God’s wrath and judgement must somehow be reconciled and correlated with God’s concern for justice and righteousness. It appears that the former is produced by human sin – the failure to manifest justice and righteousness (cf. Is 5:1-7; Amos 5:21-24); divine judgment often is presented in direct contrast with and in equal measure to human sin… This means that one must reckon not with a Deus irae (God of wrath) but rather with the ira Dei (the wrath of God). God’s wrath is instrumental, intended to bring about a result: repentance and reform. In linguistic terms, God’s wrath is not stative (such that God is angry, ontologically or dispositionally, especially not always) but rather is transitive (God is angry about something). But when the object of wrath is tended to – the offending sin or circumstance removed – the wrath disappears as well… Divine wrath and judgment are never simplistic but rather are “the outcome of a complex process of divine wrestling, anguish, attempted overtures to the people, calls for repentance, warnings that keep the door open” (P. Miller, “‘Slow to Anger’: The God of the Prophets” in The Way of the Lord: Essays in Old Testament Theology, 276)… the prophetic texts writ large suggest that “the Lord’s bent toward compassion is a part of what it means to be God, not just an option among other possibilities… Reticence to wrath in favor of compassion is what it means to be the Lord” (P. Miller, 276).
B. A. Strawn and B. D. Strawn, “Prophecy and Psychology,” The Dictionary of the Old Testament Prophets, 620.
In summary, according to the prophets, God is not wrath in the same way that God is Love. God has wrath – momentarily – but it can always be averted through repentance. Wrath is never God’s last word because God does not simply have love – God is Love.
“For a brief moment I abandoned you,
but with deep compassion I will bring you back.
In a surge of anger
I hid my face from you for a moment,
but with everlasting kindness
I will have compassion on you,”
says the Lord your Redeemer.
Isaiah 54:7-8
{receive & enter} 