Character Consistency
By Anthony Casperson
11-7-26

A character has proven to have a meek personality. Perhaps they add to that a sharp mind or unique perspective. But then, a fight breaks out around them. And this mild-mannered individual suddenly transforms into an action hero who takes down an entire troop of invaders with precision efficiency.

Right then, we’re taken out of the story. Suspension of disbelief shattered. All because of inconsistent characterization. There’s just something screaming inside of us, “That’s not the same character you’ve been showing us all along.”

But sometimes, people cry out about character inconsistency while completely misunderstanding the core of character as represented. A person might expect an action star with 1980’s stylings when they hear of a mighty warrior, but as a little green guy will readily remind us, “Wars not make one great.”

Perhaps their meekness is the standard of who they are as a disciplined adherent to a personal philosophy, but when a certain threshold is crossed, it reveals a depth of character that goes beyond the surface of mild-mannered.

Anyone perceiving only the shallowest perspective of the person will still declare this as inconsistency, but those who understand the fullness of who that figure is will shake their heads and say, “Claiming inconsistency just proves that you’ve missed an important aspect of their character.”

I bring up this comparison because cries of character inconsistency sound all around the topic of how God’s love and his wrath interact. As a matter of fact, a man named Marcion, the very first person in history to be titled with the term “heretic,” claimed divine love and wrath were so opposed that they couldn’t belong to the same God.

Followers of Jesus have been debating the consistency of Yahweh’s character for hundreds upon hundreds of years. However, I posit that the debate revolves around the misunderstanding of the depths of God’s character.

The terms love, mercy, and grace often rest at the surface level understanding of who Yahweh is. They’re the standard when he has no reason to be anything else. But when pushed to act—because of that very love—his depth is revealed to be both loving toward those who are his and being wrathful toward the effects of sin upon those same people.

Love and wrath can be consistent, given the right circumstances.

While we could approach this topic from several directions, there isn’t really a verse or single passage that directly states the fullness of this topic. And we want to always be careful to not just cherry pick verses outside of context. So, I looked up one of the most common Greek words for wrath, and found an interesting fact that guided my study.

One third of the New Testament occurrences of the main word for “wrath” can be found in the book of Romans.

This fact tells me that we can look at the book of Romans and get a decently consistent read on the concept. As long as we don’t remove contextual aspects of the verses in order to make our point, we should be as consistent as the character of Yahweh.

Although, this does make me have to state that the topic of wrath and its consistency with God’s love, mercy, and grace is not the primary theme of Paul’s letter to the followers of Jesus in Rome. In an overarching perspective, Romans explains how right relationship with God is found through faith in the cross of Jesus, rather than the Mosaic Law—for both Jews and Gentiles—and also shows how that faith transforms the daily lives of his people in the world around us.

So, while the book mainly explores the ideas of justification and sanctification in regard to the Law that had been set for the nation of Israel, it also allows us to look at Yahweh’s character in relation to his mercy through the sacrificial death of Jesus, as well as God’s attitude toward the sin that required it.

Thus, we begin our time in the book by looking at why wrath exists to begin with. And it has to do with godly justice and the fact that a legal standard exists.

While Paul is in the middle of describing the importance of having faith like Abraham had—in order to be heirs of this right relationship with God—Paul writes Romans 4:14-15. These verses show us that “the law brings wrath.” The fact that there is a standard of justice means that legal repercussion for failing to live up to that standard will occur.

Strict adherence to the Mosaic Law doesn’t produce heirs of God’s promise to Abraham. All it does is nullify faith and prove the need for righteous wrath.

Paul’s words in Romans 3:5-6 speak more to this revelation of God’s righteousness through the legal repercussions of our sin. If one were to ask, “Is God unfair and unrighteous because he follows the natural consequences of justice against those who have broken the legal standard?” then the answer is exactly what Paul says in verse 5.

“By no means.” Absolutely not. The strongest way humanly possible to say, “No.” Any claim of unrighteousness against God in his act of inflicting wrath upon law-breakers totally misunderstands Yahweh’s character. He’s following the direct consequences of what happens when a person breaks the Law and sins.

When Paul spoke about the error of applying the Law only to others and not ourselves, in Romans 2:2-10, he reminds us of those natural consequences of sin. Verse 2 flat out says that God’s judgement—his wrath—rightly and justly falls upon those who hold a double standard toward sin.

But beyond that, in verses 4-5, Paul writes that while God’s kindness leads to repentance and salvation, those who harden their hearts find a totally different outcome. They store up God’s wrath for themselves as a natural ramification. If you stand outside while the rain is pouring, you should expect to get wet. And saying that the weather is unfair for your current predicament of being soaked through is ridiculous.

Thus, when that day comes where the fullness of God’s wrath is shown, it will be as a consequence built up throughout our lives, and because of our actions. Verses 6-8 show that the two end states—eternal life, or wrath and fury—are as a direct result of our actions. Those who seek God’s righteousness find the path to life, while those who seek only selfishness and their own self-made directions walk the way to wrath.

But just because wrath is a natural consequence of breaking the legal standard, it doesn’t mean that God has to like that fact. In truth, God’s hatred toward sin is not so much due to the breaking of a code, but rather because of what sin does to his creation. His love for humanity—his desire to see his finest creation live up to their greatest potential—causes his heart to break when those ramifications happen.

Look at how Paul describes the effects of sin on humanity, even as he’s explaining the need for faith in righteousness, in Romans 1:16-32.

In verses 17-18 we see that, “the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith,” but “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” And that unrighteousness prevents us from perceiving the truth, from understanding the true righteousness of God.

And also notice how it is the sin, the acts of ungodliness and unrighteousness, that reveals God’s wrath. It’s not humanity itself that causes the wrath, but rather the effects of that sin upon those human beings he loves.

Verses 21-25 show us the downward spiral of humanity as we let sin grip all the stronger onto us. Choosing to not honor Yahweh or to not be thankful toward the One who is present in our lives leads to a mind that futilely searches for significance somewhere else. This then leads us to darkened vision about what is good and true, which then causes foolishness to appear as wise. Likewise, it leads to a trading of God’s glory for lesser images of created beings.

Then, after a lengthy downfall that has grieved God along the whole way, the natural ramifications kick in. God allows our lusts to lead us to greater and greater impurity, until we denigrate even our own bodies in the lawlessness that we claim to be good. Thus, in our sinfulness, we trade truth and righteousness of God for a lie, claiming the very things that harm our spiritual and physical life are the way to freedom.

Those natural ramifications of sinning and breaking the Law are actually harmful to humanity. They cause us to denigrate the dignity our Creator placed in us. They leave us gouging out our own spiritual eyes, while claiming to finally see. They lead us down a path of death and destruction while the road sign says, “Freedom and happiness.”

It’s because of this detriment to those whom God loves that causes his wrath to reveal itself. His hatred for the pain and loss in the lives of those he loves causes him act.

In both love and wrath.

The wrath is as a natural consequence to breaking the Law. But his love is as a chosen consequence to save us from the situation that we’ve placed ourselves into.

While Paul writes about justification through faith in Christ, in Romans 5, we see this truth of wrath and love working in tandem play out. We witness the greatness of God’s love for us in the very fact that Jesus sacrificed himself for us.

Verse 8 says that God showed his love for us while we were still sinners. Even though we deserved—and still do deserve—the wrath of God poured out as a natural consequence of our sin, his love saves us from it. The fact that his blood leads to the justification of those who bow before his cross makes us all the more sure that when the day of final judgement and wrath arises, we will be saved from those most dire of ramifications, because Jesus already paid that price for us.

The rest of chapter 5 juxtaposes the outcomes of actions between Adam and Jesus. The death and other natural consequences of sin brought about through Adam. And the salvation and life brought about because of the work of Jesus on the cross. While the justice of God demands consequence for sinning and breaking the Law, his love causes him to want to separate the sinner from the sin that is the true object of his wrath.

And that can only happen through Jesus’ work on the cross, where Christ’s righteousness is imputed into us while he pays the cost of the ramifications.

As a matter of fact, the very truth that God has yet to bring about the fullness of his wrath upon the world is proof of his desire to separate out sin as the object of his wrath. He’s waiting for the fullness of humanity that is ever going to seek him and his mercy before unleashing the wrath so that there is the least collateral damage from it.

Romans 9:22-24 shows us that God desires to show his wrath—because in his love he wants to stop the pain and harm of sin upon those he loves—but his patience has stayed his hand for now. His greater desire is to make known the abundance of his mercy and kindness and love upon those whom he’s crafted to be vessels for his mercy.

While none of us should complain about ending up as clay pots, whether for common or holy use—because God is the Divine Potter—we can rejoice that he keeps his hand at the wheel in order to make as many of us mercy holding vessels as possible.

And God calls us to have this same forbearance toward others. This is why, after Paul has turned to practical application of the letter’s theological truth, the Apostle tells us to let God be the one to enact vengeance, judgement, and wrath.

In Romans 12:19-21, we see the call to leave vengeance to the wrath of God. The very thing that seemed so disastrous to us while we were led astray by our sins becomes a blessed shield from greater and further sin.

We, as individuals, can’t really stay our hand the same way as God does. Our human limitations prevent us from seeing our own pain as objectively as possible. And thus, our demands for justice will not lead to righteous wrath, but rather to rage-filled revenge. Therefore, to rescue us from possibly going to extremes, God calls us to enact his loving forbearance toward us by waiting for the righteous Judge and the agents he places in this world to enact the justice.

And the fact that God doesn’t want us to necessarily wait for justice until the fullness of his Kingdom, this is why he provides the governmental authorities to dispense justice, as we see in Romans 13:1-7. Now, this doesn’t mean that every civil government will lead justly—they are all made up of fallen and sinful human beings after all—but allowing an outside perspective on our particular circumstances can prevent us from falling into revenge while waiting for God’s just wrath to reveal itself.

During this survey of God’s wrath through the book of Romans, I hope that we can see that it is the very love of God that both drives God’s wrath and causes him to sacrifice himself so as to separate the harmful sin from those whom he loves. God hates sin because of what it does to those he loves, and so in order to end that pain and suffering, he desires to bring an end to that sin and rebellion.

However, because many will unfortunately refuse to accept his offered salvation, they will find the natural ramifications of their actions to leave them uncovered from God’s loving wrath.

This doesn’t mean that God’s character is inconsistent. It’s not wrath suddenly taking over his love. His patience in keeping his hand to the wheel while their clay was being molded proves his love. But sometimes, even patience will not result in the desired outcome. And this is all the more true when it comes to the freedom of choice that humanity has.

In the end, God’s love for his hurting people is a motivation for his wrath. And his wrath motivates him to act in that love through the cross.

I have long said, “That which moves one to tears is what moves one to act.” Love leads to action. And when it is harm that affects those loved, wrath will flow out.

That’s not character inconsistency. It’s the depth of his character.