March 31, 2022

Psalm 7: 11 (NIV)

God is a righteous judge, a God who expresses his wrath every day.

The Bible teaches that God is loving, forgiving and patient. But God is not a wimp. He is a God of justice and capable of wrath.*

Did you hear it? Did you see it? God expressing his wrath? . . . Neither did I!

Some Bible scholars believe that it is implied that God expresses his wrath "with the wicked" and so they add that phrase to their version of this passage. Other translations render it as, “God does not express his wrath every day.”

I can’t say which version is accurate but both leave me with questions:

• If God is righteous, how can he not be angry about sin? 
• If God is angry, why would he only be angry with the wicked? Isn’t it possible that his own people might make him mad occasionally? Maybe even more mad than at the wicked.
• If he is angry, why would he skip a day in expressing it? Don’t we sin every day? So it would come as no surprise to learn that he expresses his anger every day.

But . . . according to one source, these translations obscure the “legal background” of the term rendered “expresses wrath.” It might be better understood, he offers, as “passes sentence.”* That seems to make more sense in the context of the phrase. As David says, God is a righteous judge. He sits in court every day and passes judgment. Every day, his children are found guilty the same as the wicked, but when he gets to the sentencing phase of our trial, he announces, “Paid in full by the blood of Jesus. You are free to go.” Could he do that if he was mad at us?

Just because you did it doesn’t mean you’re guilty.*