Herod’s death and the wrath of God
The Old Testament writers record a brutal history of divine wrath that came to an abrupt end at the cross. Before the cross, wrath was poured out on…
– a world hell-bent on violence and self-destruction (Gen 6:13)
– Sodom and Gomorrah on account of their “grievous sin” (Gen 18:20)
– the slave-owning nation of Egypt (Exodus 7-11)
– a generation of sinful Israelites (Heb 3:17)
– the Amorites because of the “full measure” of their sin (Gen 15:16)
– Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu (Lev 10:2)
– ten fearful spies (Num 14:37)
– the rebel Korah and his men (Num 16:31)
– the pagan enemies of Israel (Jos 10:25)
– the murderous Abimelech (Judg 9:56)
– 70 men of Beth Shemesh who looked into the ark (1 Sam 6:19)
– Uzzah who touched the ark (2 Sam 6:7)
– 185,000 Assyrian invaders (2 Sam 19:35)
But after the cross, God’s wrath was poured out on no murderers, no gay cities, no slave-owners, no murmurers, no fearful spies, no rebels and no foreign invaders. Do you see? The cross changed everything!
God used Christ’s body to condemn sin. (Romans 8:3, CEV)
Because of Jesus, the wrath of God towards sin has been fully satisfied. I’m not saying there are no consequences for sin. Nor am I saying all are saved, for some may reject the life that Christ offers. I am saying that sin is no longer part of the equation. Your sin and my sin have been done away with at the cross (Heb 9:26). “The punishment that brought us peace was upon him” (Is 53:5). Because of Jesus there remains no more punishment for sin.
“But Paul, you are forgetting two things. God destroyed Jerusalem and killed Herod. Both events happened after the cross.”
I find it stunning that those looking for instances of divine punishment can find, after 2000 years of sin, violence, and war, no more than two examples. Surely, if God was in the punishment business, he’s let a few tyrants and terrorists get away.
But God is not in the punishment business! As I explain elsewhere the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70 had little to do with divine wrath. Jesus, not Titus, is the hinge-point of history. But what can we say about Herod Agrippa?
Who killed Herod?
On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. They shouted, “This is the voice of a god, not of a man.” Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died. (Act 12:21-23)
Given how the cross of Christ splits history in two, don’t you find it strange that Herod received some old covenant wrath in the new covenant? There are only two ways to explain this:
1. Since Herod was not a believer, the benefits of the new covenant don’t apply to him. Those who reject God’s mercy “remain under wrath” (John 3:36).
2. God didn’t kill Herod.
Are unbelievers under wrath?
When John says the unbeliever remains under wrath, he means the unbeliever is swimming against the tide of God’s love and grace. He’s on the wrong side of history, sowing the whirlwind, suppressing the truth, and earning the wages of sin. John is not saying that God is angry with that person.
The testimony of Jesus is that God does not relate to sinners with wrath but grace. Since love keeps no record of wrongs, God does not hold our sins against us (2 Cor 5:19). This is the good news of the cross!
(There is a coming day of wrath but it’s a single day, a one-time event. Wrath does not describe how God relates to us now. God is not in the habit of flooding the world, raining fire from heaven, or causing the ground to swallow bad men and their families.)
God is not angry with sinners; God loves sinners (Rom 5:8). To say “God killed Herod” is to say he loved the whole world, except one guy. It’s to say Jesus carried the sins of the whole world, except for Herod. It makes no sense.
God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34). If Herod has to die at God’s hand, then all the Herods must die, or God is unjust. Yet we live in a world of unpunished Herods. Something doesn’t add up.
The flimsy case against God
I sometimes hear from those who are keen to charge God with the murder of Herod. In a court of law this charge wouldn’t stand up, for four reasons:
(1) God had no motive. A just God cannot judge the same sin twice and since all sin was condemned on the cross, God had no reason to condemn Herod for his sin.
(2) The charge is inconsistent with the character of God revealed by Jesus. Jesus never killed or smote anyone, not even Herod. For thousands of years God has extended mercy towards the Herods of this world. Countless crooks and bozos have gone unjudged testifying to the mercy of a good God who is not willing that any should perish.
(3) The charge is vague. As I explain elsewhere, the phrase “an angel of the Lord” doesn’t necessarily mean God did it. This idiom implies other possibilities.
(4) Agrippa’s son, Herod Agrippa II, had a long chat with Paul and not once mentioned anything about God killing his father. Indeed Agrippa II had no fear of the Lord (Acts 26:28).
If God killed Herod he is unjust (for not killing other Herods), the Bible is wrong (because God apparently does show favoritism), and Jesus’ work remains unfinished (because Herod’s sin has not been done away with).
But the stunning testimony of history is that God is not in the punishment business. On the cross God poured out his wrath on sin once and for all time. Because of Jesus, you are unpunishable.
He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. (Ps. 103:10)
Do you see? The Maker of heaven and earth is not trying to control you through the fear of punishment – there is no punishment! He’s trying to draw you to himself with arms of love.
I know there are some who’ll threaten you with the big stick of God’s punishment, but that’s only because they haven’t seen the Bigger Stick of the cross. Take care who you listen to. Take care what you think about God’s character. If you believe that God smote Herod, you may worry that he’ll smite you. If you’ve heard that God is in the punishment business, you’ll never walk secure in his love (1 Jn 4:18).
Perhaps you have said, “I lost my job/home/child. God is punishing me for…” No he is not! Look to the cross and renew your unbelieving mind.
“But what about all the bad stuff I’ve done. I’ve got baggage. I need to get cleaned up before I come home.” No you don’t! Leave your bags at the cross and come running, just as you are. Your Father looks at you with nothing but love in his eyes.
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Escape to Reality 
Barry,
Pointing to a sinner – Abraham – doesn’t help you. We sin. We love poorly. Abraham lied about his wife to save his own skin.
God is a different sort of Agent.
Also: The exegesis of your Corinth/ Rev. quotes isn’t ultimately favorable to God killing Christians.
Sorry about the 300 words Paul. I can’t get it any smaller…… we’ll I *can* …. but time is precious.
Colleen,
That or that God would restore him – the promise – Isaac. But *we* will return…. that favors your description.
We are not left to guess what Abraham was thinking when he said, “We will return”
And Abe wasn’t reasoning that God wouldn’t let Abe do it either . (Abe knew God better than to think God doesn’t play for anything but for keeps when He issues a command.)
What then does God tell us about what Ave was thinking?
He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type. (Hebrews 11:19 NASB)
This verse clearly tells Abe (by faith and to please God) took God seriously and fully intended to kill Issac .
Unlike the modern Chruch who scoff at obedience to God- To Abe (the father if faith who knew he wasn’t justified by obedience but by faith )yet obedience to God’s was so critical to him that he was ready to kill his son “your only son- whom you love.”
Are you saying that ‘The Angel of the Lord’ is a metaphor for ‘the consequences of sin’ which are not God’s explicit will but rather the result of an individual’s rebellion against God?
I look at different interpretations of that phrase in a post called “Who killed Herod?“
Barry,
All men – ultimately intersect with God in what Scripture labels as a bi-directional final response. Grace is – to all men – granted, offered, freely, and also, all men, freely, volitionally, respond with that free-fall into Grace which we call salvation or instead with that volitional pushing-off, refusal of, said free fall. The Legalists like to disguise this fact with, “Well over here it is something different than that bi-directional final response”. But the Legalist must pit God against God to present that whole exegesis as coherent. God’s love perfectly coheres with that intersection: all men eventually come to that “juncture” of facing God which H & A & S came to there in Acts. That one little fact is what the Legalists omit as they build up their whole misguided theology on H & A & S. That “mere fact” (that all men eventually come to that juncture) ought not – ever – cause any theological attrition on His unassailable Gospel of Grace. Whenever such attrition is noted we can be sure that we are getting disoriented. It’s not like a man can go on “forever without ever running into God”. That’s just metaphysical nonsense.
Brian (and maybe Barry),
On the Angel of the Lord:
You should see (perhaps) my post to Barry too (hoping Paul posts it) as it ties in closely to this nuance. All men, per Luke 12:20, when it comes to that business of “timing” of when any man finds himself at “that juncture” (before God), are entirely in God’s Hands (as to “timing”). Our lives are in His Hands. The “mere fact” that our own particular swath of time runs out in this life (eventually) isn’t some dark mystery but is merely “Man before God”. It’s not like a man can go on “forever without ever running into God”. That’s just metaphysical nonsense. Jesus tells us the Angels of the Lord intersect all men and He tells us this of Angles repeatedly in His parables. That is the “mechanism” whereby Man/God intersect. No man (no soul) just jumps out of his skin and pulls himself up to God (and so on). The Legalist though omits this fact from his entire misguided theology on H & A & S just to say God kills Christians. Thus far we have the Legalists omitting two key facts about reality: 1) All Men intersect God in that bi-directional final response. Period. 2) All Men are “harvested” (for better or worse) by the Angles of the Lord. Period.
Barry,
Abraham reasoned right: God can raise people from the dead. Abraham reasoned wrong: God was going to kill Isaac.
So what?
What does that have to do with what God was reasoning?
Abraham came from a world in which children were sacrificed to the gods. God was revealing an incredible line of (new, radical) sight to a man buried in that perverse normative mindset.
It is astounding that that is lost on the Legalists. It is astounding that the Legalists merely take it as a line to be obedient for that fateful day when God commands us to go and kill – or let God kill – one of our Christian children – because God kills Christians and God commands us to set them on altars of fire. And how do we know this of God? “Well because Abraham reasoned that way about God – that’s why.”
Of course Abraham reasoned that way – that’s what the gods were and did in his experience.
Until YHWH. God reasons very, very different. God was taking Abraham to a place he could never imagine – and while Abraham believed God his faith did not make him (and his mind) sinless. We must take our final leads from God – not from misperceptions of we who follow Him. Abraham had no idea where this radical God – YHWH – the Living God – was ultimately leading Him to – where God was (and is) taking us to.
It wasn’t Abe who said , “Offer HIM there AS A BURNT OFFERING” ! It was GOD!
Abe wasn’t mistaken as you propose – HE was about to do EXACTLY what God told him to do , “Kill and burn YOUR SON ISAAC.” God didn’t say “Oh sorry I meant to say “Kill and burn a lamb instead”
Hi Paul…
Love your work mate and I’m enjoying this new journey… lots of ’new things’ to learn and unlearn I think!
Do you have any video teaching stuff, YouTube, audio or the like. More for those moments when you want to hear something but just need to rest the eyeballs a bit from the daily grind!
Cheers for you from a Grace that knows no bounds, Laurence Brill
Thanks for the feedback, Laurence. I don’t have any audiobooks as yet, but if you follow the instructions found here, you can hear my books on your smartphone/tablet/PC.
Barry,
If you believe God intended there – or ever approved of a man putting his child on an altar of fire – and setting it ablaze, then you’re just completely disoriented.
Think about what you are saying that God meant to do there. He, God, really meant to burn the child alive – and not just that – but He meant to teach a man to do so to his own child.
That was the end-game there.
Do you believe that?
If you do then you’re building a very misguided theology on a few verses rather than on the whole meta-narrative of what Scripture is revealing through all verses in summation.
The meta-narrative of the God Who is love both begins and ends in very different landscapes.
Barry,
Prior thoughts combined in 249 words =)
If we believe that God’s end-game was to kill a child, or, to have Abraham himself kill the child, then we are completely disoriented.
We would be asserting a one-verse theology that such was God’s designed end-game there.
To assert that that was God’s designed plan, intention, is to set out building a very misguided theology on a few verses rather than on the whole meta-narrative of what Scripture is revealing through all verses in summation.
Looking at Scripture as a whole meta-narrative, a singularity, what then was the actual end game there of God’s Own design?
It wasn’t to kill.
It was to reveal.
God aimed at the very epicenter of Abraham’s a priori image of God: the *god* who sacrifices children in fires – the *god* who leads nations to kill their kids alive – as Abraham’s culturally instilled normative constructs certainly fed into. God is in the process of revealing Himself to Abraham as the very antithesis of Abraham’s a priori epicenter.
Think for a minute on the wider story. Just imagine the litany of thoughts that must have been racing through Abraham’s mind the day AFTER!
“What a peculiar God!”
All men: Have some swath of Time in which to live which eventually ends. All men: Freely refuse His Grace or instead free-fall into God. All men: Are literally, mechanistically, harvested by the Angels of the Lord, regardless of destiny.
We must read all verses among all other verses.