God of Wrath and Judgment Strangely Absent from Liberal Christianity

It’s all about love…but is it?

COMMENTARY

By David W. Virtue, DD

www.virtueonline.org

June 19, 2025

It should not be passed over lightly that the more churches become liberal in doctrine and practice, the more they shout about a loving God – a God that never judges – is open to all, and will, presumably, save all.

I started noticing this in the Episcopal Church back when the activist Episcopal homosexual layman Louie Crew was pushing the homosexual agenda in TEC. His mantra ‘God loves absolutely everybody’ was frequently on his lips as he sought to open the church’s red doors to ‘absolutely everybody.’

We believe that God loves you – no exceptions, runs the official church meme.

“The Episcopal Church embraces a legacy of inclusion, aspiring to tell and exemplify God’s love for every human being; people of all genders and sexual orientations serve as bishops, priests, and deacons in our church. Laypeople and clergy work together in leadership and governance.”

A loving all embracive God became the cornerstone teaching of former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry. It started with a Royal Wedding, ‘Love is the way’ captivating millions with his sparkling personality, later sharing his mantra about love overcoming everything.

He never defined love, assuming people understood what he was talking about. But did they? C. S. Lewis spelled it out in his Four Loves book which was written 65 years ago and is still read to this day.

Christian theology categorizes love into Agape (unconditional love), Phileo (brotherly love), Eros (sensual love), and Storge (familial love), each with different societal and moral implications. Christian love emphasizes selflessness, charity, and societal cohesion, particularly within marriage.

‘All you need is love,’ sang the Beatles, which became the mantra of the 60s where free love roamed the land.

But is God only loving or is there another side to his character? Can God be wrathful? The answer of course, is that both are true.  But you would never know that listening to the sentimental twaddle pouring out of the mouths of woke clergy dying to tell you that God loves you, and you can come as you are and be yourself without changing.

What progressive leftist clergy opine is that God is totally inclusive and any attempt to make him less than that makes him capricious and unloving. But come as you are is only half the story. The other half of the story is that you will not be permitted to stay as you are, because the gospel demands repentance, confession, and newness of life. But that is not the message you will hear from an Episcopal rector. It’s a variation on ‘I’m okay, you’re okay,’ theme much championed by clergy cultural elites who like to earn a living agreeing with the world rather than being obedient to Christ.

Richard Niebuhr put it well when he said, "A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross." This is probably the best summation of liberal theology.

God’s love and God’s wrath can be found in both the Old and New Testament. In Exodus 34: 6-7 it is written, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”

It isn’t rocket science to see that both God’s love and God’s judgment are proclaimed here. The truth does not lie in one or the other, nor does the truth lie between them, with each moderating the other. Both are proclaimed absolutely by God.

It should come as no surprise that we find God’s love and God’s wrath in the teachings of Christ.

Here are a few verses where Jesus talks about hell:

Matt 5:22, 29,30

Matt 10:28 (= Luke 12:5)

Matt 11:23 (= Luke 10:15)

Matt 16:18

Matt 18:8,9 (= Mark 9:43-49)

Matt 23:15,23

Luke 16:23.

In Luke 12, Jesus tells the disciples to fear God because he can cast them into hell—yet also not to fear him, because he is their heavenly Father:

Jesus is recorded saying in Luke 12:4-7, “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” One could argue that Jesus is playing good cop, bad cop. “Fear him who…Don’t be afraid.”

We should fear God as judge and trust him as Father. God is both just and loving: God judges those who turn from him, and he cares for those who turn to him. We find God’s love together with his God’s wrath in the rest of the New Testament too.

God’s message of grace is tempered with dangers if we don’t respond and repent.

It is profoundly ironic that liberal churches who preach half a message of full acceptance are withering and dying, while evangelical churches that preach ‘the whole counsel of God’ are growing and flourishing.

Grandfathers are kindly and tolerant; fathers don’t have that option. They must discipline their children because the world can be a harsh and vicious place. That is why God is not a grandfather. God has no grandchildren.

In Hebrews, for example, the message is not that God is the judge in the Old Testament, and God is the savior in the New Testament. Rather, it is that, with a better revelation, the New Testament brings greater blessings, and also greater dangers if we don’t respond; “We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For since the message spoken through angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, how shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation?” (Hebrews 2:1-3).

Tough words you won’t hear from a liberal Episcopal pulpit.

How does the Bible bring wrath and love together?

Our God is ‘holy, holy, holy’ (Isaiah 6:3) and—because he is holy—he wants his people to be ‘a holy nation’ (Ex 19:6, 1 Pet 2:9). ‘You shall be holy, for I, the LORD your God, am holy.’ ‘I am the LORD; I make you holy.’ (Lev 19:2, 20:8).

In today’s culture, holiness has virtually no meaning at all.

Bishop J.C. Ryle defines holiness as practical. It involves obeying God's commandments, pursuing Christian virtues, and resisting temptations. Holiness is the habit of being of one mind with God. Heady stuff.

Yet God’s holiness also means danger for his people. Because God is holy, He:

tells us of our sin;

tells us not to sin;

warns us of his judgment on sin and on sinners;

judges us and disciplines us to cure us of our sins;

warns us of his wrath and final judgment, and;

calls us to repent and trust his faithful love and forgiveness.

Most importantly, because God is holy, he sent his holy Son to die in our place and take the punishment, judgment and wrath as our substitute; to sanctify (make holy) his people. He makes a holy covenant with us, and indwells us by his Holy Spirit.

Because God is holy, he sends his holy Son to die in our place and takes the punishment, judgment and wrath as our substitute; to sanctify (make holy) his people.

Jesus, in other words, is the one through whom God will judge the world (c.f. John 5:22-30). When we read Revelation 6 we get a shocking depiction of the day when that happens:

Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?” (Revelation 6:15-17).

Liberal Episcopalians beware.

END