Can "The Wrath of God" and "God is Love" Be Reconciled?

This is a post for people who are curious about the core teachings of the Christian faith.  I'm not one to claim that I've got everything figured out, but I want to get you thinking.  Oh, and I changed the title of this blog because of a conversation with a friend today.

Over at The Blog for InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Network I have been writing a review series on J.I. Packer's Knowing God, which is a collection of short articles on the nature of God and humankind.  Here I want to revise the series, but I'm going to do it backwards, starting with the final installment and ending with the first.


The Problem

There's a common thought among many outside observers of those following the Way of Jesus.  I've overheard people talk about Jesus' death as a strange act of cosmic child abuse, employed to change the mind of the angry God of the Old Testament.  But this, as J.I. Packer puts it, is a polytheistic misunderstanding of the gospel. Jesus is the same in character as the God of the Old Testament.  Jesus and the God of the Old Testament have the same essence.

Far from being cosmic child abuse, the death of Jesus was a self-sacrificial death.

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Best Christian Books of All Time Review Series: Knowing God Pt. III

Over at InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Blog I just finished the last of a three part review series on J.I. Packer's Knowing God.  Click here to read it.  

"Packer moves seamlessly from a discussion of judgment and anger to one of propitiation. Propitiation is a fancy word used to deliver the message that an entirely holy, all powerful God can hang out in intimacy with people who, having rejected his help, are anything but holy and powerful."

Quote of the Month about Jesus

The Word we study has to be the Word we pray. My personal experience of the relentless tenderness of God came not from exegetes, theologians, and spiritual writers, but from sitting still in the presence of the living Word and beseeching Him to help me understand with my head and heart His written Word. Sheer scholarship alone cannot reveal to us the gospel of grace. We must never allow the authority of books, institutions, or leaders to replace the authority of knowing Jesus Christ personally and directly. When the religious views of others interpose between us and the primary experience of Jesus as the Christ, we become unconvicted and unpersuasive travel agents handing out brochures to places we have never visited.

~Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

Note:  I really recommend this book, even for those who are not Christians.  It awakens the heart of our truest humanity.