The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Children of wrath

Theology Biblical Theology
#1

I don’t know how much response this will get here, but I just had this thought about Paul’s use of “children of wrath” in Ephesians 2:3. He seems to be describing the condition of all of unregenerate humanity. It’s interesting that the NIV translates this as “objects of wrath”, which is bizarre since the Greek is “tekna” which can only mean children, descendents, or something like that. However, the common idea that people have is probably the one reflected in the NIV: “children of wrath” means people who are objects of wrath.

Thus, in the traditional view (especially the Calvinist view), everyone is born with a nature that is suitable only for God’s wrath and is justly deserving of eternal conscious torment in hell. The only way out of that is to hear the Gospel in this life and believe it. The ones who never hear it, they all go to hell (this was something I never could accept even before I became a hopeful universalist last week. I always believed that the unevangelized would get some kind of opportunity for salvation). I even knew one guy from a Calvinist missions agency who believed that all babies who die go to hell, hell being the traditional ECT view. I was shocked by that, but it was consistent with his theology so he believed it. Of course, if all babies go to heaven (which is what I always believed), it would make more sense to kill everyone as a baby so as to not risk them going to hell. That seems like another argument in favor of UR that seems hard to get around.

But maybe that’s not what “children of wrath” means. Paul says we were “by nature” children of wrath, but maybe the “wrath” here isn’t God’s wrath at all, maybe it’s OUR wrath. In other words, to be by nature a child of wrath means that you have wrath within you. So the natural state is to HAVE wrath, or judgment, or desire for revenge, or whatever - to be wrathful towards others rather than loving. I note that “orge” can mean wrath, anger, revenge, retribution or punishment. So maybe the wrath here is not something we receive, it’s something we dish out to others. Of course, in the process of dishing it out to others we put ourselves in the position of needing to be disciplined ourselves. I have 3 kids, so I know how this works!

#2

Well, Eph 5:6 does talk about the indignation of God coming onto the sons of stubbornness. That might comport well enough with the “children of indignation” at 2:3 (especially since 2:2 talks about us being before among the sons of stubbornness!).

So, while the other two uses of “indignation” (or {orge_}) in Ephesians reminds us not to be indignant with our brother, which is sinful, but to put away indignation, the thematic commonalities of the Eph 2 and Eph 5 uses would seem to be parallel: God will be doing wrath on the sons of stubbornness in one place, and we were in our nature children of indignation who once behaved in operation with the sons of stubbornness in another place.

That being said, the two middle uses of “indignation” in Eph 4:26-32, shouldn’t be forgotten either. We should not let the sun be sinking on our vexation, which gives place to the Adversary, and causes sorrow to the Holy Spirit of God; but instead we should let all bitterness and fury and indignation and clamor and calumny and all malice be taken away from us, becoming kind to one another, tenderly compassionate, freely giving joy among ourselves (a euphemism for forgiveness, as in the GosLuke story of the sinner-woman), in accord as God also, in Christ, freely gives joy to us (ditto).

So: which way does the thematic logic run? Shall God, in doing indignation on the sons of indignation, actually do to them that which sinfully grieves God when they/we do it to one another? Shall He let the sun sink on His vexation, without at least being willing to forgive them and acting toward taking away all bitterness, fury, indignation, clamor, calumny and malice from them? Shall His wrath against the wrathful be the sinfully hopeless wrath of the sons of wrath, in accord with the eon of this world and with the chief of the jurisdiction of the air (i.e. Satan), the spirit operating now in the sons of stubbornness? Or shall He be rich in mercy, because of His vast love with which He loves us?

And if, loving us, and vivifying us together in Christ and rousing us together to seat us together among the celestials–we who had been behaving in our nature as children of indignation–so that in the coming eons He should be displaying the transcendent riches of His freely given joy in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus: shall this not be done by God’s freely given joy through faith, but rather from our own works, out of ourselves, our approach-present to God not God’s to us, so that we may be boasting? Are we and our salvation our own achievement, or are we His achievement?

(Hint: answers in Ephesian chapter 2. :mrgreen: )

There is also this cultural point, which is often lost among interpreters: that the term is children and sons.

We are not intrinsically sons of the devil or of the world or of anything or anyone other than God Most High. Arminians do not dispute this (or should not as Arminians per se); and while Calvinists may dispute this with regard to the dis-elect, the problem (aside from this doctrine being totally antithetical to supernaturalistic theism, including trinitarian theism) is that this passage (from the beginning of Eph 2) cannot be read in such a manner especially on the Calvinist’s own grounds with regard to the elect. For if Calvinism is true, then while the “elect” may have been living among and living like those who (supposedly) are not sons of God, nevertheless the “elect” are surely (even in a dualistic dichotomy of sons of God and sons of Satan) sons of God: the whole point is that God chooses for them to be sons of God (even if, per impossibility, they were drawing their existence and were born not of God but of something other than God) from eternity. There was never a time when they were not sons of God; just as, the Calvs would say, there was never a time when the dis-elect were ever sons of God.

But St. Paul in Ephesians 2 clearly states that we ourselves were, in our nature, “children of indignation”. We didn’t only behave like sons of stubbornness, we were sons of stubbornness. The sons of God, the elect, were also children of indignation and sons of stubbornness. Consequently, there can be no principle dichomatic division between those who are and those who are not sons of God. (But this should have been evident anyway from the principles of even mere supernaturalistic theism.)

Why the mixed distinction, then? Because (as St. Paul, and the Hebraist if he is not Paul, teach elsewhere), those who are children of the Father (even the “sons of God” in the heavens who rebel, per the OT prophets), may not yet be inheritors. This was a common cultural point across many Mediterranean cultures, including the Romans and the Jews: even the legitimate children are not automatically inheritors of the family prerogatives, authority and responsibilities, but the father confers this upon them when they are personally mature. And, just as importantly, the loving and (himself) responsible father acts to lead wayward children, through punishment if necessary, to grow to be mature and responsible children. They remain children either way. But if they are behaving irresponsibly, then they are children of indignation, sons of stubbornness.

So, actually, it’s true both ways in Ephesians, Fraz. :smiley: (A common occurrence in Biblical theology.) We are/were children of indignation in the sense that God will be indignant with us, and wrathful against us, for our irresponsible behavior; and we were/are children of indignation insofar as our irresponsible behavior involves antithetical indignation against other persons.

Moreover, just as we are clearly taught elsewhere, we will continue to be children of indignation, calling upon ourselves the indignation of God, so long as we refuse to put aside our indignation and do justice and love and forgiveness–freely given joy–for other persons. Which grieves the Holy Spirit when we refuse to do that; and which the Holy Spirit is leading us to do instead.

Just as God does first for us. :slight_smile:

(PS: eek, I’m supposed to be doing editing and things instead of writing articles!.. sigh… :unamused: )

#3

Jason,

Wow, that’s quite a treatise! I’m not even sure how or where to dig into all that. The theme of the universal fatherhood of God is something I’m having to rethink. I’ve always kind of associated the whole universal fatherhood of God and universal brotherhood of man thing with liberal theology, and I’m no liberal! :slight_smile: On the other hand, not only does Paul seem to speak of it in several places, Jesus certainly seemed to talk as if everyone who was listening to him could call God their father. It seems that the whole central point of Jesus’ teaching was that God is not like a distant, angry judge who’s looking to convict as many felons as possible, but that he’s like a loving father calling home all of his lost children. (I can’t even write that without getting tears in my eyes. Funny. Maybe it’s because I have kids of my own now, but I never used to get choked up thinking about the lost).

My biggest problem with the traditional view of “by nature children of wrath” is the idea that from birth we are fitting objects of hell and judgment because of what Adam did. Being children of God puts a much different slant on things. But then you have John who says that to everyone who believed on Jesus’ name he gave the power or authority (exousia) to become children of God. This does seem to be a key point, with some references that indicate that all are children of God, and some references that only some are. But then I found in 1 Pet. 3:6 he speaks of Christian women becoming the children of Sarah if they emulate her example. Becoming the children of God then could include not only inheritance but also the rights and authority of sonship - all the same authority that Jesus had! That’s almost too mind-blowing to think about. In the past I’ve always read that verse as just meaning you were saved. But it seems to me it goes a lot deeper than that.

I’ve long understood that salvation meant more than just being saved from punishment in the afterlife. I also understood it to mean salvation from sin, not just the consequences of sin but the power of sin over you that keeps you in bondage. But it also must have a lot to do with receiving the power and authority of sonship, the power to reclaim the lost children of God who are prisoners of the powers of darkness, and to restore all that the enemy has destroyed. I saw someone (maybe you) say that they thought charismatics and pentecostals might be more open to UR than other traditions. I think I can understand why. For many traditions the only point of the Gospel is to save people from eternal damnation, so if there is no eternal damnation they’ve lost their whole reason for being! But if it’s about restoring the children of God to their rightful place, then we’ve still got a lot of work to do.

#4

I’m going to be short with this for now due to my time constraints. I know there is more to it, but But Paul meant “children of temporary wrath”.

#5

Thankfully the lost don’t have to rely on Christians (boy would I be in the s**t if that were so) but on the Shepherd who leaves the snooty nosed ‘safe ones’ and hoiks the one lost sheep onto his shoulders and walks home.
:wink:

#6

Which is more than a little ironic–since this doctrine is not only a direct corollary to any kind of supernaturalistic theism (including conservatively orthodox Christianity), it is even more bluntly a corollary to the most fundamentalistic interpretation possible of Genesis 1-3.

But you’re right–I can point directly to an internet apologist in the past year who derided me in public (not on this forum :wink: ) for insisting that a trollish atheist (who frankly annoys us both) is still a son of God and ought to be treated as such (even when we have to oppose him). And this Christian wasn’t even a Calvinist (as far as I recall!–although I may be misremembering his occasional opposition to a group of strongly Calv internet apologists who are discussed and who sometimes show up for debate on that same forum.)

Why was he deriding me, at bottom? He admitted why, himself, near the beginning of our discussion (such as it was) on this topic: “You have really got to reign in some of the more outlandish precepts of your universalism.”

There you go. :unamused: :wink: I apply a precept that directly follows first from accepting supernaturalistic theism (much moreso orthodox trinitarianism), and am slapped down for it because…? (Hint: not because it follows directly from accepting super-theism.)

It’s hard for me to understand, now, how any theist who truly loves anyone else (especially who isn’t yet Christian, much moreso who is a sinner–like all of us) could not be at least hopefully universalistic.

In my experience, the standard reply to that tends to be, “You are only saying that because you love her more than God.” Which, being a highly-self-critical person, is a concern that isn’t ever far from my mind, either.

But then, God loves her, too, at least as much as He loves Himself, so that the commandment to love our neighbor as we love ourselves has a root in God’s own reality. And also, “How can you love the Father Whom you haven’t seen, if you do not love the neighbor whom you have seen?!” “He who says he loves God, and hates his neighbor, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” Am I not supposed to cooperate with God, in loving her more than my own power of loving, with all that God gives me to give to her, self-sacrificially?!

But there it is: one way or another, sooner or later, a non-universalist will end up answering at least possibly “no”, to that.

As can a more complex understanding of original-sin effect. (And a more complex understanding of “Gehenna”, along the lines of Mark 9:49-50.)

Note how my cultural reference point synchs up with that, though. All of us are children of God; but only some of us are inheriting children, currently (a concept also closely connected to the ancient concept of ambassadors, not only in the Ancient Near Middle East, but all over the world throughout human history); but God intends for all His children to be inheritors, and is acting toward that goal.

Which actually comports with St. Paul’s notion (in Rom 11) of being grafted into (and out of!) the promises of Israel.

But then, not every woman is a descendent of Sarah to begin with. And then again, a natural descendent of Sarah isn’t automatically an inheritor of Sarah. (Jesus, preceded by John the Baptist, inveighs against people holding that kind of assumption, particularly when such people give themselves airs and priorities over other people on that ground.)

In a delegated, derivative sense, of course. But yes. (Again, connects to the worldwide historical standard of ambassadorship, too.)

Yep, pretty much that, too. :smiley:

Have I recently mentioned that all this is also intimately connected to the ancient idea of “ransom”?–which was applied (more-or-less in the way we’re most familiar with in today’s society) as a derivative application to the situation of a family member held hostage by someone, being freed due to the action of a redeeming kinsman. But this application was derived, as a metaphor, from the more basic idea of growing into an inheritance.

(The word we translate “ransom” or “redeem” means “to be lifted up”. For the sake of our “lifting up”, Christ Himself is “lifted up”, on the cross and in the Ascension. Mind-blowing thematic convergence: the phrase is also used for betrayal to death! :open_mouth: :astonished: :open_mouth: )

The same is true with our rather limited modern concept of “adoption”. We think of it as being brought into the family of someone who isn’t our ancestor; and that happened far more frequently in antiquity (all over the world) than it does now, of course. But the thing about “adoption” in the Biblical cultures, was that even the natural kids had to be “adopted” by their own family-head–i.e., recognized by the family-head as being authoritative members of the family now, allowed to operate as representatives of the family’s chief authority.

It wasn’t me (and I may have even missed that comment); but now that you mention it, yeah, I can understand why, too. Charismatics and pentacostals are heavily involved in receiving and cooperating with the Holy Spirit. Objectively I don’t trust some of the things they do for ‘assurance’ of this; and subjectively that kind of thing just isn’t my cup of tea (although as Lewis once pointed out, this is probably due to a fundamental weakness or lack of taste on our part :wink: – something ideally set to be cured someday, and for which we might even have to repent eventually.) And, as you’ll discover reading through the other introductions, we have a good proportion of ex penta-charismaticostals, here on the forum. :mrgreen:

But yeah, in principle I quite agree with the basic idea that they’re going for. :smiley:

#7

My vote for best comment all week so far. :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

#8

Jason, are keeping up with your schedule for writing your second epic? LOL:)

#9

I will be two days behind, if I don’t catch up by the end of today… :wink: :laughing: So, no. But barely no.

Dangit!! Stop being such an interesting forum that I feel like I ought to be contributing to all the time!!!

:mrgreen: