Wrath and holiness

As I was reading through Collins’ The Theology of John Wesley, I ran across this very good observation on wrath and holiness, and their interconnectedness.

Thus, a holy God is present to sinful human beings precisely as resistance, and as Brunner observed, “The Bible calls this ‘resistance’ the Wrath of God.” And finally, it is good in that wrath marks the response of God to the stubborn ongoing power of evil. This truth, however, is turned on its head when the love of God is separated from the holiness of God. When this is done (and it can happen for all sorts of reasons), then wrath will inevitable be seen as something utterly “evil,” as actually alien to the divine purpose and love. But as noted earlier, such a “love,” divorced from holiness, will emerge as sentimental, imaginary (a species of wishful thinking), and cheap, for it oddly enough tolerates evil, by making ongoing allowances for it, precisely in the name of love! Mincing no words, Wesley called those ministers who brought such views into the classroom and pulpit “promise-mongers.”—The Theology of John Wesley, page 105

And a page later:

[The] difficulty with divine wrath, which perhaps is far more indicative of a twenty-first-century Western setting than Wesley’s own setting, has to do with some of the consequences of reigning therapeutic models of salvation that view sinners principally as victims. So understood, sinners have caught the disease of sin, albeit with some appreciation of responsibility for having done so, and they languish in a sickbed as the Great Physician nurtures them on to increasing degrees of health and wholeness. And though Wesley’s doctrine of salvation can indeed be explained, in part, by appeal to therapeutic models, he never viewed sinners merely or even largely as victims but also as perpetrators—as those who not only actively fed their own inbred sinful inclination to depart from the living God, but also were quite energetic in their opposition, even rebellion, against a God of holy love.—The Theology of John Wesley, page 106

<idle musing>
Too true. We have lost the sense of responsibility; all see themselves as victims. “If only society would treat me right; if only I had the job and income I deserve; if only this or that.” We fail to realize that all we deserve is wrath and hell; that we are actively pursuing our own path in direct violation of the revealed will of God. That the only escape is in repentance—not feeling sorry for something, but actual repentance in the Hebrew sense of the word, a turning and moving away from our sin; anything less in not repentance but a sentimental feeling sorry for getting caught with our hands in the cookie jar—yet again!
</idle musing>