The Old Testament prophets always seem to be so angry with God’s people. One time I was leading a BIble study when someone said, “I don’t read the prophetic literature because it’s so full of anger, judgment and wrath. I don’t want to read about that. I want to read about the good stuff.”
There are several things wrong with this sort of statement, but I don’t want to take up that issue here. What I do wish to take up, however, is why the prophets were always pronouncing judgment and wrath.
The list of reasons why we find so much judgment in the prophetic literature of the Old Testament is long and we cannot address all of them now so I’ll just deal with the first one and that is because Israel was constantly violating the covenant that God made with them after the Exodus through Moses.
This was confusing for Israel. This confused them because they felt as if they were obeying the covenant laws and stipulations. They were performing the sacrifices, obeying food laws, not making wooden and metal idols, etc. How could the prophets say they were violating the covenant (granted, there are many cases where they were not obeying the external stipulations of the law, especially idolatry)?
This is similar to Jesus who, on the one hand, says that people will not enter the kingdom if their righteousness does not exceed that of the Pharisees, and on the other hand, says that the Pharisees are guilty of keeping people out of heaven. Are the Pharisees keeping the Torah or not, Jesus? I’m confused.
This apparent dilemma demands us to ask not what the letter of the law is but what the spirit of the Law is. This is what the prophets mean and this is what Jesus meant. The Jews and the Pharisees, while attemping to keep the letter of the law, misinterpreted its core message: the holy love of God.
All of the Torah is intended to teach God’s people (via object lessons, like the sacrificial system and food laws) that God is different, that he’s set a part, that he is holy; because of God’s holiness, his people too are to be holy. This is the first major part of the lesson. Israel understood this quite well as did the Pharisees.
However, what they misunderstood was that they believed that God’s punishment for those who did not conform to his standard of living who succumb to his punishment that was driven by wrath. This is only partially right. It is true that those who do not conform to his prescribed way of life are subject to judgment, however, that judgment is driven not primarily by wrath, but by love.
The Torah teaches that God is not only holy, but also loving. He is a God of Love.
This means that the primary purpose of the jugment of God is for purification not simply vengeance. God judges and unleashes his wrath so that people will turn and love him, not so that they would be destroyed. This is the story of Jonah, by the way.
This is not unlike a parent punishing a child. The punishment is for instruction driven by love, not for the purpose of vengeance or destruction.
The principle of this is clearly exhibited in the cross. The great event of the wrath of God unleashed on his only son. The purpose of this punishment is to melt the icy hearts of believers into understanding that God is holy love. When we look on the cross we see that God’s wrath and judgment is intended to transform, not destroy.
This means that the prophetic literature is not all about wrath, but about love. We cannot miss the forrest for the trees. One cannot reject the prophetic literature and keep the cross, for the they share the same heart of God.
