God’s Anger Revealed

There is an eternal significance in the glorious gospel of Christ. The Bible’s storyline portrays God’s righteousness, and His sense of the most profound offense when His creation wishes to distance themselves from Him.

The Herald’s Revelation 14:6–13

Angels are often found in apocalyptic literature; they are the proclaimers of a message.

The first angel in v6 gives the message. It is“to those who live on the earth, to every nation, tribe, language and people.” The message is the “eternal gospel,” the same gospel we find in Paul. It is what God has ordained through His Son, this lion-lamb, Who pays the price of sin, takes on the effects of the curse, releases His people to gather and transform men and women from every tongue and tribe and people and nation.

Revelation 14:7 does not give us the content of the gospel, but addresses the motive to respond to the gospel, since the end is so close. People are called to respond in worship to their Creator, because judgment time is here.

The second angel, v8, announces the impending downfall of paganism, centered around Babylon. The word Babylon became synonymous with the spirit of godlessness that in every age lives in those who worship themselves, their successes, and their possessions. This announcement is the impending destruction of every culture that arrogantly sets itself up against God.

The third angel vividly portrays the torments awaiting those who worship the beast (the devil himself, Revelation 14:9–11). God’s wrath—any punishment exercised in the past, has been diluted. Any manifestation of God’s wrath seen so far: the exile, the plagues in the Old Testament, disease, war, or any horrible manifestations of God’s wrath were the diluted form.

The Harvest

Revelation 14:14–20 God’s judgment is depicted in two agricultural portraits.

The Grain Harvest

The point is simple: A set time is coming when the harvest will take place, and there is no escaping it. Life does not go on and on endlessly. God has appointed a time when everything as we know it will come to an end.

The Treading of the Winepress

Revelation 14:17–20

This final vision emphasizes the violent thoroughness of God’s wrath when it is finally poured out. It is imagery from the ancient world dealing with grape vines and harvest.

The imagery tells us something important about the awfulness of the final judgment on those who have spurned the “eternal gospel.” Here, the point of the imagery is the violent thoroughness of God’s wrath when it is finally poured out.

Biblical Reflection on God’s Wrath

A lot of Christians today, particularly in Western culture, want to say that it is better to think of hell as a place where there will be some temporary punishments, until eventually people simply lose all consciousness and fade away: annihilation. Others think that it is manipulative and cruel to think of, teach, or discuss hell at all, believing we should “just talk about the love of God.”

Jesus Talked about Hell More Than Anyone

Matthew 10:28 Do not fear those who can only kill your body. Fear Him, rather, Who after killing your body can consign both body and spirit to hell.

He talks about dungeons and chains, and outer darkness. If Christ spoke of hell, we must also.

This Place of Suffering Has No End

Revelation 14:11 The smoke of their torment will rise forever and ever. This does not sound like a place where suffering comes to an end. Revelation 20:10 And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night forever and ever. It is an illusory comfort to suppose that those who end up in hell will eventually be annihilated.

Those Confined to Hell Cannot Repent

Many people think they still get a second chance there. Let those who do wrong continue to do wrong; let those who are vile continue to be vile; let those who do right continue to do right; and let those who are holy continue to be holy. (Revelation 22:11).

That is, you move into the new heaven and the new earth, or you move into hell itself, and you remain in principle what you are already. If in Christ, you move into a new heaven and a new earth, without tendencies to fall away to the old nature. Or you move into hell and live just like you had been living prior, with no concern for God. Hell is full of people who do not want to bend the knee to God. They still nurture sin; they still hate others in an endless cycle of self-selected sin and iniquity.

Biblically, faithful Christianity does not present itself as a nice religious structure that makes happier parents, well-ordered children and good taxpaying citizens. It might do this, but the issues at stake in biblical Christianity have to do with eternity.

IT has to do with your relationship to your Maker, what God has provided in Christ, what the cross is about, the resurrection. At the end of the day, what hell measures is how much Christ paid for those who escape hell…whosoever will.

How have you responded to the Gospel?