Our Wrathful God

I posted this as a comment at my friend Rho's blog (his post w/comments is HERE) and thought it worth posting here.

I used to overreact to the wrath talk of Calvinism by going to the opposite extreme of "God doesn't have wrath; it's just love experienced negatively" (River of Fire and all that mess). Unfortunately, I think that particular line has become something of an oversimplified approach to Orthodox soteriology--perhaps used by some a way to be different from "the West" as a way to stand out, though I know of some priests I greatly respect with whom I also differ on this point.

While Rho does well to point out where the Bible explicitly tells us that, yes, our heavenly Father does get angry with us, his children, the anger is not of the same type that continually gets trotted out by Calvinists, namely, that God is wrathful because of his offended honor or out of some desire to take vengeance on his besmirched Name. Rather, God is asking us, angrily, "What have you DONE to yourselves?! I will and must fix this, for I am good." He will fix us whether we want Him to or not, and the fixing, imposed on us by a righteous God, will be hell to those of us who don't want it, but there will be nothing we can do to stop it. The attitude of the Father, however, is one of a Father whose anger is provoked by seeing what's become of His child, not a selfish, "How could you DO this to me?! I'll teach YOU...!" type of anger.

I'd invite everyone to listen to these two talks, given by an extremely well-respected priest and former dean of my current place of studies, who I think does a masterful job of allowing the Bible to speak of the wrath it does indeed speak of, in the way of which it is meant to be spoken. They are the following:

The Wrath of God

and

The Wrath of God - Part 2

They show extremely well how Christ takes away the wrath spoken of in Scripture, not because He Himself "took the beating" that the vindictive, bloodthirsty "Father" needed to dish out, but because He is already fixed, and stands as the One who is fixed before the Father and can, thus, fix us so that we, too can stand before the Father.

Salvation from the wrathful righteousness of the Father, through the becoming sin for us of Him Who knew no sin. It is the gospel, Rho; you're right...but I do not think we mean what you want us to mean.