Posted on 07/01/2013 11:04:50 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
“Making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables” (John 2:15).- John 2:13-17
Clearly, there are some things that are right for the Lord to do that are not right for us to do. For example, because He is the Creator and sovereign of the universe, it is right for the Almighty to demand worship from His creation. However, though we are made in His image, Scripture tells us we are not to do the same. It is evil for a man to demand others worship him or anyone besides Yahweh (Ex. 20:3).
The Father and the Son get angry (Ps. 7:11–13; Rev. 14:14–20), and since God can do no wrong (James 1:13), we know anger is not evil in itself. But is it ever right for us to be angry? Christ’s anger answers the question in the affirmative. God the Son came in the flesh to be the second Adam and earn righteousness for His people. If Jesus had sinned, He could not have earned this righteousness, nor could He have been the lamb without blemish and turn away the Lord’s wrath toward sinners. The incarnate Christ never sinned (1 Peter 2:22), and so He proved His righteousness.
If Jesus never sinned, and if, as a man, He got angry, then we know there are times when men and women can rightly be angered. Jesus’ holy anger is best seen in His cleansing of the temple, which is related in today’s passage. Every year, Jews from around the world traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover because they were only allowed to offer the sacrifice at the temple (Deut. 16:1–8). It was impractical and expensive to bring the animal to be sacrificed, and so it was possible to buy lambs, oxen, and so on in the city. Money changers would set themselves up in the city, along with those who sold animals, in order to facilitate this process.
In Jesus’ day, these sellers set themselves up in the court of the Gentiles, where the nations came to pray. Thus, they barred access to the God-fearers who came to worship Yahweh. Also, the money-changers charged exorbitant rates for currency exchange and price-gouging occurred in selling the animals. These practices insulted the Lord by its exploitation of the poor (Prov. 14:31). Thus, Jesus rightly expelled these merchants from the temple in order to restore God’s house to a place where all could worship (John 2:15–16).
Today’s study helps us understand there are two things that make God especially angry. First, the merchants blocked the Gentiles from learning about and worshiping the Lord, and today we can legalistically impose regulations not found in Scripture that can inhibit the spread of the Gospel. Second, God will not countenance any who exploit or overlook the needs of the poor. May we enjoy freedom in Christ, help the poor, and thereby please our Father.
Isa. 10:1–4
Luke 14:12–14
Gal. 5:2–6
Rev. 22:18–19
....there are two things that make God especially angry. First, the merchants blocked the Gentiles from learning about and worshiping the Lord, and today we can legalistically impose regulations not found in Scripture that can inhibit the spread of the Gospel. Second, God will not countenance any who exploit or overlook the needs of the poor. May we enjoy freedom in Christ, help the poor, and thereby please our Father.
Question: Can we (successfully) anthropomorphize the “Wrath of God”? Beep.
Related questions: has anyone in history (besides Jesus Christ) successfully anthropomorphized the “Wrath of God”? If so, how? If not, why not?
Thanks for posting this. I’ve been working on a word study of the vengeance of God, knowing that it will be fulfilled by the Son on the throne. It never came to mind that the pro-death abortionists were murdering the worshippers of God, let alone keeping them from the Temple.
From a link on the page to “The Wrath of Almighty God”:
http://www.ligonier.org/learn/conferences/santa_ana_2003_conference/the-wrath-of-almighty-god-2760/
“When asked to describe God, what words would you choose? Loving? Wonderful? Perhaps mighty and all knowing? Or how about terrible, awful, and horrible? The wrath of God is one of the most unpopular attributes of God today.”
AND THE MOST NEEDED. Ear tickling makes money.
This is a great question.
I think it’s been a huge disservice to Christianity to act and teach that all anger is wrong.
Scripture teaches us to “Be angry and sin not” and Jesus shows us how to do it.
Interesting that “wrath of God” is rare in the Old Testament but common in the New Testament. The Old Testament seems to prefer “fear of God”.
Related question: Can anyone (successfully) describe exactly what is the "wrath of God"?
Thanks for posting.
Seriously?
Anger at sin.
It is real...and fierce.
Why did Jesus drive apostate Jews from the temple? Why would the temple be so important to him?
Thanks for the ping!
The Scriptures tell us that you are the Temple of The Living God. The human spirit has been ‘occupied’ by an enemy. Salvation drives out the enemy and installs the earnest of your inheritance in the Holy of Holies, your God breathed spirit inherited from Adam.
I doubt it. Why try?
In response to my question, "Can we (successfully) anthropomorphize the 'Wrath of God'?"
Your response is the reason why I ask the question (I think you know this).
Yep. I do know that, dear brother in Christ.
I gather you want me to flesh out an explanation of what I "know" here. (FWIW)
Okay, here goes: First of all, there is no way to pull God down to human categories of knowledge and experience without deforming the very idea of God Himself. Thus any such attempt boils down to falsifying Who God Is.
Another way to put it: the very attempt at "anthropomorphizing" God boils down to the will of a Man seeking to make (his own) human nature and experience the "measure" of God (and Nature itself, as it turns out).
Suffice it to say, God is not exhaustively "measurable" in such [human] terms. The Image cannot so does not dictate terms to its direct Source. The Image it limited to its status as the reflection of its direct Source; it can never attain to the status of Source itself.
At least this is so if the Image seeks after the Truth of its own "reflected" existence during its mortal lifetime.
Again, I refer to the philosopher Henri Bergson, who first noted the psychic condition of "open" vs. "closed" soul. Human free will determines in which mode a man chooses or elects to participate with the Great Hierarchy of Being — God–Man–World–Society — of which each and every human mortal is born part and participant.
Plato recognized One God "Beyond" the cosmos. He apperceived that this God projects divine Nous — intelligence, reason, mind — into the world of His creation. But Plato could not "name" this god.
For a name implies a personality. To Plato, there was nothing "personal" about his God Beyond. Though I'm sure he recognized that for human beings, there can be no sense of "mind" absent a person whose mind it is.
This conundrum was not resolved until the Incarnation of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, roughly some 400 years after the death of Socrates.
Thus I continue to maintain that the Coming of Christ was not only the fulfillment of the Patriarchs and the Prophets of the Old Testament, but the very explanation of St. Paul's epiphany/conversion on the Road to Damascus.
That is, not only the Torah was fulfilled by the incarnation of Jesus Christ, Messiah; but also classical philosophy was fulfilled....
Well, FWIW.
Thank you, dear brother, for writing!
Your thoughts are always welcome (and illuminating), boop. Thank you for your willingness to give of yourself so much.
What I want, whether you choose at any particular moment to be fulsome or sparing, is to be understood that I do not ascribe to myself the ability to characterize the Judeo-Christian God in anything approaching human terms. As you put it, “seeking to make human nature and experience the “measure” of God.” Nor do I think it within the capacity of anyone.
The whole of our being should be concerned with knowing and obeying the will of God, imperfect though our concern and ability may be. IMHO.
Thank you for your time and thoughts.
The Jewish mystics use the name Ayn Sof to describe God the Creator. Literally it means "no thing" but the point is what you have beautifully explained in your essay. Namely, that any word a mortal could use to describe God limits Who He IS to the meaning of the word in the mind of the one who used it.
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