Fire and brimstone

It is a strikingly odd thought. You can work for Christian unity by preaching the wrath of God, for doing so is a corrective for both antinomian and legalistic heresies.


There is an appalling tendency in some circles to preach about God's mercy without preaching about his wrath. As a friend of mine says, "If not for the wrath you don't need the mercy." That is very astute. Salvation is being saved from something. It is not only being saved from our own folly either, but from eternal consequences of that folly.

It is fashionable to preach in an antinomian tone that suggests that all of the gospel is sweetness and light. That kind of preaching is not the whole counsel of God. It leaves the hearers thinking that bedrock Christian ideas about right and wrong are sort of optional and nice and it will be no great problem if you continue to do your own thing. God's grace will cover it, surely?

That is a point of schism in the church world. If you do not take note of the wrath to come, those who preach the gospel of wrath and mercy will see you as preaching an incomplete gospel. Of course I see why preachers ease off the part about wrath. The wrath of God is something unbelievers like to scoff at, and they scoff at anyone who mentions it, and no one likes being scoffed at.

Schism arises because some churches tacitly deny what others know to be gospel bedrock. The mercy and the wrath are a package; the same God offers both and you are to take your choice.

The complementary opposite error to antinomianism is legalism. That is the superstitious belief that the wrath of God is deflected by outward compliance to formulas of conduct. Sometimes the rules are overcautious, going a bit beyond anything God has said he requires, so as to avoid edge cases. God has, though, said he is interested in what is really in our hearts, and that is where legalism fails to be a good answer. Where antinomianism throws away Christianity's moral basis in God's immutable principles, legalism trivializes the question of what God requires, concentrating on rote maxims at the expense of first principles.

When antinomian and legalist meet, the argument that results is never fruitful, for each is arguing from a mistaken stance. It seems a curious matter to me, but the cure for both errors is the same, a good big dose of the fear of God's wrath. The legalist then realizes he is being trivial about important matters and the antinomian sees that he had better look to giving real consideration to real moral questions.

So then--strangely perhaps--you are helping those in both camps, antinomian and legalistic alike, and the cause of unity, if you preach about the wrath of God. We are all sinners, we are all in this together and the only way out for us is the true gospel, which tells of both the mercy and the wrath of God.