Makinig sa weekly broadcast ng Kaliwanagan every Tuesday at Thursday sa Tanglaw sa Landas ng Buhay sa 702 DZAS sa oras ng 7PM
This month we talked about a question raised to me by a university professsor, si Zane who asked me about how to wrap his mind around the point of a loving God and a God that is vengeful o yung may poot. Para daw hindi magkatugma. Lalong lalo na doon sa mga passages when God commanded Israel to invade Canaan. It portrays God as very angry and quite a far cry from the loving God na alam natin.
It was not a very easy topic for me to discuss love and wrath, lalung lalo na po yung galit ng Diyos. Sabi nga ng isang author na kinowt natin sa earlier episodes,
These terms are to be considered anthropopathic expressions; human terms, however, cannot give the full meaning of the infinite and sovereign God's emotional experiences. As his love is infinitely incomprehensible, so are his displeasure, hate, anger, wrath, and vengeance. There is good reason indeed for the writer to the Hebrews to warn sinful people that it "is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" ( Heb 10:31 ). *So the argument we will try to respond today as we wrap us is, “God cannot be both loving and wrathful because anger and wrath do not mix.”
So the argument goes, “God cannot be both loving and angry because love and anger do not mix.” Actually love and anger can mix, even in a human level. A father finds out that his son is doing drugs. He talks to him with an anger towards addiction and his son’s actions. Nasaan ang pagmamahal doon? Sinisikap ng ama na alisin siya sa kalagayan na ganon. In the book of Amos chapter 3, God said “You only have I chosen of all the clans of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.” Consequently Hebrews 12:6 says, “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” This idea of love and anger forms a foundation for God’s disciplinary actions. Kung hindi siya galit sa kasalanan, hindi siya magtutuwid sa atin; kung hindi siya mapagmahal, hindi siya magtutuwid sa atin.
Ang love and wrath although they are attributes of God they are attributes of actions din and as such may mga objects.
Attribute siya ng Diyos kaya naman gagawa at gagawa siya ng action that would be extended as compassion, long-suffering, mercy, etc. Tulad ng nangyari sa Canaanites. God did not only give a chance for the Canaanites to change their ways for 400 plus years, He also allowed His people, the people of His promise towards slavery so that He can exhaust the time He has allotted for the Canaanites. He was willing to call His people to suffer, in the same way He was willing to send His son to suffer for His glory. Yet these Canaanites became worse even to the point of sacrificing children burning them at the shrine of Molech, sex with animals and many more.. Tapos, although they knew that the judgment of God was imminent on their evil, they fought against the army of God instead of submit or surrender. Rahab and family did it. We know that the Canaanites were scared of their impending judgment and many of them probably fled because Rahab told the spies. The Gibeonites also surrendered and thus they were spared. Yet the rest of the Canaanite cities who celebrated evil fought back.
So this way we can still see the love of God in His motions to extend judgment. God does this out of His loving nature kasi kung walang motion of the will ang Diyos to love. If God does not have this giving nature we call as love, kung wala sa bokabolaryo ng Diyos ang magbigay ng kahit ano, eh di wala din tayo sa mundong ito kasi ang buhay natin, at lahat ng mga bagay sa paligid para sa pananagana natin at pagsusustain ng ating buhay ay galing sa kanya.
Imagine niyo na lang po yung ganid na tao, na ayaw magbigay. Kung ganyan ang Diyos eh wala tayo ngayon dito.
Ngayon etong pagbibigay na ito ng Diyos ay napakahalagang katangian ng Diyos kaya naman mayroon din siyang poot sa mga gustong sumira nitong mga biyaya niya. This seems to be the dominant na reason why He gave judgment sa Canaanites. Most of us siguro do not understand this intensity -- whether it will be yung napag usapan nating Paul Copan model or Clay Jones model, both give us the idea that simply because we do not see the full picture of the destruction or the danger of sin dahil marami sa atin nakaranas ng pleasure ng sin. God does not take pleasure in sin that is why our finiteness, our sinfulness our small brains do not see sin the way God sees it. What we do see however is his testimony that he is angered by sin. We see this in very explicit verses. So palagi pong ang best explanation natin ay rooted sa wisdom and judgment ng Panginoon. Sabi nga ni Wayne Grudem, "The difference between God's being and ours is more than the difference between the sun and a candle, more than difference between the ocean and a raindrop, more than the difference between the arctic ice cap and snowflake, more than the difference between the universe and the room we are sitting in: God's being is qualitively different."†
Yet we are not prohibited to provide other reasons in fact all month we provided those reasons na consistent sa Biblical revelation.
May mga objects ang actions ng Lord derived from His love and wrath.
(C) Photo Credit
NOTE: will update this article in the next few days
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* Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, sv "Wrath of God"; accessed at https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionaries/bakers-evangelical-dictionary/wrath-of-god.html
† Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology
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