Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE MEANING OF THE WORD 'WRATH', by JOHN BYROM


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE MEANING OF THE WORD 'WRATH', by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: God so loved the world! - by how tender a phrase
Last Line: From the father and son, a life-spirit in man.
Subject(s): Bible; God; Love; Religion; Saints; Theology


God so loved the world!—By how tender a phrase
The design of his Father our Saviour displays!
Love, according to Him, 'when the world was undone,
Was the Father's sole reason for giving his Son.
No wrath in the Giver had Christ to atone,
But to save a poor perishing world from its own.
A belief in the Son carries with it a faith,
That the Motive Paternal was love, and not wrath.

Ev'ry good, perfect gift, cometh down from above,
From the Father of lights, thro' the Son of his Love.
As in Him there is no variation or change,
Neither shadow of turning, it well may seem strange
That, when scripture assures us so plainly, that He,
His will, grace, or gift, is so perfectly free,
Any word should be strain'd to inculcate a thought
Of a wrath in his mind, or a change to be wrought.

All wrath is the product of creaturely sin;
In immutable love it could never begin;
Nor, indeed, in a creature, till opposite will
To the love of its GOD had brought forth such an ill;
To the love that was pleas'd to communicate bliss
In such endless degrees, thro' all nature's abyss:
Nor could wrath have been known, had not man left the state,
In which nature's GOD was pleas'd man to create.

He saw, when the world in its purity stood,
Every thing He had made, and Behold it was good;
And the man, its one ruler, before his sad fall,
As the image of GOD, had the goodness of all:
When He fell, and awak'ned wrath, evil, and curse
In himself and the world, was GOD become worse,
Who so lov'd the world still, that, when wrath was begun,
To redeem the lost creature, he gave his own Son?

Freely gave Him; not mov'd or incited thereto
By a previous appeasing, or payment of due
To his wrath, or his vengeance, or any such cause
As should satisfy Him for the breach of his laws:
This language the Jew Nicodemus might use;
But our Saviour's to him had more excellent views;
"GOD so loved the world," (are his words,) "that he gave
"His Only-begotten in order to save."

Love's prior, unpurchas'd, unpaid-for intent
Was the cause, why the Only-begotten was sent,
That thro' Him we might live; and the cause why He came,
Was to manifest love, ever one and the same:
Full conquest of wrath ever striving to make,
And blotting transgressions out for its own sake;
Wanting no satisfaction itself, but to give
Itself, that the world might receive it, and live—

Might believe on the Son, and receive a new birth
From the love, that in Christ was incarnate on earth;
When a virgin brought forth, without help of a man,
The Restorer of GOD's true, original plan;
The one Quencher uf wrath, the Atoner of sin,
And the Bringer of justice and righteousness in;
The Renewer, in man, of a pow'r and a will
To satisfy justice—that is, to fulfil.

There is nothing that justice and righteousness hath
More opposite to it than anger and wrath;
As repugnant to all that is equal and right,
As falshood to truth, or as darkness to light.
Of GOD, in Himself, what the scripture affirms
Is truth, light, and love—plain significant terms;
In his Deity, therefore, there cannot befal
Any falshood, or darkness, or hatred at all.

Such defect can be found in that creature alone,
Which against his good will seeks to set up its own;
Then, to GOD and his justice it giveth the lie,
And its darkness and wrath are discover'd thereby:
What before was subservient to life, in due place,
Then usurps the dominion, and death is the case;
Which the Son of GOD only could ever subdue,
By doing all that which love gave Him to do.

If the anger of GOD, fury, wrath, waxing hot,
And the like human phrases that scripture has got,
Be insisted upon, why not also the rest,
Where GOD, in the language of men, is express'd
In a manner, which, all are oblig'd to confess,
No defect in his nature can mean to express?
With a GOD, who is love, ev'ry word should agree;
With GOD, who hath said, Fury is not in me.

The disorders in nature, for none are in GOD,
Are intitled "his vengeance, his wrath, or his rod,"
Like "his ice, or his frost, his plague, famine, or sword"—
That the love, which directs them, may still be ador'd;
Directs them, till justice,—call'd his or call'd ours,—
Shall regain, to our comfort, its primitive pow'rs;
The true, saving justice, that bids us endure
What love shall prescribe, for effecting our cure.

By a process of love, from the crib to the cross,
Did the Only-begotten recover our loss;
And shew in us men how the Father is pleas'd,
When the wrath in our nature by love is appeas'd,
When the birth of His Christ, being formed within,
Dissolves the dark death of all self-hood and sin;
Till the love that so lov'd us, becomes once again,
From the Father and Son, a life-spirit in man.





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