God’s wrath always runs on His sovereign schedule. The fact that we haven’t yet witnessed His final judgment is good news for all who have not yet repented. But that doesn’t mean we can claim ignorance concerning God’s righteous indignation—He is always in the process of revealing His wrath to this world.
The timing of God’s wrath is seen in the fact that it is “revealed” (Romans 1:18), a better rendering being “constantly revealed.” God’s wrath is continually being revealed, perpetually being manifested.
God’s wrath has always been revealed to fallen mankind and is repeatedly illustrated throughout Scripture. It was first revealed in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve trusted the serpent’s word above God’s. Immediately the sentence of death was passed on them and on all their descendants. Even the earth itself was cursed. God’s wrath was revealed in the Flood, when God drowned the whole human race except for eight souls; in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; and in the drowning of Pharaoh’s army. It was revealed in the curse of the law upon every transgression and in the institution of the sacrificial system of the Mosaic covenant. Even the imperfect laws that men make to deter and punish wrongdoers reflect and thereby help to reveal the perfect and righteous wrath of God.
But the surpassing revelation of God’s wrath occurred at Calvary, when Jesus took to Himself the sin of the world and bore the full divine force of God’s fury as sin’s penalty. God’s retribution for our sin is absolutely necessary—so much so that He allowed His perfect, beloved Son to be put to death as the only means by which sinners might be redeemed.
The British commentator Geoffrey B. Wilson wrote, “God is no idle spectator of world events; He is dynamically active in human affairs. The conviction of sin is constantly punctuated by Divine judgment” [1] Geoffrey B. Wilson, Romans: A Digest of Reformed Comment (London, UK: Banner of Truth, 1977), 24. The historian J. A. Froude wrote, “One lesson, and only one, history may be said to repeat with distinctness; that the world is built somehow on moral foundations; that, in the long run, it is well with the good; in the long run, it is ill with the wicked” [2] J. A. Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects, vol. 1, “The Science of History” (London, UK: Longmans Green and Co., 1915), 21.
We wonder, then, why so many wicked people prosper, seemingly doing evil with utter impunity. But if God’s wrath is delayed, His bowl of wrath is all the while filling up, increasing judgment for increased sin. They are only storing up wrath for the coming day of wrath (Romans 2:5).
Donald Grey Barnhouse recounts the story of a group of godly farmers in a Midwest community being irritated one Sunday morning by a neighbor’s plowing his field across from their church. Noise from his tractor interrupted the worship service, and, as it turned out, the man had purposely chosen to plow that particular field on Sunday morning in order to make a point. He wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper, asserting that, although he did not respect the Lord or honor the Lord’s Day, he had the highest yield per acre of any farm in the county. He asked the editor how Christians could explain that. With considerable insight and wisdom, the editor printed the letter and followed it with the simple comment, “God does not settle [all] His accounts in the month of October” [3] Donald Grey Barnhouse, Man’s Ruin: Romans 1:1–32 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1952), 220.
(Adapted from The MacArthur New Testament Commentary: Romans 1–8)
