God’s Wrath Is a Safeguard for All Just Forces and All Positive Things
God’s intolerance of offense is His exclusive substance; God’s wrath is His exclusive disposition; God’s majesty is His exclusive substance. The principle behind God’s anger demonstrates the identity and status that only He possesses. One needs not mention that it is also a symbol of the substance of the unique God Himself. God’s disposition is His own inherent substance. It does not change at all with the passage of time, nor does it change whenever the location changes.
His inherent disposition is His intrinsic substance. Regardless of whom He carries out His work upon, His substance does not change, and neither does His righteous disposition. When one angers God, that which He sends forth is His inherent disposition; at this time the principle behind His anger does not change, nor do His unique identity and status. He does not grow angry because of a change in His substance or because His disposition has produced different elements, but because man’s opposition against Him offends His disposition. Man’s flagrant provocation of God is a severe challenge to God’s own identity and status. In God’s view, when man challenges Him, man is contesting Him and testing His anger. When man opposes God, when man contests God, when man continuously tests God’s anger—which is also when sin runs rampant—God’s wrath will naturally reveal and present itself. Therefore, God’s expression of His wrath symbolizes that all evil forces will cease to exist; it symbolizes that all hostile forces will be destroyed. This is the uniqueness of God’s righteous disposition, and it is the uniqueness of God’s wrath. When God’s dignity and holiness are challenged, when just forces are obstructed and unseen by man, God will send forth His wrath. Because of God’s substance, all those forces on earth which contest God, oppose Him and contend with Him are evil, corrupt and unjust; they come from and belong to Satan. Because God is just, of the light and flawlessly holy, all things evil, corrupt and belonging to Satan will vanish with the release of God’s wrath.
His inherent disposition is His intrinsic substance. Regardless of whom He carries out His work upon, His substance does not change, and neither does His righteous disposition. When one angers God, that which He sends forth is His inherent disposition; at this time the principle behind His anger does not change, nor do His unique identity and status. He does not grow angry because of a change in His substance or because His disposition has produced different elements, but because man’s opposition against Him offends His disposition. Man’s flagrant provocation of God is a severe challenge to God’s own identity and status. In God’s view, when man challenges Him, man is contesting Him and testing His anger. When man opposes God, when man contests God, when man continuously tests God’s anger—which is also when sin runs rampant—God’s wrath will naturally reveal and present itself. Therefore, God’s expression of His wrath symbolizes that all evil forces will cease to exist; it symbolizes that all hostile forces will be destroyed. This is the uniqueness of God’s righteous disposition, and it is the uniqueness of God’s wrath. When God’s dignity and holiness are challenged, when just forces are obstructed and unseen by man, God will send forth His wrath. Because of God’s substance, all those forces on earth which contest God, oppose Him and contend with Him are evil, corrupt and unjust; they come from and belong to Satan. Because God is just, of the light and flawlessly holy, all things evil, corrupt and belonging to Satan will vanish with the release of God’s wrath.
Although the outpouring of God’s wrath is one aspect of the expression of His righteous disposition, God’s anger is by no means indiscriminate as to its target or without principle. To the contrary, God is not at all quick to anger, nor does He rashly reveal His wrath and His majesty. Additionally, God’s wrath is considerably controlled and measured; it is not at all comparable to how man will flare into a rage or vent his anger. Many conversations between man and God are recorded in the Bible. The words of some of these individuals were shallow, ignorant and infantile, but God did not strike them down, nor did He condemn them. In particular, during Job’s trial, how did Jehovah God treat Job’s three friends and the others after He heard the words that they spoke to Job? Did He condemn them? Did He fly into a rage at them? He did nothing of the sort! Instead He told Job to entreat for them, to pray for them; God, on the other hand, did not take their faults to heart. These instances all represent the primary attitude with which God treats corrupt, ignorant humanity. Therefore, the release of God’s wrath is by no means an expression or venting of His mood. God’s wrath is not a full-blown eruption of rage as man understands it. God does not release His wrath because He is unable to control His own mood or because His anger has reached its boiling point and must be vented. To the contrary, His wrath is a display of His righteous disposition and a genuine expression of His righteous disposition; it is a symbolic revelation of His holy substance. God is wrath, tolerant of no offense—this is not to say that God’s anger does not distinguish among causes or is unprincipled; it is corrupt humanity that has an exclusive patent on unprincipled, random bursts of rage that does not distinguish among causes. Once a man has status, he will often find it difficult to control his mood, and so he will enjoy seizing upon instances to express his dissatisfaction and vent his emotions; he will often flare up into rage for no apparent reason, so as to reveal his ability and let others know that his status and identity are different from those of ordinary people. Of course, corrupt people without any status will also frequently lose control. Their anger is frequently caused by damage to their individual benefits. In order to protect their own status and dignity, corrupt mankind will frequently vent their emotions and reveal their arrogant nature. Man will flare up in anger and vent his emotions in order to defend the existence of sin, and these actions are the ways with which man expresses his dissatisfaction. These actions brim with defilement; they brim with schemes and intrigues; they brim with man’s corruption and evil; more than that, they brim with man’s wild ambitions and desires. When justice contests wickedness, man will not flare up into anger to defend the existence of justice; contrarily, when the forces of justice are threatened, persecuted and attacked, man’s attitude is one of overlooking, evading or flinching. However, when facing the forces of evil, man’s attitude is one of catering, and of bowing and scraping. Therefore, man’s venting is an escape for evil forces, an expression of the rampant and unstoppable evil conduct of the fleshly man. When God sends forth His wrath, however, all evil forces will be stopped; all sins of harming man will be stopped; all hostile forces that obstruct God’s work will be made apparent, separated and cursed; all of Satan’s accomplices who oppose God will be punished, rooted out. In their place, God’s work will proceed free of any obstacles; God’s management plan will continue to develop step by step according to schedule; God’s chosen people will be free of Satan’s disturbance and deceit; those who follow God will enjoy God’s leadership and supply among tranquil and peaceful surroundings. God’s wrath is a safeguard preventing all evil forces from multiplying and running rampant, and it is also a safeguard that protects the existence and spread of all just and positive things and eternally guards them from suppression and subversion.
Can you see the substance of God’s wrath in His destruction of Sodom? Is there anything mingled within His rage? Is God’s rage pure? To use man’s wording, is God’s wrath unadulterated? Is there any ruse behind His wrath? Is there any conspiracy? Are there any unspeakable secrets? I can tell you sternly and solemnly: There is no part of God’s wrath that can lead one to doubt. His anger is pure, unadulterated anger and harbors no other intentions or goals. The reason for His anger is pure, blameless and above criticism. It is a natural revelation and display of His holy substance; it is something that none of the creation possess. This is a part of God’s unique righteous disposition, and it is also a striking difference between the respective substances of the Creator and His creation.
Regardless of whether one becomes angry in the sight of others or behind their backs, everyone has a different intention and purpose. Perhaps they are building up their prestige, or maybe they are defending their own interests, maintaining their image or keeping face. Some exercise restraint in their anger, while others are more rash and flare up with rage whenever they wish without the least bit of restraint. In short, man’s anger derives from his corrupt disposition. No matter what its purpose, it is of the flesh and of nature; it has nothing to do with justice or injustice because nothing in man’s nature and substance corresponds to the truth. Therefore, corrupt humanity’s temper and God’s wrath should not be mentioned in the same breath. Without exception, the behavior of a man corrupted by Satan begins with the desire to safeguard corruption, and it is based on corruption; thus, man’s anger cannot be mentioned in the same breath as God’s wrath, no matter how proper it may seem in theory. When God sends forth His rage, evil forces are checked, evil things are destroyed, while just and positive things enjoy God’s care, protection, and they are allowed to continue. God sends forth His wrath because unjust, negative and evil things obstruct, disturb or destroy the normal activity and development of just and positive things. The goal of God’s anger is not to safeguard His own status and identity, but to safeguard the existence of just, positive, beautiful and good things, to safeguard the laws and order of humanity’s normal survival. This is the root cause of God’s wrath. God’s rage is a very proper, natural and true revelation of His disposition. There are no intentions behind His rage, nor is there deceit or plotting; or even more so, His rage contains none of the desire, craftiness, maliciousness, violence, evil or anything else that all corrupt humanity share. Before God sends forth His rage, He has already perceived the substance of every matter quite clearly and completely, and He has already formulated accurate, clear definitions and conclusions. Thus, God’s objective in every matter He does is crystal-clear, as is His attitude. He is not muddle-headed; He is not blind; He is not impulsive; He is not careless; more so, He is not unprincipled. This is the practical aspect of God’s wrath, and it is because of this practical aspect of God’s wrath that humanity has attained its normal existence. Without God’s wrath, humanity would descend into abnormal living conditions; all things just, beautiful and good would be destroyed and cease to exist. Without God’s wrath, the laws and order governing creation would be broken or even utterly subverted. Since the creation of man, God has continuously used His righteous disposition to safeguard and sustain humanity’s normal existence. Because His righteous disposition contains wrath and majesty, all evil people, things, objects and all things that disturb and damage humanity’s normal existence are punished, controlled and destroyed because of His wrath. Over the past several millennia, God has continuously used His righteous disposition to strike down and destroy all kinds of unclean and evil spirits which oppose God and act as Satan’s accomplices and bailiffs in His work of managing humanity. Thus, God’s work of the salvation of man has always advanced according to His plan. This is to say that because of the existence of God’s wrath, the most righteous cause among men has never been destroyed.
Source: "Continuation of The Word Appears in the Flesh—The Way to Know God"
Recommendation: Eastern Lightning | The Church of Almighty God
Recommendation: Eastern Lightning | The Church of Almighty God
No comments:
Post a Comment