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Scripture focus
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.
Romans 1:18 KJV
At a glance
Isn't the idea of an angry God simply an embarrassing, primitive idea Christians have outgrown?
Packer argues the opposite — that God's wrath is neither irrational nor cruel but his settled, righteous, entirely just response to sin, and that a faith which quietly drops the subject has lost something Scripture treats as essential, not optional.
Summary of the chapter
Packer names wrath plainly as deep, settled anger, and notes how uncomfortable modern Christianity has become with attributing it to God, even though both Testaments speak of it with striking frequency and seriousness. Where kindness is preached constantly, judgment and wrath, he observes, have become something close to a taboo subject.
He works to correct the most common misreading: that divine wrath must resemble human anger, with all its irrationality, moodiness or cruelty. Scripture's wrath, he argues, is nothing like that — it is judicial, proportionate, and a fitting response to real moral evil, not an emotional outburst. It is also, in an important sense, self-inflicted: people place themselves under God's wrath by rejecting the light and truth they have been given.
The chapter insists that removing wrath from the picture does not make God kinder; it makes the cross unnecessary, since it is precisely wrath against sin that Christ's death addresses. A God incapable of righteous anger toward evil would not be more loving — he would be morally indifferent, and Packer wants readers to see that the two attributes stand or fall together.
Key points
- Both Testaments speak of God's wrath extensively, even though it is one of the least preached doctrines in the modern church.
- Divine wrath is not comparable to human anger's irrationality or cruelty; it is a judicial, righteous, and proportionate response to sin.
- People are described as bringing wrath upon themselves by rejecting the light and truth already given them.
- Removing wrath from the picture of God would make the cross, and the atonement it accomplishes, unnecessary.
- A God incapable of righteous anger toward evil would not be more loving — he would be indifferent to it.
Related Scripture
- Nahum 1:2-3
- Romans 2:5
- John 3:36
- Ephesians 5:6
For reflection and discussion
- Why might a faith that quietly avoids the subject of God's wrath end up with a smaller view of his love as well?
- How does understanding wrath as 'self-inflicted' — a response to rejected light — change how you think about it?
- In what way does the cross only make sense once wrath against sin is taken seriously?
These notes are an original UECF.NET study companion and are not a reproduction of the book. Read the full chapter — chapter 15, “The Wrath of God” — in Knowing God by J. I. Packer (InterVarsity Press / Hodder & Stoughton, 1973).