‘For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hinder the truth in unrighteousness,'
‘For --.' This connecting word immediately lets us know why God has revealed His salvation and His righteousness. It is because of what man had become in his ungodliness and unrighteousness.
In contrast to those who have ‘experienced the righteousness of God' by faith, and have thus enjoyed the experience of God-given righteousness, are those who are still languishing in ‘ungodliness and unrighteousness'. They are both religiously and morally bankrupt (even though they may outwardly be highly religious or highly moral). They are both ungodly and disobedient to His truth. They have not become participants in God's grace. They have not experienced His righteousness. And indeed it can be their own unrighteousness which is for them a hindrance to the truth.
We should note here that what hinders men receiving the truth is not lack of knowledge, or difficulty of understanding, or the absence of ‘proof'. The hindrance lies in their unrighteousness. For it is a consequence of their unrighteousness that they ‘hold down (keep suppressed, render inoperative) the truth'. They refuse to listen to the voice within. Unrighteousness causes blindness in the hearts of men because it makes them close their eyes. Man does not will to see. As Jesus Himself said, ‘If any man wills to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself' (John 7:17). And the corollary is that those who are in blindness are those who do not ‘will to do His will'. They may protest that they want to do God's will. But what they mean is that they want to do their own will which they see as God's will. And because of this they close their eyes to God. They are not willing to ‘see God'. Against this deliberate unrighteousness ‘the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven', in other words, He makes a response which is due to His total antipathy to sin. ‘The wrath of God' is Scriptural terminology for God's abhorrence of, and antipathy towards, sin, an antipathy which results in Him having to act against it in condemnation and judgment, because it is contrary to His very nature. It does not necessarily indicate what we mean by anger. It is a sense that is unique to a holy God.
But we may ask, ‘how is the wrath of God revealed from Heaven? It is revealed in a number of different ways:
· 1). It is firstly revealed in the Scriptures. The Scriptures continually point to the fact of God's anger against sin and sinners (e.g. Lamentations 2:1; Lamentations 2:3-4; Lamentations 2:6; Lamentations 3:1; Lamentations 4:11; Lamentations 5:22 and often in the prophets).
· 2). It is revealed in man's conscience as God illuminates the inner man and fills a man with the fear of God. Conscience makes cowards of us all.
· 3). It is revealed in everyday living. Those who worship the beasts of the earth will themselves become beastly (Romans 1:23-27). Those who refuse to have God in their knowledge will become more and more unrighteous (Romans 1:28-32). They will become ‘children of wrath' (Ephesians 2:3). This is evidence of the wrath of God.
· 4). It will be revealed on the day of Judgment on those who are ‘under wrath' (Romans 2:5; Romans 5:9; John 3:36; 1 Thessalonians 5:9), when our Lord Jesus Christ is ‘revealed from Heaven' (2 Thessalonians 1:7-8), ‘taking vengeance on those who do not know God and those who do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ'.
So the wrath of God is both present and future. Men live under and experience His wrath now, and they will come under His wrath in the day of judgment.