Wrath Inseparable from Love

The Bible does not see the love and wrath of God as two conflicting impulses, wrath restraining love from time to time: on the contrary, wrath is tempered with mercy. In the New Testament it is nowhere said directly that God is angry. Two words are used for wrath, orge and thumos, and when they are used, wrath is seen as something ordained by God but distinct from hm, a kind of indirect relationship to God. Nobody in the New Testament speaks of appeasing of 'propitiating' God's wrath, a grotesque idea which has entered into and seriously damaged the Christian doctrine of the atonement. On the other hand, the New Testament does say that we can escape the wrath of God. Wrath is as inseparable from love as darkness from light. To reject, and live apart from, the love of God is to enter the world of wrath, of ruin, of disaster. Wrath is not a deranged divine temperament, nor is it justice opposing love: it is the inevitable consequence of a rejection of God's love.

- True Prayer by Kenneth Leech