The God of the Bible loves justice and hates evil. Sin and evil, therefore, provoke Him to passion, a passion expressed on behalf of those oppressed and abused, and even in cases in which one’s evil affects primarily oneself. God hates evil because evil always hurts His creatures, even if self-inflicted. In the biblical narratives, God is repeatedly provoked to anger by what biblical scholars refer to as the cycle of rebellion. This cycle goes as follows:
The people rebel against God and do evil, sometimes even horrendous atrocities, such as child sacrifice and other abominations in His sight.
God withdraws according to the people’s decisions.
The people are oppressed by foreign nations.
The people cry to God for deliverance.
God graciously delivers the people.
The people rebel against God again, often more egregiously than before.
In the face of this cycle of egregious evil and infidelity, however, God repeatedly meets human unfaithfulness, but with unending faithfulness, long-suffering forbearance, amazing grace, and deep compassion.
Read Psalm 78. What does this passage convey about God’s response to His people’s repeated rebellions?
According to the Bible, love and justice are intertwined. Divine anger is the proper response of love against evil because evil always hurts someone whom God loves. There is no instance in Scripture where God is arbitrarily or unfairly wrathful or angry.
And while God’s people repeatedly forsook and betrayed Him, over the centuries God continued patiently to bestow compassion beyond all reasonable expectations (Neh. 9:7–33), thus demonstrating the unfathomable depth of His long-suffering compassion and merciful love. Indeed, according to Psalm 78:38, God, “being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them. Yes, many a time He turned His anger away, and did not stir up all His wrath” (NKJV).
Surely, you have been angry over the evil done to others. How does this emotion help you better understand, then, God’s wrath toward evil?
Supplemental EGW Notes
“For all this they [the children of Israel] sinned still, and believed not for His wondrous works. . . . When He slew them, then they sought Him: and they returned and inquired early after God. And they remembered that God was their Rock, and the high God their Redeemer.” Psalm 78:32-35. Yet they did not turn to God with a sincere purpose. Though when afflicted by their enemies they sought help from Him who alone could deliver, yet “their heart was not right with Him, neither were they steadfast in His covenant. But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned He His anger away. . . . For He remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again.” Verses 37-39.—Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 410.
Christ was approaching the end of His mission, and He knew that when that time should come, Jerusalem’s day of probation would have ended. But He was reluctant to pronounce the words of doom. For three years He had come, seeking fruit and finding none. During these years one object was ever upon His soul—to present before His thankless, disobedient people the solemn warnings and gracious invitations of heaven. . . .
He carried them on His heart. He did all that He could do to save them. But at the end of His work in this world He was forced to say in an agony of tears, “Ye would not come unto Me that ye might have life.”
The cloud of divine wrath was gathering over Jerusalem. Christ saw the city beleaguered. He saw it lost. In a voice full of tears he exclaimed, “If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.”—This Day With God, p. 109.
God has sent messages from His Word to the souls who are living careless lives, and who are unashamed of their wrong course of action. I heard the words spoken: “Why sayest thou . . . My way is hid from the Lord and my judgment is passed over from my God? Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?” (Isaiah 40:27, 28). . . .
God is constantly appealing to the human heart, bidding it recognize His love and mercy, and accept His righteousness in the place of the principles of evil. Thus He has pleaded with mankind in all ages. In Noah’s day Christ spoke to men through a human agency and preached to those who were in bondage to sin. He came to Israel enshrouded in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. He it was who educated that vast multitude in their wilderness wandering.
There are many who do not weigh these things sufficiently. The instruction given to Israel should be understood today by every soul living.—This Day With God, p. 278.
The above quotations are taken from Ellen G. White Notes for the Sabbath School Lessons, published by Pacific Press Publishing Association. Used by permission.