The wrath of God is good, and when he finally pours it out he will be glorified. God is perfect, and it is right and good that he should pour out his wrath upon those who will not worship him as he deserves to be worshiped.

It’s unseemly for the creature to rise up against its Creator–to refuse to do the work it was created for. If our cars or our computers suddenly decided to rebel against us, we would say they were out of order. We have made these things to serve us, and when they no longer serve us, we cast them off.

Man was also made to serve his Creator. Man was made for worship. There is no other acceptable response from us when we are confronted with the Living God.

So when God ends this world and pours out his wrath on those who have refused to bow to him, it will be good and glorious.

As the new earth comes down, I’m guessing the old earth will explode and melt in some cosmic pyrotechnics show unlike anything we’ve ever seen or imagined. I love lighting storms—I love the raw power in them. How much more power will be unleashed when God destroys the earth? It will be awesome in every sense of that poor, over-used word.

And yet, for all of that display of power and glory that God’s wrath will be, the love of God, pouring forth from the bloodied and broken body of the man from Galilee, is a far louder testimony to God’s strength and a far more spectacular show of his glory.

In Christ, justice is satisfied, and mercy is purchased, and, for the saints, wrath is done away with. At the cross, wrath is conquered by mercy. How glorious is that?

So while God’s greatness is seen in his transcendence, it’s seen even more strongly in his willingness to stoop down to save us.

I am to love him, but I can only love him because he first loved me. I am to be faithful to him, but I can only be faithful to him because he’s faithful to me. I am to serve him, but I can only serve him because he first served me.

And there are probably people reading now who are bothered by my pointing out that God serves us. They don’t like all this talk about love. God is a God of holy wrath, not some doddering old grandfather.

And they are right, as far as they go. God is high and holy. Yes he is.

It is precisely because he is so high and holy that his taking upon himself the form of a servant is so hugely glorifying. The more a man has to lose when he sacrifices his life, the greater the glory due him. The man with terminal cancer is not sacrificing as much when he volunteers for a dangerous mission, as the young man with his whole life in front of him and with a wife and babies at home.

The best way to glorify God is to 1) praise him for his choice to make himself lowly and to die for his friends and 2) tell everyone about this loving, friendly God.

Jesus came without fanfare. He was a poor man with no place to lay his head. He died on a cross, beaten, mocked, and hated. He went as a sheep to the slaughter. Silent. He was not raging and calling down God’s wrath. He asked his Father to forgive the God-haters that hung him on the cross.

We don’t hear any wrath coming from him. No bitterness. No cursing. No mocking. No imprecatory prayers.

Hmm. Imagine that.

Wow! Just, wow!