Divine Wrath Revealed, No. 2
RO07-01

God's Wrath

Sin

Now, this does raise the question of the heathen – those who, perhaps, in some part of the world, at some point in history, have never heard the gospel. We have pointed out that the world, since New Testament times, has been extensively evangelized – perhaps completely. There are places which once had the enlightenment of the gospel and of the Word of God, and have fallen back into a status of darkness. We looked at the attributes of God's essence, and that gives us one indication because of who and what He is, in His very character, He would bring to people the information and the awareness of Himself. And on the basis of having brought that information to them, He would hold them responsible for their consciousness of His presence, and their need to deal with their sin in the faith of this God.

The ground of opportunity for salvation is the fact that everyone comes, in one way or another, to the awareness that God exists. The only people who do not come to the awareness of God are those who are infants, because they do not have minds which have developed to function to that awareness, or somebody who is a mentally deficient person, and thus back into a child's fate. Therefore, he does not have either a mind or a will capable of becoming aware of God, and then responding to that awareness. So, the infants and the mentally incompetent are covered automatically, and they go to heaven on that basis. For that reason, from every nation, and from every tribe on the face of the earth, there are already people who are in heaven.

Once in a while, a zealous missionary or evangelist will stand up and suggest that until every person in the world (every tribe and every nation) has reached with the gospel so that somebody from that tribe or that nation is saved and goes to heaven, Jesus Christ cannot return. Well, that's not true because that is already existing on the basis of infants and mentally incompetents from those tribes and nations who have died. So that, if it were a requirement, has long since been covered.

So, that raises, first of all, the question about their coming to the awareness that God exists. We refer to this as God-consciousness. Here are some ways that people obtain an awareness of God's existence. For some people, something of these ways are very significant; for others, they're not so significant, and they reject them. But these are generally ways that people do become aware that there is a God.

Empiricism

The Anthropological Concept

The Oncological Concept

The Teleological Concept

I do recognize that this argument is attacked by saying that all this could indicate is that there has to be some force or something powerful enough to put this kind of a universe together, but it doesn't mean that He's personal; and, it doesn't mean that He's a person of love; and, so on. It just says that there is something great enough to put all this together. Well, it would seem hard to believe that something great enough to put this together was not a rational person, and was not a rational being of infinite quality, such as the Bible describes about God.

The Cosmological Concept

The Faith System

Now, the thing that Paul is talking about here is that people come to an awareness (a consciousness) of God by one of these methods, or a combination of them, and they suppress the truth. People suppress the truth at two points. First, they suppress the truth about God at the point of God-consciousness. This is what is described in the verses which follow, that we would get to in the future of Romans 1:20-21. It says, "For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made even, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse: because when they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, neither were they thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened:" "I am aware that God exists. I go negative toward that awareness."

Every normal human being, by one of these methods, arrives at God consciousness. This is a function of the mind. This awareness comes at different age levels in different cultures, because of different influences upon the person's thinking. Many people suppress this awareness that God is out there, and they go negative to it. When they do this, the soul enters a progressively deepening spiritual darkness. When you go positive toward the awareness that God there, you may desire to know Him, when you become aware that He is out there.

Then, God proceeds, on the basis of election, which is why you go positive toward Him – to bring you the next piece of information that you need, which is the gospel. However, the gospel also comes to those who are unbelievers. They, in the course, again, of the culture and the place that they live in time, hear the gospel. The point I'm making now is that those who go positive toward the awareness that God is out there, also need the gospel. You need missionaries. You don't just get to heaven because you say, "There is a great Supreme Being out there, He made the world, and He made Me. That's why I function. That's why this is like this..." That will not take you into heaven. That will not tell you that He's a God of love. That will not tell you what He has done for your sins, and that's what you have to know. You have to know the gospel. Just knowing that a Supreme Being is out there will not give you what you need to believe, because it is belief that takes you into eternal life.

So, it is not sufficient just to be aware of Him. But God, so to speak, is obligated to bring the gospel to those who are positive. He has obligated Himself by the doctrine of election (John 7:17, Acts 17:27). He brings the information. Now, again, the infant and the mentally incompetent are not converts of God, but they are automatically covered as per 2 Samuel 12:23, and this covers all nations and all tribes.

There's a second point, then, at which people can go negative, or suppress the truth (that Paul asserts here). That is the point of gospel hearing. This is referred to in John 3:36, where John said, "He that believes on the Son has everlasting life. He that does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides upon him." God's wrath is upon us because of sin. The cure is receiving the gospel. Those who go negative toward the hearing of the gospel, and toward the awareness that God is out there, reject the gospel. They reject His existence, or at least, they say that they reject His existence. The call themselves atheists. These people have been suppressing the truth.

The Heathen

There was a time when preachers didn't like to read this passage this, and wouldn't read it publicly in church, because they considered it too offensive. They would not even read this publicly.

So, it was a mere assumption that God has not given every person a chance to be saved. Every person has, by the very essence of God, had an opportunity to be saved: first, at the point of God-consciousness; and, secondly, at the point of gospel-hearing, particularly if they have gone positive to God-consciousness.

Well, here is the response of the heathen to divine viewpoint truth which Paul says they suppress. They reject God-consciousness and the truth of the gospel. The result of rejecting the person of God causes them to descend into the lowest form of sin – practicing the lowest, obscene forms of sin. You have that in Romans 1:21-32, which we will be looking at.

The world religions come up with a substitute for heathenism. Heathenism has rejected this divine viewpoint, so the world religions come up with a substitute. That's why we say religion is Satan's way of approaching God without the truth. It is approaching God by denying Him – living, in fact, as if there is no God.

So, heathenism, having rejected God-consciousness, proceeds to create its own false gods. It does this on the basis of rationalism. ... It says, "This is what I think I see, and this is what God should be." They see the sources of nature, and they call that god. They see the sun, and everything is connected back to the sun and the life cycle, and they call that god. Man creates his own god when he rejects what God has revealed. Heathenism substitutes the doctrines of demons for the doctrines of the Word of God.

Now, of course, all of this ultimately is hinged on the historicity of Jesus Christ – that there actually was the historical person of Jesus Christ. The atheist is actually going negative here at point number one – at the point of God-consciousness. That's what an atheist views. He says, "I am negative to the fact that I am aware that God is out there." He won't put it in those words. But that, in truth, is what he is saying. And to crystallize his expression, it is common for atheists to say, "There never even was a person like Jesus Christ that ever took a breath on the face of the earth. This is a pure, unadulterated invention," they say, "of these people who call themselves Christian. They invented Jesus Christ. They invented all these stories about Him. They wrote these New Testament books as a complete fraud, projecting a religious system works like any other religious system of the world has invented – fables and myths, in order to set up a religious concept of its own."

"The Christ Myth"

Of course, the atheists reject the extensive records of the New Testament. It calls them fraudulent as deliberate falsehoods. The New Testament claims equal authority with the Old Testament as Scripture. Both the Old and New Testaments authenticate themselves as Scripture by the prophecies which they make, and which have been fulfilled. We have Old Testament prophecies that no man could have predicted hundreds of years in the future. We have New Testament prophecies that no one could have predicted, but which have been fulfilled, and are being fulfilled in literal detail. The New Testament records about Jesus Christ are actually infinitely more reliable than any records left by ancient kings and of ancient empires whose records we readily believe.

This challenge to the historicity of Jesus Christ is not supported by unbiased historians. To historians who have no ax to grind (like the atheist does) – to just plain historians who are checking the records of history and writing their history, Jesus Christ is as real to them as Julius Caesar. For them, there is no question about this. Books refuting this challenge have been written to the historical existence of Jesus Christ have been written. Here are three that have made a particular impact.

One is Did Christ Really Live? This was written by H. G. Wood, and published in 1938. Then there is The Historical Christ by ... published 1914. And then there is Jesus, not a Myth published 1942, written by ... The attitude, actually, of the New Testament writers was they welcomed the investigation concerning the claims of Christianity. In Acts 26:26, the apostle Paul says, "These things were not done in a corner" – that way were the way the apostles were reporting and recording. So, they invited anybody to investigate their claims. They were never trying to do this under cover.

The Oral Law

The Mishnah

The Gemara

The Talmud

The Talmud deals with the Mosaic Law, obviously. So, it has very little occasion to refer to Christianity. Any references to Christianity are hostile. The references that are made, however, do not lead the slightest doubt in anybody's mind that the rabbis considered Jesus an historical personality. If you read through the Gemara, the commentary on the Mishnah, and thus as you read through the Talmud, they refer to Jesus Christ very definitely as a historical person.

Now, if there is anybody who would have thought to label this claim of the existence of a person called Jesus Christ as a fraud, it would have been the rabbis, but they did not do this. The rabbis label, as a matter of fact, Jesus of Nazareth, as ... one who practiced magic; scorned words of the wise; and, came not to destroy the Law, but to add to it. They say that Jesus was hanged on Passover-eve for heresy and for misleading the people. In the Talmud, five of the disciples of Jesus Christ are named, and they are said to have healed in the name of Jesus Christ.

Now, if Jesus was not an historical character in the eyes of the rabbis, they would not certainly have referred to Him in the Talmud in this way. They would have been the first to confirm that His existence was a fraud. Actually, they refer to Jesus as "the hanged one," and then, in contempt, they called Him "the son of the virgin," just in a contemptuous way.

So, in the writings of the rabbis, Jesus Christ is thoroughly viewed as a historical character.

Josephus

Now, Josephus gained the favor of the Roman commander Vespasian (who was the one that was fighting the rebellion at this time in Palestine). He gained the favor of Vespasian, by getting access to the commander, and predicting that he was going to become emperor of Rome. He was going to be elevated to the throne. And sure enough, in 69 A.D., this happened. Well, Josephus immediately was projected into high esteem in the circle of Roman authority.

Well, Vespasian, as you know, was replaced by his son Titus who finally finished the job of the conquering of the Jews in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 A.D. At this time, Josephus had now completely switched sides. He was working for the military as an interpreter. He was actually attached to the Roman general headquarters. So, after the fall of Jerusalem, in 70 A.D., the Romans made Josephus a pensioner. They rewarded him for his assistance, and he took up residence in Rome. Actually, he became part of the emperor's family. At that time, he took the family name of the emperor, which was "Flavius." He had been known up to that time as Josephus. So, he took the Roman Emperor family name Flavius, and was thereafter known as Flavius Josephus.

He used his time in Rome to write a history (to write books) about the Jewish nation. He wrote, for example, The History of the Jewish War from 170 B.C. through 70 A.D. He wrote an autobiography about himself, defending himself against the attacks of a Jewish historian named Justus of Tiberius. He wrote two books entitle Against Apion, where he defends the Jews against antisemitism by Apion, an Alexandria schoolmaster. And then he wrote 20 book which are known as The Antiquities of the Jews – Jewish history from Genesis to his day.

In the writings of Josephus, we find many figures, both political and religious, that are of great importance in the New Testament. These New Testament figures give us some useful isagogical background.

For example, he records the death of Herod Agrippa, which the Bible records in Acts 12:19-23. And that thing that's interesting to us is that Josephus records the death of Herod Agrippa without in any way contradicting what the Bible says. But his record shows that he received it from a different source. He wasn't just copying it from what somebody had written in the Bible. Here's what he says: "When Agrippa had reigned three full years over all Judea, he came to the city of Samaria, which was formerly called Strato's Tower, there he exhibited shows in honor of Caesar, inaugurating this as the festival for the emperor's welfare. And there came together to it a multitude of the provincial officials, and of those who had been promoted to a distinguished position. On the second day of the show, he put on a robe all made of silver, of altogether wonderful weaving, and arrived in the theater at the break of day."

Now, if you go back and read the account in Acts, you'll see how this is just exactly the way Herod Agrippa appeared, and the glittering, spectacular appearance he made that made all the people look upon him and say, "There is god."

Now, this man is telling us the same thing, but from a totally non-biblical frame of reference.

"Then the silver shone as the sun's first rays fell upon on it, and it glittered wonderfully. Its resplendence inspired a sort of fear over those who gazed upon it. Immediately, his flatterers called out from various quarters, in words which in truth were not for his good, addressing him as a god, and invoking him with the cry, 'Be propitious. If hitherto we have referenced thee as a human being, we have henceforth, we confess thee, to be superior to mortal nature.' The king did not rebuke them."

That's exactly what the Bible says.

"Nor did he repudiate their impious flattery. But looking up soon afterwards, he saw the owl sitting on a rope above his head, and immediately recognized it as a messenger of evil, as it had formerly been a messenger of good; and a pang of grief pierced his heart. The king also had a severe pain in his belly, beginning in a violent attack, for he had ... quickly into the palace. And the news spread abroad among all that he would certainly die before long. And when he had suffered continuously for five days from the pain in his belly, he departed this life in the 54th year of his age, and the seventh of his reign.

Now, if you consult Acts 12:19-23, you will discover that these accounts are fantastically parallel, yet, obviously, Josephus was reporting what was known among the Jews, but from a non-biblical frame of reference.

He also records for us the death of John the Baptist, and of James, the brother of the Lord. In this respect, concerning John the Baptist, he says, "Now, some of the Jews thought that Herod's army had been destroyed by God, and that it was a very just penalty to avenge John." What he is referring to is that Herod had suffered a military defeat. And he says that the reason for this was to avenge John: "Surnamed 'the Baptist.' For Herod had killed him, though he was a good man, and told the Jews to practice virtue; to be just one to another; to be pious toward God; and, to come together for baptism. He taught that baptism was acceptable to God on this ... , if they underwent it not to procure remission of certain sins, but for the purification of the body, since the soul had already been purified by righteousness." He is botched up on his theology, but (that's not the point here).

"And when the others gathered round him, for they were greatly moved when they heard his words, Herod feared that his persuasive power over men being so great lead to a rising, as they seemed ready to follow his counsel in everything;" that is, John the Baptist.

"So, he thought it much better to seize him and kill him before he caused a tumult, than to have to repent, and fall into such hands later on after a revolt had taken place. Because of this suspicion of Herod, John was sent in chains to ... and there put to death. The Jews believed that it was to avenge him that the disaster fell upon the army, God wishing to bring evil upon Herod."

Now he gives a different reason as to why Herod executed John that the Bible does. The Bible says it was because he was pointing out Herod's adulterous relationship. That was the reason, and then Herod's wife asked for John the Baptist's head, after the daughter danced. Now, the Bible gives us the full, accurate information, but yet there is basically no contradiction here, from this historian, recording the facts as they were circulated in his day.

He also refers to the death of James, the Lord's brother. And now, we are closing in on something significant. As we have shown you, this man, with accuracy of what the Bible presents in detail, now closes in, and we get the name "Jesus" mentioned here in a non-biblical context. Here it is:

"But the younger Ananus, who, as we've said, received the high priesthood, was of a bold disposition, and exceptionally daring. He followed the party of the Sadducees, who were severe in judgment above all the Jews, as we have already shown. And therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a good opportunity, as Festus was now dead, and Albinus was still on the road, so he assembled a council of judges, and brought before it the brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ, whose name was James, together with some others. And, having accused them as lawbreakers, he delivered them over to be stoned;" describing the death of James, the brother of Jesus. But here is Josephus mentioning Jesus as an historical character in the full sense that any writer of history would be referring to Him.

So, he refers clearly to someone that was known in his day.

In his relationship to Pilate, he makes another interesting statement. We need to look at this one in a little more detail.

In the following paragraphs, the white letters on black background indicate areas that have been challenged as having been written by Josephus. These lines have been suggested as being something that Christians interspersed (injected) into the writings of Josephus. Here is what he said. This, again, is from one of the writings of Josephus:

"And there arose about this time a wise Man,

(and then the following text is challenged:)

if indeed we should call Him a Man,

for He was a doer of marvelous deeds, a teacher of men who received the truth with pleasure. He led away many Jews, and also many of the Greeks.

(and then this is again challenged:)

This man was the Christ.

And when Pilate had condemned Him to the cross, on his impeachment by the chief men among us, those who had loved Him at first did not cease.

(and then these next lines are challenged:)

For He appeared to them on the third day alive again; the divine prophets having spoken these, and thousands of other wonderful things about Him.

(and then, picking it up again – what is accepted:)

And even now, the tribe of Christians, so named after Him, has not yet died out."

Actually, there is no ground for rejecting this whole statement as coming from Josephus. As a matter of fact, these lines in white, that have been challenged, may simply have been put in there sarcastically by Josephus. Or, he may have actually been reporting simply what Christians said about this Man. It is also known that sometimes words like "so-called" and "as they said" tend to drop out of these ancient manuscripts. They skip over them. So, Josephus may have added these words "so-called" or "as they said." In any case, whether you take these lines or not, what he reports here is an expression concerning a person of history – the person of Jesus Christ, clearly identified as the one who was condemned to the cross, and clearly identified after whom the tribe of so-called Christians patterned themselves and followed.

Now, here is the significance of this statement alone from Josephus: We have the confirmation of the date and the life of Jesus by this particular account. It confirms the reputation of Jesus as a miracle worker. It declares that Jesus was the brother of James, which the Bible tells us. It confirms the crucifixion of Jesus under Pilate and the instigation of the Jewish rulers. It confirms the Messianic claims of Jesus. It confirms Jesus Christ as the founder of the group known as Christians. It confirms the belief that He rose from the dead.

All of this is put together. As far as the Jews alone were concerned, here is the writing of a rabbi. Anytime they refer to Jesus, there is no question that He actually existed. We get to the writings of Josephus, who was writing right there in the first century when all of these things were taking place; in the immediate years following the historical message we have in the Scriptures. And constantly through the writings of Josephus, he confirms references in Scripture to personalities of one time and another. And most important of all, he actually refers to Jesus Christ. He touches upon the fact that this man actually lived.

Now, it is of interest to us to ask one other question" What about those who were not Jews? What about the gentiles, who weren't interested in religion at all, and for 100 years, looked upon Christianity as a mere offensive fly-by-night religion, an offspring of Judaism; an irritant to the empire, but not to even be considered? Do these people (the historians of Rome) ever refer to Jesus Christ? We're going to look into that next time, because we have some very startling declarations concerning the person of Christ and His actual existence. There is no doubt from the Jewish frame of reference that He actually existed.

So, when an atheist such as Madalyn O'Hair, on the recent radio debate, says with the vehemence with which she declared it, that "Jesus Christ didn't even exist;" mean that you have to be really dumb, blind, and stupid to think that He ever even existed, and to dismiss the whole historical record, I want you to know what the records are that we actually have. And that's why I've taken the trouble here to show you these quotes from Josephus and from the rabbis. The fact of the matter is that, on the side of the Jews alone, who are a very adequate and ample demonstration, that there was a person in history known as Jesus of Nazareth. You're going to find that there is also very adequate evidence on the part of the gentiles.

So, when an atheist says, "Jesus Christ never existed," just understand it as being the problem of going negative at the point of God-consciousness. That's what you are hearing – a person who knows that God is out there, and like somebody who's scared to walk through a cemetery at night, they're whistling. They're whistling as they go: "Happy days are here again," while their eyes are looking all around. And that is what the poor atheist is doing. He's whistling because he's looking around. He's walking through a graveyard of his own death, and he's just afraid that God is waiting right around the next corner, and he's going to come up to Him face-to-face, which he is. And that's why they make these ridiculous statements that we have no historical records that Christ ever existed. We do. But the best record we have is the Bible itself. This book has never, at one point, been proven wrong in the slightest degree.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1975

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