A jealous and avenging God is the Lord;
the Lord is avenging and wrathful.
The Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries,
and he reserves wrath for his enemies.
Nahum 1.2
“God’s jealousy is not a compound of frustration, envy, and
spite, as human jealousy so often is, but appears instead as a (literally)
praiseworthy zeal to preserve something supremely precious.” J. I. Packer[1]
“God’s wrath in the Bible is never the capricious,
self-indulgent, irritable, morally ignoble thing that human anger so often
is. It is, instead, a right and
necessary reaction to objective moral evil… Would a God who took as much
pleasure in evil as He did in good be a good God? Would a God who did not react adversely to evil in His world
be morally perfect? Surely
not. But it is precisely this
adverse reaction to evil, which is a necessary part of moral perfection, that
the Bible has in view when it speaks of God’s wrath.” J. I. Packer[2]
“That God is dangerous in his holiness should not be
dismissed as if it were a primitive idea, beyond which we have now
evolved. It is, in fact, a reality
toward which we are all moving, for in the end God’s holiness will prove to be
the final line of resistance to all that is wrong, all that is evil in the
world. The day is coming when
truth will be placed forever on the throne, and error forever on the scaffold.” David Wells[3]
“Nahum invites a celebration of divine sovereignty and
justice, affirming that God’s retributive justice is good news.” Thomas Renz[4]
“No message could be more repulsive to the modern mind than
the idea of retributive justice.
But this truth finds open exposition in the messages of these
seventh-century prophets [Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah]. The historical events that befell
Judah, Assyria, Egypt, and Babylon attest to the truthfulness of their
declaration. It finds no
contradiction in the Scriptures of the new covenant, but only repeated
reinforcement (2 Thess. 1:6-10; 2 Cor. 5:10).” O. Palmer Robertson[5]
“This great God depicted by Nahum is not just an abstract
idea, a nebulous concept. He is a
living person whose nature defines the meaning of personhood. He interacts powerfully with the world
he has made, so that the attributes that Nahum has so vividly delineated have
their telling effect on every element of creation. The sea, the rivers, the fruitful lands, mountains, hills,
the earth, the world and all its inhabitants—these diverse segments feel the
effects of God’s jealousy, vengeance, wrath, anger, might, and justice.” O. Palmer Robertson[6]
[1] J. I.
Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove,
Ill.: Intervarsity Press, 1973), 153.
For more on God’s jealousy see my paper “The Jealousy of God” online: http://whiterosereview.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-jealousy-of-god.html.
[2] Packer, Knowing God, 136-137. For more on God’s wrath see my Bible
study online: http://whiterosereview.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-wrath-of-god.html.
[3] David F.
Wells, God in the Wasteland: The Reality of
Truth in a World of Fading Dreams (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994),
142.
[4] Thomas Renz,
“Nahum” in Dictionary for Theological
Interpretation of the Bible ed. Kevin J. VanHoozer (Grand Rapids, Mich.:
Baker, 2005), 528.
[5] O. Palmer
Robertson, The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk,
and Zephaniah—NICOT (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990), 22.
[6] Robertson, The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah—NICOT,
66.
