God in the Hands of Angry Sinners

Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” set a very poor direction for much of Christianity in the Colonies. His Puritan tradition presented God as an essentially angry deity whose desire was to condemn and torture. Grace or mercy existed simply in regard to how long God waited until calling down judgment upon sinners.

That is not good news. It never was. Such is not the message of Jesus whom the gospel writers claim as good news. They echo the words of the celestial messengers declaring Jesus’ birth as good news of great joy to all peoples. Rather than look to Jesus as the clearest example of God’s identity, character, and will, that tradition surrounding Edwards began with an altogether different understanding that could not account for what Jesus actually taught. The Puritan perspective began with angry sinners and projected that upon God.

Anger begins with fear, uncertainty, discomfort, and the inability to control one’s environment, others, or even oneself. Anger is the product of our inability to exert our will upon others, to have them behave according to our expectations, to force compliance, to allay our insecurities. Such is not God as Jesus presented. Rather, that is the manner of human beings. Our insecurities translate into fear that leads to anger. It is from that anger that we lash out at the world around us. It is our defense mechanism to take our angst and cast it outward. We project our insecurities upon others and attempt to control them.

Some have expressed this as, “Angry people want you to see how powerful they are.” The flip side of that is that angry people are expressing their lack of power, their inability to control, the break down of their expectations which display their inadequacies to exert power.

Characterizing God as angry is a declaration that God lacks control. It projects human insecurities upon God. It is not God who is angry. Rather, it is angry humanity that has twisted its understanding of God to conform to its own likeness.

I had occasion to experience several people expressing their anger in public meetings recently. Their anger was an attempt to exert control over others in the room who were not following through on their expectations. Their anger was their response to a perceived loss of the power they expected to have over others around them.

Jesus presented a very different portrait of God. He presented God as a loving Father whose only desire was to embrace those who had strayed from life’s better path. He presented God as loving the lost son to the point of brushing aside any plea for forgiveness to welcome him home, restoring him to his place of belonging. Jesus presented God as overly abounding in love, grace, mercy, and compassion, not as one who is led by anger, fear, intimidation, insecurity, or any lack of control. Jesus presented God as one who is not trying to control and manipulate others. Rather than controlling, God’s way is to love us onto the paths of justice, rightness, and community.

This is the God of the abundant life Jesus preached. We angry sinners have done much to twist God into the image of our insecurities. In presenting God in our own character, we have made God completely unrecognizable as the good news Jesus proclaimed.



— ©Copyright 2024, Christopher B. Harbin 



http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/

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