Divine wrath is an increasingly unpopular topic within the realm of counseling. We can understand why. Wrath feels intense and threatening. When working with wounded people, the language of divine anger can seem overwhelming, even dangerous. Many counselees already feel insecure before God or have been shaped by portrayals of Him as cold and severe. Naturally, we want to connect them with grace. Yet in our effort to protect hurting people from harsh caricatures of God, we may have softened Him beyond recognition. When divine wrath disappears, biblical counseling loses both its moral clarity and its deepest comfort. The doctrine of wrath is not opposed to grace; it is necessary for truly confronting sin and for genuinely comforting those who have been sinned against.
The Domestication of God
The trend towards minimizing God’s justice is not overt. That is to say, most Christian counselors would affirm orthodox views of God, sin, and divine judgment. In practice, however, there is a subtle shift through language that leads to a diminished view of God. For example, it is increasingly common to hear the language of dysfunction replace the language of sin. In many regards this is the result of changing prioritization in counseling. Many counseling modalities tend to emphasize environmental factors, experiences of brokenness, and the impact of harm. The Bible acknowledges these realities and their roles in influencing us. Yet, Scripture repeatedly puts the emphasis on moral agency. Language not only reflects theology; it quietly trains it. Where we put the emphasis matters. Jeremy Pierre gives a great example of the importance of what we emphasize:
While it’s true that developmental and psychosocial realities have shaped who you are today, Scripture addresses you as a moral agent who actively responds to life in covenantal ways.
While it’s true that Scripture addresses you as a moral agent actively responding in covenantal ways, developmental and psychosocial realities have shaped who you are today. (Scripture & Counseling. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014. 98)
Each sentence contains the same words, but the emphasis structures how you counsel. In the latter sentence there isn’t a denial of sin, but there is an overt prioritization of the developmental and psychosocial realities. When these factors become primary, we may hesitate to correct what Scripture names as sin. Instead we will feel the pull to reframe it as dysfunction or maladaptive coping.
We could list other examples of this trend towards domestication. In many counseling contexts, God is presented primarily as the One who soothes, stabilizes, and reassures — rather than the One who also judges, disciplines, and calls to repentance. Likewise, divine judgment is often reframed as the impersonal outworking of natural consequences rather than the active, holy opposition of a personal God. In each case we aren’t overtly denying wrath, nor are we creating excuses for people to sin. Often the etiology behind a problem is complex and varied. Trauma does impact us, we do learn maladaptive behavioral coping skills, we do live in a broken world, and sin does have natural consequence. The issue is not whether we affirm sin and judgment in theory, but whether our emphasis reflects the weight Scripture places upon them. By failing to emphasize what Scripture emphasizes we will inevitably misrepresent God.
The Cost of Domestication
This shift in language and practice is not merely semantic. Words shape theology, and theology shapes practice. When our vocabulary subtly shifts, our understanding of God shifts with it. Consider the minimization of moral responsibility. If moral agency recedes from view, divine wrath no longer feels necessary — and may even seem pastorally inappropriate. And when wrath feels inappropriate, correction weakens and victims are left without the assurance that evil will be judged.
This is the real cost of the domestication of God and the loss of divine wrath. The justice of God and the warnings about divine wrath give us a firm basis for correcting sin and comforting victims. Scripture tells us that because God is just He is angry at sin and will condemn unrepentant sinners. The author of Hebrews tells us that it is a “terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31). In some corners of modern theology and Christian counseling you may hear that it’s actually not that bad, but Scripture reveals God to be so just that He cannot tolerate sin or leave it unaddressed (Hab. 1:13). It is on this basis that we rightly warn those who persist in sin and refuse to repent. It is on this basis that we warn men that God judges their “secrets…through Christ Jesus” (Rom. 2:16). We can rightly call people to repentance because God does. We can rightly warn them of impending judgment because Scripture does.
It is also on this basis that we can give hope to those who have suffered wickedness and oppression. God sees all the good and all the evil that men do (Prov. 15:3), and He will “not leave the guilty unpunished” (Ex. 34:7). What hope do victims have? What can they hold onto when it appears that injustice prevails? The Scriptures tell us to hold onto the justice of God. The wicked may prosper momentarily, but when we stop to consider these things we remember their final destiny (Ps. 73:1-17). The Lord, because He is just, cannot ignore sin, and He will eventually execute “righteousness and justice for all the oppressed” (Ps. 103:6). That is what we hold out to those who have been victimized.
If we lose the wrath of God we don’t just lose some random detail. Least of all do we lose some relic of an outdated theology that modernity has outgrown. No, we lose the very foundations of our calls to holiness and hope. The reason we long for justice in this world is that we are created after the image of a just and Holy God. The wrath of God matters. Biblical counselors would do well to ground themselves again in the knowledge of the Holy. Only a clear vision of God’s justice and wrath gives us the courage to confront sin and the confidence to comfort those who suffer under it.
Sparrow & Heart Soul Care 