Rescued from the Wrath to Come

Though the Bible refers to various types of salvation, when it speaks about salvation in the ultimate sense, it’s speaking of the ultimate escape from the ultimate dire human condition. This brings us back to the question I asked the man in Philadelphia so many years ago: “Saved from what?” And the answer, the Scriptures tell us, is that we must be saved from the wrath that is to come. God’s wrath, as we’re told in Romans 1, is revealed to the whole world, and the Bible makes it abundantly clear that there awaits a judgment. 

The greatest calamity that anybody can ever imagine is to be sentenced to hell. In his first epistle to the Thessalonians, Paul writes: For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. (1 Thess. 1:9–10) 

The ultimate salvation that any human being can ever experience is rescue from the wrath that is to come. Do we believe that there remains a wrath that is to come? I think the greatest point of unbelief in our culture and in our church today is an unbelief in the wrath of God and in His certain promise of judgment for the human race. 

Christians get excited about the return of Jesus. Oh, happy day! Yes, it is a happy day for the saved, but for the unsaved the return of Jesus is the worst of all conceivable calamities. It is a day of desolation, as the prophet Zephaniah foretold. Near is the great day of the Lord. Near, coming very quickly, is that day of wrath, a day of trouble, of distress, destruction, desolation, darkness, gloom. And on the day of the Lord’s wrath, all the earth will be devoured, for He will make a terrifying end to the inhabitants of this world.

Adapted from The Great Rescue: Understanding the Saving Work of Christ by R.C. Sproul