Think Wink.

One of the many ways people try to break down the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament is that the Old Testament is where God is the God of wrath and the New Testament is where God is the God of love. And let us think about it for a second. Yahweh orders the mass genocide of Canaanite peoples under Joshua’s campaign to seize Palestine. Every time Israel would violate the Law of Moses, plagues and famines and wars would break out against the people of God. Read what Yahweh says in Ezekiel 5:8-10, “Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: I – even I – am against you, and I will execute judgment among you while the nations watch. I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again because of all your abominable practices. Therefore fathers will eat their sons within you, Jerusalem, and sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you, and I will scatter any survivors to the winds.” God’s punishment for Jerusalem is so terrible that God has never done anything like it and will never do it again. There will be such harsh famine (I’m guessing) that there will be cannibalism. And that is for the idolatrous and syncrotistic ways of Judah and Israel.

But in the New Testament, we have Jesus and texts like John 3:16, “For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” Or consider 1 John 4:8 and 1 John 4:16, “God is love.” And all of this talk of mercy and grace in the New Testament. God surely is a God of love and forgiveness in the New Testament.

However, I don’t think people fully grasp the New Testament’s idea of God’s hatred for sin and his wrath waiting for the day of judgment. For one thing, no one speaks more of hell than Jesus himself. Listen to how Jesus describes the rich man’s suffering in Luke 16:24, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in anguish in this fire.” This man is “in anguish in [the] fire.” Jesus also calls hell outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. The New Testament has a word for hell, γέεννα. It is a Greek transliteration of the Valley of Hinnom outside of Jerusalem. This valley is where all the trash and garbage and the unclean things were thrown out and burned. Jesus uses this term 11 times and James uses it once. It is a horrible thing to imagine being burned.

Or consider what John the Seer says in Revelation 14:9-11,

9 A third angel followed the first two, declaring in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and takes the mark on his forehead or his hand, 10 that person will also drink of the wine of God’s anger that has been mixed undiluted in the cup of his wrath, and he will be tortured with fire and sulfur in front of the holy angels and in front of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke from their torture will go up forever and ever, and those who worship the beast and his image will have no rest day or night, along with anyone who receives the mark of his name.”

The Revelator records the declaration of the third angel to say that if anyone worships the beast and takes his mark on their forehead or hand the will “drink of the wine of God’s anger that has been mixed undiluted in the cup of his wrath.” The symbolism of wine is very interesting. In ancient Israel, the Jews would drink their wine diluted with water, somewhere between 3 parts to 10 parts water to 1 part wine. It was very much diluted. But the angel declares that God will not dilute his wrath. But this implies that it had been diluted! That what was seen Ezekiel 5 or in the campaigns of Joshua and the genocide there were diluted forms of God’s wrath. But now, in the end when Christ reveals himself to defeat the beast and the false prophet, God’s wrath that is poured out on those who worship that beast is no longer diluted down. It is now ratcheted up! It is increased! It is so much more violent than what Ezekiel foretold.

Keep reading Revelation 14. The one who worships that beast and takes his mark “will be tortured with fire and sulfur in front of the holy angels and in front of the Lamb.” That person will be before Jesus tortured by fire and sulfur for taking that mark and worshiping that beast’s image. It is torture, βασανισθήσεται. It will be like one being tortured, tormented with flames of fire and sulfur and brimstone. That is God’s wrath against sin! And if the thought of God doing that to one who does not repent and come to Christ for mercy, think of the duration of this torture. “And the smoke from their torture will go up forever and ever, and those who worship the beast and his image will have no rest day or night, along with anyone who receives the mark of his name” (Revelation 14:11). The smoke of that torture by fire and sulfur (14:10–βασανισθήσεται; 14:11–βασανισμοῦ) will rise forever and ever. It will never end! God’s wrath is no longer temporal, but eternal! The siege of Jerusalem ended, the ensuing exile ended. The fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 ended. These things ended. But John says that the undiluted wine of God’s anger in the cup of wrath is eternal torture by fire and sulfur lasts forever. My question for someone to ponder: is the God seen in the New Testament just a God of love, mercy and grace? God is a God of wrath and his wrath is more severe than anything the Old Testament could dream up.

But my next post will show us something else in the relationship between the Old Testament and the New Testament: as God’s wrath is ratcheted up from Old to New, so is God’s love, mercy, and grace. Please check back here later, most likely Thursday or Friday.

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