The Anger of the Lord
8/14/26 Bible Thought (Lamentations 2)
Main Idea: The anger of the Lord is a necessary outworking of His holiness and justice.
A Look at the Text:
The second chapter of Lamentations continues to unpack the destruction of Jerusalem. This lament follows the same exclamation of “How!” in response to the great tribulation that Jerusalem had gone through. It also attributes the cause of destruction to the Lord as the first lament did; however, what is in primary focus now is the Lord’s anger (Lam. 2:1).
The Lord cut them down in “fierce anger” (Lam. 2:3). He “poured out his fury like fire” (Lam. 2:4). Jerusalem being laid waste was the result of his “fierce indignation” (Lam. 2:6). They had experienced the day of his anger (Lam. 2:21), the “day of the anger of the Lord” (Lam. 2:22).
He had done what He had purposed, carrying out the word he had commanded long before (Lam. 2:17; see also Deut. 28:15-68)
Bringing it Home:
The anger of God is not a popular concept.
The idea of a wrathful God is increasingly seen as an antiquated view that we need to move past. A God who needs propitiation has no place in Christianity, some say. There are even those who go as far as to claim that Yahweh cannot be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But the Bible unapologetically presents a God who gets angry, even in the New Testament (see John 3:36; Rom. 1:18; 1 Thess. 1:10; 5:9; Rev. 6:16-17; 14:10; 15:1; 19:15). Yet this is not His only trait. As David once so beautifully penned:
The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (Psalm 103:8).
The Scripture presents a God who gets angry but also a God who is slow to anger. He put up with the sin of Judah for centuries before the day of His anger turned them over to their captors.
This in mind, we must see that the wrath of God is merely an outworking of His holiness and justice. If God were to never punish sin, He wouldn’t be just. If God were merely just, no sinners would stand a chance, and He wouldn’t be loving.
Yet God is both. He is a God of love (1 John 4:8), and He is also holy, holy, holy (Isa. 6:3; Rev. 4:8). These things are not mutually exclusive, and this is displayed in no better place than the cross.
At the cross, God showed His love for us in giving His Son while we were still sinners (Rom. 5:8; John 3:16; 1 John 4:9-10). Yet, God was also perfectly just in that He punished sin.
At Calvary, God was both just and the Justifier (Rom. 3:21-26). Sinners could not be merely let off the hook for their rebellion, and yet in His confounding love, His wrath was borne by another.
The anger of God shouldn’t be something the Christian shies away from believing. Instead, it ought to lead us to humble thanksgiving for the salvation we’ve been so freely given. Oh, what a Savior!
Challenge:
Am I tempted to ignore aspects of God I don’t like?