If Our Sins Are Forgiven, Why Does Revelation Say God Will Pour Out His Wrath?

God is a dynamic being, with a personality and characteristics just like the people He created. Some of His character traits include loving, merciful, long-suffering, and creative. He is also righteous and holy. When considering why a being described in these wonderful, magnanimous terms may also be wrathful, it is key to understand that God is also just. He has a strong sense of right and wrong, and will always ultimately uphold the right. 

Verses that affirm God’s righteous justice include, but are not limited to:

“’Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen’” (Deuteronomy 27:19).

“He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord” (Psalm 33:5).

"I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work” (Ecclesiastes 3:17).

“For I the Lord love justice; I hate robbery and wrong; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them” (Isaiah 61:8).

“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Romans 12:19).

God’s wrath is not arbitrary, but it is turned toward sin, injustice, and evil. In the first 10 generations of humanity, the people turned so evil that God judged them by flooding the whole earth, sparing only Noah and his family. In the book of Exodus, God manifested His power and His wrath against the Egyptian Pharoh through the plagues. When Israel rejected Him, He would remove His hand of protection as a judgment, allowing them to be carried off into captivity.

The Book of Nahum has a passage that describes this relationship between God’s justice, His judgment, and His wrath well:

“The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebukes the sea and makes it dry; he dries up all the rivers; Bashan and Carmel wither; the bloom of Lebanon withers. The mountains quake before him; the hills melt; the earth heaves before him, the world and all who dwell in it. Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by him” (Nahum 1:2-6).

Since the cross, God has not executed judgment on the earth in such a dramatic fashion.

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Has God put aside His wrath entirely because of the death of Jesus Christ? The answer is both yes and no.

Because God is just, sin must be punished. When Jesus died on the cross, He accepted the punishment that every sinner must pay, even though He did not sin. This act is called substitutionary atonement. In the days of the Law, a lamb was sacrificed to pay for the price of sin; Jesus acted as a perfect lamb. When someone puts their faith in Jesus Christ, they accept that Jesus paid the price for their sin, and they follow Him with their whole life as a result. God extends complete forgiveness to the people who call on the name of His Son, and who put their faith and confidence not in their own goodness, but in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Since Jesus returned to the right hand of the Father at the Ascension, God the Father has restrained His judgment to give everyone an opportunity to put their faith and hope in the Lord Jesus, obtaining salvation and eternal life through His blood. God’s wrath against the sinners who have called on the name of Jesus, and have subsequently received the Holy Spirit, is assuaged.

Since the Ascension, many people have rejected Jesus, and continued to remain dead in their sins, committing violations against God and their fellow man. While God has been patient for 2,000 years, He cannot ignore this sin forever. Eventually, He will have to judge sin and execute justice.

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During the end of days, God will be fulfilling His promises, and preparing to set out the direction of eternity. During this time, there are allotted events that must happen, which are recorded in the book of Revelation. Some of what must happen is God’s justice being felt as He pours out His wrath.

One of the great injustices recorded in the prophecy is the death of the martyrs, people who died for their faith and sharing the Gospel. “...I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, ‘O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’” (Revelation 6:9b-10). The broad judgments against humanity are recorded by the Apostle John in his book.

The final judgments are:

The Seven Seal Judgments

1st Seal: White Horse (Revelation 6:1-2)

2nd Seal: Red Horse of Warfare (Revelation 6:3-4)

3rd Seal: Black Horse of Great Famine (Revelation 6:5-6)

4th Seal: Green Horse of Death by sword, hunger, plague (Revelation 6:7-8)

5th Seal: Martyrdom of believers in Christ (Revelation 6:9-11)

6th Seal: Cataclysmic events in heaven and earth

7th Seal: The 7 Trumpet Judgments

The 7 Trumpets 

Hail and fire (Revelation 8:7)

Death of aquatic life (Revelation 8:8-9)

The fall of a star that poisons the water

The darkening of the sun and moon (Revelation 8:12)

Plague of demonic locusts (Revelation 9:1-11)

Death of 1/3rd of humanity (Revelation 9:12-21)

Heaven opens up (Revelation 11:18)

Even after all this, the book of Revelation records, “The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts” (Revelation 9:20-21).

During this time, the Bible does record that people will get saved during the Last Days, so these people who have yet to repent are not doing so because they are ignorant. They continue to reject God and chose evil despite seeing His mighty works, just like Pharaoh in the book of Exodus. There will be further judgments.

The 7 Bowl Judgments

Ugly festering sores on the people who accept the mark of the beast (Revelation 16:2)

The sea will turn to blood and nothing will live in them (Revelation 16:3)

Rivers and freshwater springs turn to blood (Revelation 16:4-5)

The sun will scorch people with fire (Revelation 16:8-9)

The kingdom of the beast will be plunged into darkness (Revelation 16:10-11)

The Euphrates River will dry up and demons will perform false miracles (Revelation 16:12-14)

The greatest earthquake that will ever happen (Revelation 16:18)

Despite all these judgments, some will survive and refuse to repent. In fact, they will gather an army against the Lord, but they will ultimately fail.

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No one knows when Jesus will return and when the Last Days will unfold, but even if it does not happen anytime soon, everyone will face judgment. People who put their faith in Jesus Christ will not be judged for their sins, but for their deeds for the Lord. They will spend eternity with Him and with fellow believers.

For people who do not accept Jesus, they will have to pay the price for their own sins, and will have to face the eternal fires of hell, where there is no hope. To escape God’s wrath, one only needs to repent of their sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for eternal life, for salvation, and for true hope. The Apostle Paul said simply, “Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (Romans 10:9-10).

Once saved, start a relationship with Him through prayer, get to know Him by reading the Bible and learning about Him in church, and begin to serve Him by sharing the Gospel.

“For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?” (Hebrews 10:26-29).

Sources
Jeremiah, David. Revelation The Ultimate Hope In Christ. Grand Rapids: Harper Collins Publishers, 2022.
Kinghorn, Kevin. But What About God’s Wrath? The Compelling Love Story of Divine Anger. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2019.
Stevens, Gerald. Divine Wrath in Paul An Exegetical Study. Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2020.

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