Is God Angry with the World?

How do you think people in your town, city, or country would respond to a poll asking if God is angry at the world? Some might look at the suffering, injustice, and corruption around them and conclude that, if there is a God, he is either angry or, at the very least, indifferent to the world.

But on the African continent, especially among those who, even if superficially, profess some sort of Christian faith, I suspect that most would balk at the idea of an angry God. How can a God of love be angry? These people cannot imagine that God can be simultaneously angry and loving. But what does the Bible teach?

In his letter to Rome, Paul emphasises the transformative power of the gospel (see 1:16–17). He asserts that the gospel can save anyone who believes, regardless of background. Specifically, in his context, he rejoices in God’s power to save Jew and Gentile. God gifts salvation to individuals, regardless of ethnic background, who place their trust in his Messiah, Jesus Christ, as revealed in his word.

But what does he save us from? Paul addresses this question in 1:18–3:20, where he discusses the universal problem of sin. He examines the sin and guilt of Gentiles before God (1:18–32), followed by Jewish sin and guilt (2:1–3:8), and concludes that all humanity is guilty before God (3:9–20).

This highlights the severity of the situation—the bad news. Paul summarises: “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven” (1:18). “Wrath” describes God’s settled anger against sin. Yes, God is angry!

Happily, Paul does not leave us there. In 3:21–5:21, he explains how God addresses his anger towards us. This is the gospel—the good news of what God has done for believing sinners in Jesus Christ. In Christ, God assumed human flesh, lived a sinless life, died a sacrificial death, and rose victoriously from the grave, conquering sin and death, and thereby imputing righteousness and granting everlasting life to all who will receive him by repentance and faith.

But what about the unrighteous? What about those whose faith is not rooted in Jesus Christ? What about those who ignore or reject the gospel? The only conclusion is that God’s wrath remains on them. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (1:18). Yes, God is angry with the (unbelieving) world.

No wonder Paul considered himself so privileged to be the bearer of the gospel to a world sunk in sin and subject to God’s wrath. How privileged he was to carry the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ to a world languishing under God’s wrath! “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (1:16).

Consider, from Romans 1, four biblical truths about God’s wrath, which expresses itself in judgement, and which create the context in which the gospel shines brightest.

First, consider that Gods anger is not only a future reality. The Bible clearly teaches a future, final judgement, in which all humanity will be resurrected to stand before the throne of judgement (John 5:28–29; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Revelation 20:11–15). But our text makes clear that, in the present, God’s wrath “is” being revealed against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.

Scripture plainly testifies that God revealed his anger in our past. His anger against sin was on display in the flood (Genesis 6–8), at Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19), and in the wilderness when his people, after the exodus, grumbled ungratefully against him (Numbers 14:29–30; 32:13; Psalm 78:32; etc.). As we gaze down the corridor of history, we clearly see evidence of divine anger.

But this text teaches that God’s anger, even now, is on display against sin and unrighteousness.

Second, note the reason that God is angry at unrighteousness and ungodliness. The reason given in the text before us is that human unrighteousness suppresses truth (v. 18). When we act in unrighteousness and ungodliness, it is as if we stick our fingers in our ears and scream to God, “I can’t hear you!”

Unrighteousness suppresses truth because it pretends that there is no God. According to vv. 19–20, no one has an excuse to not know about God. In creation, God has revealed himself to humanity. To be sure, this general revelation is insufficient to save sinners, but the witness of creation declares God’s eternal power and divine nature so that people who deny his existence are without excuse. It is not that they lack evidence, but that they have suppressed the truth in unrighteousness, which makes God angry.

Creation offers overwhelming evidence of God’s existence. To deny this is to suppress the truth and to call God a liar. There has perhaps been no greater suppression of this truth than humanistic theories of evolution, which deny God’s design in creation. These theories persist not because those who espouse them lack evidence of God’s design but because they suppress that evidence. This angers God.

Third, the text reveals how God displays his anger against unrighteousness and ungodliness. Paul continues, “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonouring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen” (Romans 1:24–25).

When people suppress God’s truth, he hands them over to their own futile thinking. And as they dig deeper into their own futility, it produces only further unrighteousness (see vv. 26ff).

The unrighteousness we see around is is evidence that God is angry with the world. Violent crime testifies that God, in his anger, has handed humanity to its futile thinking. Economic greed and political deceit show that God has given humanity to futile thinking. Gossip, envy, malice, slander, and arrogance in the church reveal that God has handed humanity over to a debased mind. If we are blind to obvious wrongs, unloving to our neighbour, and unmerciful to fellow human beings, it is because God is angry. That is the point of the catalogue of sins in Romans 1.

When unrighteousness grips society, it is because God has handed it over to its own futility. God wants us to recognise this truth and respond in humility, repentance, and faith, trusting Jesus Christ for forgiveness, cleansing and hope.

Fourth, rejoice that, in Jesus Christ, God has initiated a rescue plan for sinners languishing under his wrath. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, ‘The righteous shall live by faith’” (1:16–17).

God’s salvation came in the form of a baby, born in humble conditions to poor parents. That baby—Jesus of Nazareth—was God in the flesh. He grew to live a sinless life. He had no political or military authority. He was an itinerant preacher. But he lived the life we could never live because he kept his life from sin. He was the only human who never invited God’s wrath against himself, and yet he died cursed by God for the sins of humanity so that, through faith in him, believing sinners might be counted righteous before God (Galatians 3:13–14).

How can sinners, presently the objects of divine anger, made right with the God whom they have offended? Only by believing the gospel, which was concealed in the Old Testament but revealed in the New. In the gospel, God reveals the promise of salvation from God’s righteous anger. Jesus Christ, God’s Messiah, is the one in whom God has revealed the good news of salvation from sin and death. He is the righteousness of God.

It is not without reason that the Bible repeatedly says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7; see also 9:10). The God who loves you warns you. Repent. Trust. Do not fall into the hands of an angry God.