiplicity of possible worlds to the one which is actualized in the process of becoming.” God is “the first emergent of Creativity” but is not the Creator. God is so identifiable with the process of becoming that there is no enduring character and nature of the faithful God.
Charles Hartshorne adopted panentheism, holding that God is both being and becoming. According to Eric C. Rust, insofar as Hartshorne has regarded God as “unchanging in his essence but constantly surpassing himself in his advancing experience,” he may have retained something of the biblical concept of God. But whether for Hartshorne God is the free and sovereign Creator and Lord is not altogether clear.
- The constancy of God means that God’s fundamental character and his overall purpose abide or persist without alteration or deviation.
Emil Brunner commented: “A God who is constantly changing is not a God whom we can worship, He is a mythological Being for whom we can only feel sorry.” Konig has related God’s changelessness and his decision-making in a paradoxical way:
… God’s faithfulness is not something automatic. As the living God he decides how and where he will fulfill his promises-but not arbitrarily. There is a fixed pattern. This can be read, among many places, in Jeremiah 18:7-10. This is the unchangeableness of God, that he always unchangingly, changes in this way.
III. THE WISDOM OF GOD#
A. BIBLICAL MATERIALS#
The Old Testament uses the Hebrew word ḥokmāh for “wisdom” in the sense of firmness or steadfastness. The wisdom of God is a recurring theme in Proverbs, Psalms, and Job. Closely associated with ḥokmāh are the terms for “understanding” (tĕbûnāh) and for “knowledge” (daʿat).
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Prov. 1:7, RSV).
“The LORD by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens; by his knowledge the deeps broke forth, and the clouds drop down the dew” (Prov. 3:19-20).
“O LORD, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all; the earth is full of thy creatures” (Ps. 104:24).
Job asked: “But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? … God understands the way to it, and he knows its place” (Job. 28:12, 23)
“It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens” (Jer. 10:12).
Wisdom is said to be attainable from Yahweh (Prov. 9:10; Ps. 111: 10; Job 28:28). Of special importance has been the teaching of Proverbs 8 concerning the wisdom of Yahweh. Some have noted that wisdom is hypostatized inasmuch as voice, lips, and mouth are ascribed to wisdom (vv. 1, 4, 6-8). The Church Fathers tended to identify the Wisdom of Proverbs 8 either with the preexistent Logos or with the Holy Spirit.
Advocates of the former included Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian, whereas advocates of the latter included Irenaeus and Hippolytus.
But the fact that Prov. 8:22 can be translated “The LORD created me at the beginning of his work” (RSV), although it has also been translated, “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work” (NIV), tends to discourage full identification with the Logos or the Spirit.
Whereas the Old Testament tends to magnify the relation of God’s wisdom to creation, wisdom in the New Testament is primarily related to redemption through Jesus Christ - his cross and his church. The Greek New Testament term for “wisdom” is sophia, a word that conveyed the ideas of tact or skill.
Wisdom is the major theme of 1 Cor. 1:18-2:16. Therein the message of the cross, reckoned by Greeks as “foolishness” (l:23b), is seen to be the Spirit-empowered truth of God in contrast to the worldly wisdom of Greek philosophy and the miracle-seeking unbelief of Jews. In the passage wisdom is attributed to God in respect to the cross of Christ (1:21),Jesus Christ is said to be God’s gift of"wisdom" to human beings (1:30), and God’s message of wisdom has been revealed by the Holy Spirit (2:6-10).
Elsewhere, Paul declared that “all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” are hidden in Christ (Col. 2:3, RSV), that in God’s wisdom the mystery of God’s will has been set forth in Christ (Eph. 1 :9), and that “through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known” to supramundane beings (Eph. 3:10).
If humans lack wisdom, they are to ask God for wisdom (Jas. 1:5a)
B. THEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION#
Divine wisdom, according to the wisdom writings of the Old Testament, was closely connected with “knowledge” and “understanding” and was the apex of Hebrew faith and culture. According to Paul, the wisdom of God was not to be identified with the worldly wisdom of his day but with the “foolishness” of Jesus’ death on the cross.
Karl Barth was probably correct in interpreting divine wisdom as the absence of “impulsiveness” or whimsical caprice in God’s bestowal of grace.
It should also be noted that wisdom is one of the communicable attributes of God. Barth defined God’s wisdom as “the inner truth and clarity with which the divine life in its self-fulfillment and its works justifies and confirms itself and in which it is the source and sum and criterion of all that is clear and true.” Since Barth did not treat “truth” or “truthfulness” as a major attribute of God, he seems to have subsumed these under wisdom and hence has defined wisdom in terms of truth.
IV. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD#
Attributing knowledge to God is basic to the Bible and to the history of Christian doctrine. That God has knowledge that transcends human knowledge has not been disputed; only the question of God’s omniscience, a term derived from the Scholastics.
A. BIBLICAL MATERIALS#
1. The Old Testament
The concept of God’s knowledge is expressed in the Old Testament chiefly through the Hebrew verb yādaʿ “to know,” and the nouns daʿat anh deʿah translated “knowledge.” Yahweh knows amid Israel’s disobedience(Josh. 22:22) and over against human arrogance (1 Sam. 2:3b), whereas scoffers doubt that God knows (Ps. 73: 11).
Yahweh does not lack knowledge (Ps. 94: 10-11) and has no need to be taught (Job 21:22; Isa. 40:146). He knows “the thoughts of man” (Ps. 94:11, NIV) and the “secrets” of the human heart (Ps.44:21); he alone knows the dwelling place of wisdom (Job 28:23), even as he keeps “watch over knowledge” (Prov. 22:12).
Yahweh is “a rich store” of “knowledge” (Isa. 33:6b); his foreknowing human thoughts and words is indeed “too wonderful” for the psalmist (Ps. 139:1-6). Yahweh’s “understanding (tĕbûnāh) has no limit” (Ps. 147:56).
2. The New Testament
God’s knowledge, according to the New Testament, is principally expressed though the Greek verbs oida and ginoskein, translated “to know,” and the noun meaning “knowledge.”
Occasionally the reference is to God the Father’s knowing: that he knows human needs before humans pray (Matt. 6:Sb, 32; par. Luke 12:30), that only the Father knows the time of Jesus’ parousia (Mark 13:32; par. Matt. 24:36), that the Father “knows everything” John 3:20, NIV), and that Paul declares “the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Rom. 11:33).
More often supernatural knowledge is attributed to Jesus, who knew the thoughts of human beings and their future actions and to whom all knowledge was attributed.
With reference to final judgment, “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight” (Heb. 4:13). In five of the seven uses of the noun “foreknowledge” (prognosis) or its verbal equivalent, foreknowledge is ascribed to God.
B. THEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION: HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE#
- Christian theologians and philosophers have commonly affirmed the omniscience of God, or that God knows all things, future as well as past and present.
At least three major explanations of God’s comprehensive knowledge have been posited.
- First, omniscience has been explained on the basis of God’s eternity.
The first exponent of this view was seemingly Boethius, who held that the knowledge belonging to God as eternal “is above the limitations of time,” for God “sees everything past, present, and future as present,” and hence his omniscience “does not destroy the freedom of man’s will.”
- Second, omniscience has been defended on the basis that what God foresaw or foreknew he also predetermined.
Since God has determined all events, human beings should not hesitate to acknowledge that God knows in advance all future things. This was the view held by John Calvin, who defended it in reply to the objection that divine election takes away human guilt and responsibility and in the context of declaring that there is no “distinction between God’s will and God’s permission. " Thus, for Calvin, God foreknew and predestined both the fall of Adam and Eve and the damnation of all the non-elect, and here the Genevan Reformer comes perilously close to ascribing sin to God.
- Omniscience has been defended on the basis of God’s middle knowledge (scientia media), first by the Spanish Jesuit theologian, Luis de Molina (1536-1600).
Molina differentiated three types of God’s knowledge: his “natural” knowledge, which “includes all possible things, even those which God has not willed to create”; his “free” knowledge, which includes “only … those things which God has willed,” and hence it “is the cause of creatures”; and his “middle” knowledge. The third includes “those things which the other wills shall decide.” Thus God “foreknows” but does determine “that which free creatures will freely decide.” Molina, therefore, differentiates God’s “absolute or efficacious will” and his “conditional will.” William Lane Craig has presently espoused middle knowledge.
- There have been Christian theologians and philosophers who have denied or considerably redefined God’s omniscience.
In twentieth-century process thought Charles Hartshorne has held that God knows “as actual all that is actual, and as possible all that is possible.” Hence he has “an exhaustive memory of the infinite past as actual” and “a comprehensive scope on possibilities for the future” but “does not, and cannot, have an actual (viz. determinate) and exhaustive knowledge of the future.”
More recently, the school of Evangelicals known as the “openness of God” movement, or “freewill theism,” has denied the “exhaustive foreknowledge of God of all future events,” lest all events be fixed and human freedom be an illusion. Accordingly, God knows about the probabilities with respect to free choices; he “comes to know events as they take place” and “learns something from what transpires.” Omniscience is redefined as God’s foreknowing “all that it is possible to know” in advance.
V. THE POWER OF GOD#
A. BIBLICAL MATERIALS#
1. Old Testament Terms and Passages
The use of the name “the Almighty God” has been treated in the section on the names of God.
The term “the Almighty” is found frequently in the book of Job. The noun gĕbūrāh, meaning “power” or “might,” was ascribed to God. “Thy power and thy righteousness, 0 God, reach the high heavens” (Ps. 71: 18c, RSV). David prayed: “Thine, 0 LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty” (1 Chr. 29:11a).
The substantive ʾabbîr, meaning “the Mighty One”, was used “of Jacob” (Gen. 49:24c; Ps. 132:2, 5; Isa. 49:26c; and 60:16c) and “of Israel” (Isa. 1:24a) as a synonym for the God of Jacob/Israel.
The common adjective gibbôr, meaning “mighty,” was used of God. “For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God” (Deut. 10:17a,b).
A more generally used noun for power, kōaḥ, appears in various passages in a dozen Old Testament books. Sometimes the reference is to God’s power as demonstrated in the Exodus (Exod. 9:16; 15:6a; 32:llc; Deut. 4:37b; 9:29b; 2 Kings 17:36). Elsewhere, especially in Jeremiah, the reference is to God’s power in creation (Isa. 40:26c; Jer. 10:12a; 27:5a; 32:17; 51:15a). Still other passages involve a more general ascription of power to God (Num. 14:17;Job 36:22a; Ps. 111:6; 147:5; Nah. 1:3a; 1 Chr. 29:12b; 2 Chr. 20:6c; 25:Sb; Neh. 1:10).
Another noun for divine “power” or “strength,” ʿōz, was employed especially in the Psalms.
Also the adjective ḥāzāq, meaning “strong, mighty, or hard,” was frequently used of God’s power, especially in the formula that Yahweh had “brought Israel out of Egypt with a mighty hand” (Exod. 32: l lc; Deut. 6:2lc; 7:8b; 9:26d; and Dan. 9: 15a), and also with “an outstretched arm” (Deut. 4:34b; 5:15b; 7:19a; ll:2d; 26:8a), but there were also more general usages (Deut. 3:24a; Josh. 4:24; Ezek. 20:33; and 2 Chr. 6:32).
In summary, the following patterns predominate in the Old Testament:
Power or might in fullness is ascribed to God through the names and titles of God that connote power
Power is ascribed to God especially in the Exodus and in the creation
Power is more generally ascribed to God
2. New Testament Terms and Passages
The Greek word dýnamis, meaning “ability” or “power,” was used especially by Luke and by Paul in various contexts:
The virginal conception of Jesus (Luke 1:35)
The enthronement of the Son of Man (Luke 22:69)
The gift of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost (Luke 24:49)
The content of general revelation (Rom. 1:20)
The nature of Paul’s preaching (l Cor. 2:4-5) and of his ministry (2 Cor. 6:7; Eph. 3:7)
The keeping of believers unto final salvation (1 Pet. 1:5)
Paul emphasized the greatness of God’s power (2 Cor. 4:7; Eph. 1:19), especially for the Christian life (Eph. 3:16; Col. 1:11).
The word krátos, meaning “strength, power, or dominion,” was used by Paul (Eph. 6:10; Col. 1:11; 1 Tim. 6:16) and in Rev. 5:13. Another term for “strength” or “might,” ischýs, may be found in Eph. 6:10 and 2 Thess. 1:9. The substantive, pantokrátōr, meaning “the all-powerful One” or “the Almighty,” was repeatedly used in Revelation (1:8; 4:8; 11:17; 15:3; 16:7, 14; 19:15; and 21:22) and appeared in 2 Cor. 6:18.
The verb dýnamai, meaning “to be able, to have power, to be powerful,” was frequently used to express the power of God.
God “is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (Matt. 3:9b, RSV), and Jesus could restore sight to the blind (Matt. 9:28).
The power of Christ is all-controlling (Phil. 3:21) and, when the divine power is “at work” within Christians, God “is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Eph. 3:20).
The living Christ “is able to help those who are tempted” (Heb. 2:18), “to keep” believers “from falling” (Jude 24), and “for all time to save” them (Heb. 7:25).
According to the New Testament, God’s power is sufficient for his saving or redemptive purpose. He is able to do whatever his saving purpose requires.
B. THEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION#
The framers of the Old Roman Symbol, better known as the Apostles’ Creed,juxtaposed God’s fatherhood and his almightiness, perhaps in order to answer Gnostics and Marcionites. The almighty Creator is indeed the Father of Jesus Christ.
Medieval theologians normally ascribed to God omnipotentia meaning his all-powerful nature. Sometimes discussions of omnipotence led to fanciful, speculative questions as to what God can and cannot do. Such discussions could be unrelated to specific biblical teachings about the power of God and might veer toward a pantheistic denial of the relative independence and moral responsibility of human beings.
What the medieval Schoolmen had done with omnipotence helped to lead Emil Brunner to differentiate Scholastic omnipotence from the biblical understanding of the power of God. Relative to the biblical teaching he contended that divine power always allowed for the relative independence of creatures. For Brunner divine omnipotence “means that He is free to deal with the universe He has created when and how He wills.”
Karl Barth discussed both the knowledge of God and the will of God as “the positive characteristics of the divine omnipotence.”
An adequate concept of the power of God should include the fullness or plenitude of his power to execute and his purpose, but the doctrine should not be pressed into speculative excesses or made to support a view that makes humans helpless and irresponsible puppets of God.
VI. THE JEALOUSY, ANGER, AND WRATH OF GOD#
Bescause of the close relationship between these there attributes - jealousy, anger, and wrath - especially in the Old Testament, it will be helpful to present a somewhat coordinated discussion of the three.
A. THE JEALOUSY OF GOD#
1. Biblical Materials
a. Old Testament Terms and Passages
The Hebrew verb qānāʾ meaning “to be jealous, to be zealous,” was not used in the stem but rather in the Piel and Hiphil stems. This verb, the adjective qannāʾ, meaning “Jealous”, and the noun qinʾāh, meaning “Jealousy”, were used of God’s jealousy in the Old Testament.
The jealous Yahweh will punish to the third and fourth generation those hating him and will show steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love him and keep his commandments (Exod. 20:5-6; Deut. 5:1-10). His jealousy was particularly directed to the covenant people when they consorted with false gods worshipped by neighboring peoples (Exod. 34: 14; Num. 25: 11; Deut. 6:1-15; Josh. 24:19; Ezek. 16:42). Such is true also when the covenant people engaged in idolatry (Deut. 4:24; Ezek. 8:2-3, 5).
But Yahweh’s jealousy was evoked in defense of Judah when invaded, plundered, or threatened (Ezek. 36:5-6; 38:19) and in behalf of rebuilding and the remnant (Zech. 1:14; 8:2).
b. New Testament Term and Passage
The Greek verb relative to divine jealousy is zēloûn, which means “to be jealous,” and the compound verb parazēloûn is also used. The number of uses of these verbs in reference to God in the New Testament, however, is minimal.
Paul, when contrasting the table of the Lord and the table of demons, asked, “Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy?” (1 Cor. 10:22a, RSV). The only other usage is somewhat indirect. “I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one husband” (2 Cor. 11:2).
The term, therefore, was obviously less central to New Testament thought than to that of the Old Testament.
2. Theological Interpretation
Divine jealousy, according to the Old Testament, was affirmed both in the context of:
Warnings against the harlotry of worshiping false gods
Defending the covenant people against her enemies
Whereas the Homeric gods of Greece took away benefits from the Greek people, Yahweh blessed unto multiplied generations those who worshipped and served him alone. God’s jealousy is not, as some would have us to conclude, a very primitive religious concept, for indeed polytheism and henotheistic religion were tolerant of the worship of other gods.
Rather it is a corollary of monotheism. The jealousy of God is, therefore, the intensity of his holiness in demanding and expecting the ready and undivided allegiance of his human creatures, especially those in covenant with him.
B. THE ANGER OF GOD#
1. Biblical Materials
a. Old Testament Term and Usage
The Hebrew word for divine anger is ʾap̄, a noun derived from the verb ānaph, which means “to breathe, or breathe through the nostrils.” Thus ʾap̄ is an onomatopoetic word that is related to the heavy breathing that accompanies anger.
The KJV sometimes translates ʾap̄ as “anger” and sometimes as “wrath,” but the NASV and NIV almost always render ʾap̄ as “anger.”
At least 130 times the word ʾap̄ conveys the idea of God’s anger in the Old Testament. These usages are scattered through the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Writings. In the Pentateuch, the prophetic books, and the historical books the usages of anger are normally associated with some particular historical situation, quite often the disobedience of the covenant people, whereas in the Psalms the usages are of a more general nature so that it is difficult to identify any historical situation.
Perhaps the most common expression of God’s anger in the Old Testament is the burning of his anger.
Sometimes God’s anger is said to continue (Isa. 10:4;Jer. 23:20; 30:24)
Sometimes it is said to be “turned away” (Hos. 14:4; Isa. 12:l; 2 Chr. 12:12; Ezra 10:14)
Sometimes it was said to be “held back” or delayed (Isa. 48:9) or “restrained” (Ps. 78:38b)
b. New Testament
The writings of the New Testament do not apply the term “anger” to God in the manner and with the frequency of the Old Testament usage, but much of the idea is conveyed in the New Testament usage of “wrath” in reference to God.
2. Theological Interpretation
The anger of God, together with some uses of “wrath,” is the principal Old Testament expression of God’s holiness in reaction to the sins of Israel the nation and the sins of individuals, especially the nation’s leaders.
What role, if any, should the anger of God have in a contemporary Christian doctrine of God? Some assume that to affirm the love and grace of God is to eliminate or reject God’s anger. Emil Brunner has offered an alternative answer:
Because God takes Himself, His love infinitely seriously, and in so doing also takes man infinitely seriously, He cannot do otherwise than be angry, although “really” He is only Love. His wrath is simply the result of the infinitely serious love of God.
C. THE WRATH OF GOD#
1. Biblical Materials
a. Old Testament Terms and Passages
Three different Hebrew nouns are used in the Old Testament to express the wrath of God.
The word qesep, which can also mean “twigs” and “splinters,” conveyed normally divine wrath in respect to specific historical situations (Num. 16:46c;Jer. 50:13a; 2 Chr. 29:8; 32:26; Ps. 38:1).
‘Ebrah, derived from a verb meaning “to pass over, go beyond” and suggesting an outpouring of anger or wrath, also related wrath to specific situations (Hos. 5: 1 O; 13: 11; Isa. 9: 19a), though it could also be used generally (Ps. 90:9, 11) and of a future “day of the wrath of the LORD” (Zeph. 1: 15a, 18a, RSV).
The ḥemah, meaning wrath in the sense of “heat” or “fury,” was also used vis-a-vis specific occasions of disobedi- ence (2 Kings 22:13b, 17b; 2 Chr. 36:16).
b. New Testament Terms and Passages
Two Greek nouns are employed to express the wrath of God in the New Testament.
Orgē, meaning “wrath, anger, or indignation,” is the more generally used term and is to be found especially in Romans and in Revelation. Sometimes this wrath is specifically directed at unbelievers or the disobedient (John 3:36; Rom. 1:18; Eph. 5:6; Col. 3:6). Law with its consequent disobedience brings forth wrath (Rom. 4:15), divine wrath expresses vengeance (Rom. 12:19), and such wrath can even be executed by civil rulers (Rom. 13:4c, 5). Elsewhere the reference is to future wrath to come (Matt. 3:7; 1 Thess. 1:10; 5:9; Rom. 2:5, 8; 5:9).
Thymos, meaning “glowing, ardor, passion, or angry heat,” is found only in Revelation, where its usages are eschatological (14:10, 19; 15:1, 7; 16:l; 18:3a), as is also true of the uses of orgē Revelation (6: 16-17; 11: 18a; 16: 19; 19: 15).
2. Theological Interpretation: History of Christian Doctrine
Like the term “anger”, the term “wrath” expresses in the Bible the reaction of God as holy against human sin. The concept of divine wrath has received different interpretations and has been correlated with other attributes differently during the history of Christian doctrine.
a. Wrath as God’s “Strange Work” (Martin Luther)
Luther spoke of God’s wrath as his opus alienum (strange work) and of God’s love as his opus proprium (proper work). The two are coupled in contrast.
Indeed, God’s “strange work” is strange “because it does not spring from the essential will of God, but because it is forced upon Him by the sinful resistance of man”.
b. Neglect of or Denial of God’s Wrath (Liberal Protestant Theologians)
F.D.E Schleiermacher treated three divine attributes related to the consciousness of sin: God is holy, just, and merciful. He did not specifically deal with “wrath”, but He did discuss justice as “retributive”.
Albrecht Ritschl had little to say of divine wrath, and for Nels F.S. Ferré a predominant emphasis on God’s agape exlcuded divine wrath.
c. Deattributization of the Wrath of God (C.H. Dodd)
Dodd noted that only three times (Rom. 1: 18; Eph. 5:6; Col. 3:6) did Paul use the full term “the wrath of God.”
Wrath was “not a certain feeling or attitude of God towards us” but rather “an inevitable process of cause and effect in a moral universe.”
“Wrath is the effect of human sin: mercy is not the effect of human goodness, but is inherent in the character of God.”
Dodd’s view was refuted by Leon Morris (1914-).
d. God’s Wrath as God’s Wounded Love (Gustav Friedrich Oehler, 1812-72, Adrio Konig)
According to Oehler, “the wrath of God is the highest strained energy of the holy will of God, the zeal of His wounded love.”
Similarly Konig has affirmed that the wrath of God, being his reaction to sin, is his “injured love.” “He became angry, but he is love.”
VII. THE GLORY OF GOD#
A. BIBLICAL TERMS#
The Old Testament and the New Testament terms for the “glory” of God had somewhat distinct linguistic backgrounds, as Emil Brunner noted.
The Hebrew term kāḇôḏ, when first applied to deity, referred to lightning, thunderstorms, and the like. It came to mean a “weight” or “difficulty.” The word had an objective meaning. In Old Testament usage it connoted the “majestic self-manifestation of God.”
The Greek term doxa, on the other hand, was derived from the verb dokein, which means “to think, seem, appear,” and hence doxa came to mean an “opinion” or a “reputation.” With a more subjective meaning, it connoted man’s perception of the divine majesty.
B. BILICAL USAGES#
The kāḇôḏ of Yahweh was manifested among all mankind, both by the heavens (Ps. 19:l) and throughout the earth (Ps. 72:19; Isa. 6:3; Hab. 2: 14). It was also manifested particularly to and among the people of Israel (Exod. 15:6, 11; 40:34).
The doxa of God was manifested in Jesus Christ: in his pre-existence (John 17:5), in his incarnation (John 1:14), in his transfiguration (Luke 9:32), in his death and resurrection (John 12:28; 17: 1, 5), and in revelation to believers (2 Cor. 4:6). Likewise it was to be manifested in the final or eschatological aspect of God’s redemption (1 Cor. 15:43; 2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 5:2; 8:18; Col. 1:27; I Pet. 5:1).
C. THEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION#
Whether taken from its more objective or from its more subjective aspect, the glory of God is the majestic manifestation and recognition of God as holy and worthy of worship and praise. Although found in virtually all Christian traditions, the glorification of God has had a special function in the Eastern Orthodox tradition.
SUMMARY#
Eternity is the duration of God’s holiness. Constancy is the continuing stability of God’s holiness. Wisdom is the truth of God’s holiness. Knowledge is the cognitive reality of God’s holiness. Power is the strength of God’s holiness.Jealousy, anger, and wrath are the reaction of God’s holiness to sin. Glory is the recognized manifestation of God’s holiness as majesty.