Some years ago in a small town in
England a man escaped briefly from an institution for the criminally insane.
During his few hours' liberty, he captured, raped, and murdered a small girl
and was then apprehended by authorities. At the same time he arrived at the
police station under escort, the father of the child arrived, too. The father
was a mild-mannered man, but when he saw the person who had murdered his
beloved child, he went berserk, and it took a number of lawmen to control him.
There was no incompatibility between his love and his wrath; in fact, there was
a clear connection between the two. Strangely, the intensity of his love was
demonstrated in the intensity of his anger. Love for the beloved was shown in
anger against that which had destroyed the beloved.
The
love and wrath of God must be seen as a continuum of the divine emotion for
humankind. The intensity of the love of God for people is clearly mirrored in
the intensity of His antipathy to that which marred His creative masterpiece.
And the greatest manifestation of the love of God, the cross of Christ, is
itself the fiery focal point of the divine wrath. You cannot look at the cross
and see love without wrath and wrath without love. The cross stands tall in
human history as the epitome of the relationship between both.
-- Stuart Briscoe in The Fruit
of the Spirit: Cultivating Christian Character
#3842
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thank you for sharing your comments about a quote or about this ministry. Please include your name and what state or country you live in. If you do not have a registered profile, you can login using the "Anonymous" tag in the "Comment as:" box below.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.