AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH (Part VIII-B)

THE BOOK OF LAMENTATIONS

Theological Bites

Most people when they hear of a wrathful God they envision an emotional deity. The Bible is filled with emotional gestures and identifying marks attributed to God that depict him as emotional. Due to the risk of worshiping an emotional God, scholars have deliberated the matter and concluded that the language in the Bible that present God as emotionally equal in being and practice as human beings is either anthropomorphism (physiology= Human form, human organs, human members) or anthropopathism (psychology= Human affections, passions, and sufferings).

In the book of Lamentations, more is said about God’s anger than about his righteousness. Wrath, idiomatically described as “hot nose” is expressive of God’s anger. The wrath of God might not be literally stated in the text of lamentations but in the Hebrew text it is acrostically arranged to communicate the same. The following verses mention nothing but God’s anger (1:12; Lamentations 2:1 Lamentations 2:2 Lamentations 2:3 Lamentations 2:4 Lamentations 2:21 Lamentations 2:22; 3:43; 4:11).

In the same book we have the wrath of God presented metaphorically (anthropomorphism and Anthropopathy) by saying God’s anger, is poured out like fire (2:4;4:11 ) with the result that the strongholds of Judah have been torn down (2:2), king and priest have been spurned ( 2:6 ), and young and old have been slain ( 2:21).

Object Versus Casualties of God’s Wrath

To understand what the wrath of God is despite both the anthropomorphism and anthropopathy conception of Biblical writers and modern readers, we need to investigate the object and the probable casualties of the wrath of God. In the Bible, both the object and probable casualty of the wrath of God can be best demonstrated by Apostles Paul and John. In Romans 1:18-23 we are told that SIN is the object of God’s wrath and in Romans 1:24-32; 2:5 and John 3:36 we are told that the sinner is a probable casualty of the expression of the wrath of God.

The sin talked about in Romans under the developed and philosophical theology of Apostle Paul is Hamartia. Sin is a principal, power and state. It is not what is done or not done (morally) and this is what the Apostle in the New Testament talks about as the object of divine wrath. The sinning that the Old Testament believer might assume to be divine-wrath invoking is a violation of the law and the covenant stipulations. However, the wrath of God that manifested at the destruction of Judah Yahweh’s favourite went way beyond what they knew.

The exhibition of God’s wrath in the destruction of Judah was a demonstration of Yahweh’s perpetual attitude towards sin as a principal. The Jews and Israelites, therefore, were casualties of the collision of Divine wrath and sin. The wrath of God just as Sin (the object of divine wrath) is not something that God does, but a state. Apostle Paul never uses the verb, ‘to be angry,’ with God as subject, for divine anger-wrath is not a provoked reaction but a permanent attitude to a permanent target. It is an impersonal standard emotion that can only be aroused by one thing that is sin. The sinning of sinners does not trigger the wrath of God but the sin behind the sinning of sinners does.

Just like Sin is not a creation opponent, so is the wrath of God. Humanity and all creation is not a target to Sin in its principal being, the actual target of Sin are who God is, what he does and ordains. It is in the process of Sin attacking its major target that it (Sin) accesses it (God) through creation. When Sin wanted God and his creation, it attacked God’s image (Genesis 1:26; 3:1-19) and eventually God himself was dragged to eternal death through a humiliating cross (Luke 23:44-46).

It is for this reason that God forgives sinners but fights sin. When we grasp this truth, we understand that Hell and eternal damnation is never a place prepared for human beings however sinful they might be. Hell and eternal damnation is a place set as the destiny for sin or its personification known as Satan. If humanity were the object of divine wrath, then there would be no need or even a place of the cross in the history and theology of this world.

The presence of the cross demonstrates how the wrath of God is directed to sin and man can only be a casualty of the war between divine wrath and sin. At the cross, divine wrath and sin exceptionally collided, and at that point, divinity excused itself (Mathew 27:46; Psalm 22:1) and the incarnate God was consumed to death since he had become sin (Mark 15:37; 2Corinthians 5:21). When God himself became sin itself, he at the same time qualified as an object his own very wrath and what happened at the cross was (for lack of a better word) self-destruction.

The destruction of Judah (God’s own and favourite) was an exhibition of how far God could go in fighting sin. It was not that he could go as far as destroying his own but that even if it necessitated him dying and perishing while fighting sin, he was to that. Yahweh is the suffering servant talked about in Isaiah 52:13-53:1-12 that conquers the ultimate problem of sin through his death. What we have in the book of Lamentations, therefore, is advanced theology beyond their time.

Finally, I find this very important to mention here, that sinners are not the object of Divine Wrath but only those sinners who refuse to insure their lives with the sacrificial Yahweh at the cross and to take him on through belief will eventually be casualties of the final great controversy between divine wrath and sin. Just as he himself was consumed in the body at the cross when he representatively associated with sin, all human beings (sinners and saints together) not clothed with divine righteousness will be consumed as containers of the target (Sin) of divine wrath. The wrath of God is an eternal unchanging attitude towards sin, and its expression does not excuse associates.

God bless you I invoke TRUTH, WISDOM, and FAITH (2Tim 2:7)

Priest TIM WHITE (+256-775 822833 for further inquiries)

iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24)

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