Category: ecclesiology

Examining “Rev.” Brian Lee’s “Theology” … R2K Unleashed (II)

We continue dissecting the honorable Rev. Lee.

“It’s important to begin this discussion with a note of charity. There is great diversity in how Christians answer questions of Christ and culture, because the New Testament says very little explicitly about the matter, and the questions raised are necessarily highly contextual, reflecting one’s particular time and place. We need therefore to hold loosely to our conclusions and applications in this area, and respect those in other times and places and other traditions with whom we disagree.

As a minister in the Reformed tradition, I answer these questions with a series of distinctions that aren’t often clearly understood in our day, so establishing a framework is important to avoid confusion.

The Reformed tradition begins by acknowledging that Jesus Christ is Lord of all, but also makes careful distinction between how Christ rules in different spheres, or kingdoms.

First, Christ rules all the nations by his common grace. As Creator, all civil authorities are instituted and given by him (Romans 13:1), and the moral behavior of all men will be judged by him. Jesus does not administer this common grace kingdom to save, but to preserve the created order until the end of this age (Genesis 8:22) so that his redemptive work in the kingdom of grace may continue. The Law by which he rules in this realm is generally known through nature and our consciences, and it is sufficiently clear for all magistrates to punish evildoers by the sword (Romans 13:4).

1.) Those who are advancing a Heterodox position are always those who plead the loudest for “a note of charity.” This is merely the plea for “tolerance” wrapped up in Christianese. I’m all for “a note of charity,” in the non essentials (adiaphora), but what “Rev.” Lee is advocating is certainly not a matter of adiaphora. Rev. Lee, as we shall see, is advocating muting the Church’s voice in the face of the State’s invasion of the morals of her membership.

2.) “Rev.” Lee raises the issue of “contextualization” as a reason to go slow. Of course it was the ploy of Liberals and progressives to insist that contextualization required us to allow women in office. It is the ploy of Liberals and progressives to insist that contextualization requires us to affirm homosexual marriage. Contextualization has become one of the great levers by which the clear teaching of Scripture is overturned.

3.) When Lee recognizes that “Jesus Christ is Lord of all,” we might say that he says it with a lisp. You see for Lee, “Jesus Christ as Lord” means that Jesus is Lord enough to not be Lord in the common realm. We must recognize for Lee, and for all R2K, the Lordship of Jesus Christ is a spiritual (read — Platonic) reality that can not manifest itself in the common realm.

4.) The fact that Christ rules all the Nations by His common grace does not mean that Christ has no interest in seeing the Church, as Institution, being salt and light to the Nations. Nor does it mean that the Church’s witness ends at the common realm’s shore. The idea that since Christ rules all the Nation by His common grace therefore that means that Christ is not interested in His Church resisting the wickedness of the State is a position without precedent in Reformed Church History.

5.) Lee desires to cut the Noahic covenant off from the covenant of Grace so that he can posit a dualism between a realm of grace (the Church) where Christ is explicitly Lord and a common realm wherein the possibility of being conditioned by Christianity is literally not possible. This is a very tenuous exegesis that has been repeatedly challenged. Consider O. Palmer Robertson’s words where the Noahic covenant is seen as having continuity with the covenant of grace as opposed to Lee’s attempt to create a dualism between the Noahic covenant (establishing a common realm) and the covenant of grace (establishing a grace realm.)

“God does not relate to his creation through Noah apart from his on-going program of redemption. Even the provision concerning the ordering of seasons must be understood in the framework of God’s purposes respecting redemption. . . . The covenant with Noah binds together God’s purposes in creation with his purposes in redemption. Noah, his seed, and all creation benefit from this gracious relationship.”

Robertson continues: “A second distinctive of the covenant with Noah relates to the particularity of God’s redemptive grace.” This we see in Genesis 6:8: “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” In other words, “From the covenant with Noah it becomes quite obvious that God’s being ‘with us’ involves not only an outpouring of his grace on his people; it involves also an outpouring of his wrath on the seed of Satan.”

Again, the reason it is important to overturn Lee’s confusion on this point is that Lee’s whole article stands or falls on his ability to create a dualism via the Noahic covenant. If the Noahic covenant has continuity with the covenant of Grace then Lee’s insisting that the Church must be mute in the common realm cannot stand.

6.) Like all Radical Two Kingdom advocates Lee insists that Natural Law is to be preferred over God’s revealed law as it pertains to the common realm. There is no place in Scripture where it is taught that we are to prefer Natural law (whatever that may be) over revealed law in the common realm. This is all pure hypothetical theorizing on Lee’s part.

“Rev.” Brian Lee’s “Theology” Examined … R2K Shows It’s Colors

I hope to take a few posts examining the article found here

http://www.patheos.com/Topics/Politics-in-the-Pulpit/The-Church-Should-Not-Weigh-In-On-Ballot-Issues-Brian-Lee-110314.html

I was going to deal with it in all one post but there is so much wrong with this article from Radical Two Kingdom “Pastor,” Rev. Brian Lee, I thought I would take it one bite at a time over several posts and maybe days.

POLITICS IN THE PULPIT

The Church Should Not Weigh In On Ballot Issues

The Good News of Jesus Christ is the sole focus of our Gospel ministry, because we have neither the authority nor the expertise to weigh in on civil matters.

By Brian Lee, November 03, 2014

The headline of the article and the following lead in thematic sentence give us what “Rev.” Brian Lee believes the role of the Institutional Church and Ministers is to be, in American politics. It is interesting that the point that Lee is trying to support in his article is the same point that Chancellor Adolph Hitler made to Bishop Martin Niemoller when Niemoller protested some of Hitler’s policy. Said Hitler to Niemoller,

“I will protect the German people. You take care of the church. You pastors should worry about getting people to heaven, and leave this world to me.”

It is fascinating that the italicized sentence above is exactly what “Rev.” Brian Lee is arguing in for in the affirmative. Who could have known that Lee would have learned his theology from Hitler. Who could have known that Hitler’s position was a early form of Radical Two Kingdom (R2K) theology.

Of course it is not just Hitler’s theology. In point of fact it is the theology of all Tyrants who would have the Church shut up and remain supine in their attempt to translate themselves and the State into God’s competition as God walking on the Earth.

Yet here we have, in Lee, a putatively Reformed minister in a putatively conservative denomination, (URC) agreeing with every Tyrant’s most intense lust, that the Church just needs to go all supine when presented with the State’s rebellion against God.

CRC Listening Tour

Recently the CRC mandated committee to provide guidance on applying the denomination’s policy on homosexuality has been conducting a “listening tour,” and that “Listening Tour” touched town in the Classis of which I am a part. Never mind that it is not possible for someone to “listen” unless someone is speaking, the “Listening tour,” as it is officially sold, is intended to get people talking (and Listening) and to unofficially poll the denomination on its views on sodomy. In my estimation the purpose of this “Listening tour” is to get the denomination talking about sodomy so as to put a “human face” on it to the end of making sodomy more acceptable.

Alexander Pope wrote of this technique in the 18th century when he wrote,

“Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”

Of course, as the Dutchman Abraham Kuyper hinted at, given his doctrine of the antithesis, that neutrality is impossible and so the facilitators of the listening tour were anything but neutral though I do believe that in their own minds they were seeking to be as neutral as possible. I also think though that their presuppositions were driving their own attempt at neutrality. At one point of the Listening Tour one of the Facilitators said that the discussions that were taking place in the break out groups was not to include our Reformed Theology. He was quickly called out on that statement by one of the participants and immediately attempted to walk his comment back. Another facilitator ended the meeting by telling a sentimental story that was intended to make the participants feel sorry for homosexuals, though the story was given the cover of being an example of how and why the CRC needs the committee to provide guidance on applying the denomination’s policy on homosexuality.

The story that was told and which officially ended the “Listening tour” went as follows.

“There was a Pastor who had an Elder who had a son who was ‘marrying’ another man. The Pastor had determined to go with his Elder since the Pastor had determined, ‘I wasn’t going to let my Elder go alone.'”

Immediately the natural response of the Modern to this story is to feel sorry for both the Pastor and the Elder in this situation and so the climate is created for a positive disposition towards what is being called “hommosexual marriage.”

Why couldn’t the Pastor, instead of giving a tacit endorsement of homosexuality and perverted marriage instead of told the Elder that both of them are commanded to, “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them, for it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret”(?)

You see the facilitators are supposed to be facilitating and being neutral and yet we can see that, as much as they might try not to, they have an agenda. It is not possible that they wouldn’t.

The way the “Listening Tour” started is that we gathered at separate tables of 8. The funny story there, that I was later told by someone who had the inside skinny, is that the biggest supporter of homosexual “marriages,” a respected octogenarian, waited to choose his seat until he saw where I was going to sit. Upon my seating he then joined the table I was at. He did this because he apparently believed there needed to be a strong voice to counteract my own voice on the issue. He was successful at being irrational in his support for his perversion.

Some dialogue between us,

Don — “Here we have two people who desire to be married and what does the Church tell them? What does the Church say? The Church says ‘no.'”

Bret — “Homosexuals and Lesbians are allowed to marry anybody they want who fits the definition of marriage — Men go with Women. I’m not saying ‘no’ to them. I’m telling them to find the correct matched set. Homosexuals and Lesbians are allowed to marry anyone they like who allows their marriage to fit the definition of marriage.”

Don — “Can you believe that the Culture and Corporations are fully invested in giving homosexuals “marriage” rights and yet the Church is lagging so far behind.”

Bret — “Why not get ahead of the curve then Don and have the Church advocate Necrophilia Marriage or Bestiality Marriage? Now there’s a church of which one could be proud.”

Don — “Do you use that word ‘sodomy’ whenever you talk about this issue?”

Bret — “Yes, and I use the word “Necrophiliac” whenever I talk about living people who have a sexual fetish for dead people and I use the word “Incest” whenever I talk about two people in the same family having a sexual tryst and I use the word Bestiality whenever I talk about people who have sexual liaisons with animals. Yes, I always refer to sodomites as sodomites. Are you suggesting that there are people who don’t? And if they don’t why wouldn’t they?”

Don — “You are so unloving.”

Bret — “I’m trying to warn people of the consequence of their sin, both temporally and eternally, while you’re encouraging them to recreate God in their own image and I’m the one who is unloving? You’re trying to normalize what God calls vile behavior while I’m pleading with them to give it up and I’m the one who is unloving? I’m thinking about a social order where children grow up thinking sodomy is normal and consequently those children will potentially be more easily be drawn into that lifestyle and so out of love for children I warn against this and you accuse me of being unloving?”

As the conversation rolled on and as I was pressing for the necessity to agree with God’s word on the issue another Pastor at the table piped up and made the following statement which was intended to mute my observations regarding the necessity of obeying Scripture,

“I think one of our problems in the CRC is that many of our Pastors belong to the intellectual class and they have this overwhelming necessity to be right. They sense that being right is of ultimate importance. They are always studying, always reading and so being right is important to them. And I think we must agree that is poisonous to the Church.”

There was a brief awkward silence since this was obviously aimed at me. Finally I said,

“So, tell me Robert, are you insisting that you are right about that observation?”

And in true post-modernist fashion he said, “I don’t know.”

You see, the modern churchmen cannot even be certain regarding his observation upon the dangers of certainty. He must even be uncertain when decrying certainty.

Some might ask, what are your greatest concerns, if any, concerning same-sex marriage?

Here are my concerns.

1.) the sodomite agenda is about destroying heterosexual marriage.

see — http://salvomag.com/blog/2013/03/five-gay-marriage-myths/
see — http://www.peter-ould.net/2012/12/07/gay-marriage-and-the-effect-on-heterosexual-marriage/

2.) People will begin to believe sodomite marriage is possible. Sodomite marriage is no more possible then being an accomplished rider of a two wheeled unicycle can be accomplished. Sodomite marriage is no more possible then the drawing of a square circle. Sodomite marriage is not possible given the very definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. Are we forgetting the Scripture by even talking about the possibility that sane Christians can subscribe to “sodomite marriage?” Will we advocate next that Christians subscribe to the reality of Fairies and Goblins?

3.) I am greatly concerned that the Church is going to rebel against God on this matter by normalizing sodomy and sodomite marriage and so diminish His glory among men and incur His wrath.

4.) I am greatly concerned for the souls of sodomites, that are precious to God, will end up being confirmed in their sin and be told that God loves them “just the way they are.” I am concerned over how hateful and cruel any action that “normalizes sodomy or sodomite marriage would be to sodomites.

If I have any great hopes, concerning same-sex marriage it would be that it will be seen as an absurdity and will be recognized as always characteristic of a social order about to flame out.

Resources recommended for those who want to become informed,

Homosexuality; A Biblical View — Dr. Greg Bahnsen
Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation & Political Control — Dr. E. Michael Jones
Degenerate Moderns: Modernity as Rationalized Sexual Misbehavior — Dr. E. Michael Jones
Redeeming the Rainbow — Scott Lively
The Born Gay Hoax — Ryan Sorba

On the “Listening Tour” we were asked to discuss these questions. I have put my responses beneath the question

1. What are the pastoral priorities should a same-sex couple begin attending your church?

It should be noted first that “same sex couple” is as an euphemistic term as ever existed and a phrase that supports the advocates of this program since is it not possible for two people of the same sex to be a “couple” the way the word “couple” has always been used. By using this phrase repeatedly and the phrase “same sex marriage” the facilitators are prejudicing the conversation from the outset in the direction of their agenda.

a.) We have to think of the children and do all we can to make sure that the children are not given the idea that what God calls “sin” is normative.

b.) We need to realize that the “same sex couple” have eternal souls and have a need to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Of course, as the Heidelberg Catechism teaches that Gospel begins with the law as the hot needle that pulls through the crimson thread of redemption. As such, out of love to them, we must at some point preach God’s law to them which informs us that such behavior is sinful and must be repented of. This is the same way we deal with anyone who shows up to Church and is outside of Christ.

c.) We should, as Van Til used to say, always be willing to buy them the next cup of coffee. That is to say, as long as they are willing to engage the conversation we should be willing to go the extra mile to engage them.

d.) So, if a “same sex couple” shows up at church we treat them the same way we would treat any other person who is outside of Christ. We call for them to repent and we offer the Gospel.

It was interesting that one breakout group seemed to suggest that “if a ‘same sex couple’ became members they would have to realize that they would not be able to work with the children and they would not be able to be leaders.” I found myself wondering, “If they are actively involved as a “same sex couple” why would a orthodox church ever bring such a “couple” into membership?”

2. What do you need most from the CRC to help you navigate questions that arise in response to same-sex marriage?

I merely need the CRC to stand by Scripture and to encourage other of their Churches to stand my Scripture.

3. The survey the committee sent out is revealing very diverse perspectives within the denomination. What would you see as implications arising from this reality.

Implications

a.) The church has not been teaching our undoubted catholic Christian Faith.

b.) The church has not been practicing discipleship and discipline.

c.) If there really are diverse perspectives on this issue then that would be promissory of an eventual split.

I must say that the asking of this questions bothers me. It is, as if, the committee is suggesting that we come to truth by counting noses. Further, one might also see in this question the desire to muffle all disagreement with the committee by suggesting that their eventual report was trying to be sympathetic to all sides, when in point of fact if the committee reports are favorable to “same sex marriage” (an eventuality that has to occur if the committee is committed to be sympathetic to all perspectives) it is obvious that those who are opposed to the Church condoning sodomy will not be pleased with the committee work.

Tales from the Ecclesiastical Post-Modern Crypt

Achilles had been trained has a minister in the flagship Seminary of APE (Apostolic Presbyterian Ecclesial) and had spent some 20 years in the Ministry. He was, by all accounts, well liked and successful as a Churchman and Minister.

Achilles had a standing appointment with his ministerial colleagues at the local pub. At the pub (named aptly “Haags Hall”) community ministers from liberal, yet diverse, backgrounds and denominational affiliations would show up to talk about their lives, their faith, and the times in which they lived. Usually matters were congenial. When hard disagreements did arise they were quickly followed by a shot and a beer which either made the various ministers gathered forget the disagreements or made them ready to fight. The ministers had a rule that if someone raised their voice in a discussion they would be forced to down a Boilermaker as discipline for their unseemly ministerial outbursts. This was supposed to keep hissing, clawing and pushing (what liberal ministers call “fighting”) at bay. Fortunately for all the ministers in attendance, ministers fight like Junior high girls and so little damage was done the very few times disagreements were raised to a level higher than what a Boilermaker could tame.

At this bi-monthly meeting Achilles decided he was going to probe the issue of gays in the church. He wanted to discuss, with his liberal counterparts, how it was that the Fundamentalists couldn’t see the necessity to accept the LGBTQ crowd into the Church. Achilles thought if nothing else the assembled clergy could have a good laugh at the way the Fundamentalist troglodytes read the Bible.

The Sherry, Margaritas and wine spritzers (the preferred drinks of liberal clergy) were flowing like the water off the head of a dozen baby baptisms. All assembled were in a good mood when Achilles tossed out the topic of conversation of “gays in the Church.”

The conversation went pretty much as expected. All the liberal clergy gathered drank to the health of gays. Many of them knew what good givers the LGBTQ crowd were at their local churches. They also knew that the quickest route to losing their positions was to stand up against the zeitgeist. And so they laughed and guffawed at their clumsy and backwards fundamentalist “brethren.”

After agreeing, over several rounds, at the nekulturny character of the fundamentalists Achilles piped up with a complaint about the few remaining old school Presbyterians that remained in his denomination,

“I think one of our problems in the Apostolic Presbyterian Ecclesial (APE) is that many of our Pastors belong to the intellectual class and they have this overwhelming necessity to be right. They sense that being right is of ultimate importance. They are always studying, always reading and so being right is important to them. And I think we must agree that is poisonous to the Church.”

All agreed but suddenly the waiter, who was serving up the girly drinks, couldn’t resist and asked,

“So, tell me Achilles, are you insisting that you are right about that observation you just made?”

This waiter was not unknown to the Liberal, Sherry-sipping clergy. This was the walking conundrum waiter they loved to tease good-naturedly. Christopher Roberts was an anomaly that the liberals couldn’t resist. They always insisted on his being their waiter. Christopher was a tent-maker minister who had no problem with an occasional stiff drink, salty phrase, or stinging pejorative. Christopher didn’t have a pietistic bone in his body and the only people he lampooned more than Fundamentalist preachers were the Liberal and “diverse” crowd that gathered twice a month during his shift.

Achilles was mute over Christopher’s question, and so he asked again, amidst the nervous laughter of the other assembled clergy.

“Achilles, you just noted that the problem with too many of the fundamentalist clergy in your denomination is that they insist on being right.”

“What I want to know Achilles, is if, whether or not, you are, as a non fundamentalist minister, insisting upon being right about the poisonous scourge that clergy are who have to be right?”

Achilles looked as if Christopher had just thrown a ice cold beer in his face.

All were looking on waiting for Achilles response.

Finally Achilles offered up,

“I don’t know.”

Christopher let out a booming laugh. The diverse and liberal clergy just stared at their waiter not getting the joke.

When Christopher looked at their puzzlement he doubled his laughter. Finally, upon regaining composure, Christopher, between continued intermittent peals of laughter, informed them,

“You liberals are hilarious. You can’t even see the delicious irony of Achilles answer. When Achilles says, ‘I don’t know,’ all you can hear is the idea that Achilles is being consistent with his statement on the poisonous nature of clergy on insisting on being right.”

“But,” Christopher continued, “the irony is that Achilles and all of you can’t see that Achilles and each of you, in the depths of your post-modern muck, can’t see the joke that you can’t even be certain in your decrying of certitude. You complain about Fundamentalists having to be right, but you can’t even own the fact that you are right in your complaint about them having to be right. You have to be uncertain of your claim on the wrongness of certitude. But are you even certain that you have to be uncertain about the claims of certitude?”

All stared up from their pretzel bowls and wine spritzer glasses with the look of a waitress that had just been goosed by an anonymous patron.

“And the really funny thing is,” Christopher continued, “is that all of you here are so dull that even after explaining this to you, you’re still either to dumb or to drunk on wine spritzers that you don’t have any understanding of what I just explained to you.”

“You complain about your Fundamentalist competition having to be right, but you can’t even be certain about your uncertainty … and yet you still have the moxy to complain, as if you were right, about the faults of other ministers, who you think, have to be right.”

“I could spend a week laughing at your idiocy, but other tables, who tip better then you guys do, are waiting to be served.”

“Let me know if you ever figure it out.”

Ask The Pastor; Shouldn’t We Show More Love?

Dear Pastor,

In reference to your critique of Tullian Tchividjian a week or so ago I would like to make a couple of comments.

First, I find it amazing that you would cite Billy Graham’s visits with the presidents. Graham has made a conscious effort to be bi-partisan and non-political, something which cannot be said of many evangelicals today. Rick Warren tried that route and was thrown to the evangelical wolves.

Second, I remember someone saying once that it is easy to preach against sins that no one in your congregation commits. It is easy to preach against abortionists and homosexual marriage advocates.

The individual sinner (me and you!) however, are not brought under conviction for the sins of our culture. It is our sins: self-righteousness, unbelief, hatefulness, greed, selfish ambition, impatience, anger, holding grudges, having a sharp tongue (and pen), pride, and the like. Some of us commit acts of murder or sexual sins, as well. But the good news is not that we are sinners, it is that Christ came to save sinners.

Sadly, we have become not associated with Christ and his love for sinners, but the Pharisees and their condemning words.

David

Dear David,

Just a brief response seeking to help you see where you’re in error.

1.) Graham was hugely political. To sanction what US Presidents were doing by appearing with them was HUGELY political. Take only two examples.

a.) When he appeared with President Bush I in the context of Gulf War I, thus communicating the Evangelical approval. Instead Graham should have, at the very least, not appeared with Bush I since the Gulf war was naked aggression. Something no Christian had any business supporting.

b.) The 9-11 Memorial where Graham went all political by being part of a service that communicated that all religions are equal. A political statement if there ever was one.

Billy Graham was a political beast and there is no arguing that he was “non-political” and bi-partisan.

I always liked this quote from R. J. Rushdoony on the likes of Billy Graham.

The kind of religion Billy Graham … represents is readily approved of by corrupt politicians and venal communications media. It does not challenge their godless dreams of dominion, and it does sugar-coat their sins with the veneer of religious respectability, with a facade of pietism. Such men can have the ear of national leaders and preach in the White House and in Congress without affecting even to the extent of an iota the national march into degeneracy and apostasy.

RJ Rushdoony- God’s Plan For Victory

2.) Really? You think it is easy to make a public stand against Abortion and Homosexual marriages? You think Evangelicals in our congregations are not involved in those sins so that they don’t need to be addressed from the pulpit?

3.) Christ came to save repentant sinners. Christ did NOT come to save sinners who are not repentant. This is the problem with the antinomian “Gospel” of Tullian and (presumably) yourself. You think that repentant sinners and unrepentant sinners should be approached in the same way. Here are some words of Geerhardus Vos which might assist you,

“From the fact that to a generation which knew God only as a righteous Judge, and in an atmosphere surcharged with the sense of retribution, He (Jesus) made the sum and substance of His preaching the love of God, it does not follow that, if He were in person to preach to our present age so strangely oblivious of everything but love, His message would be entirely the same.”

Geehardaus Vos
Redemptive History & Biblical Interpretation
The Scriptural Doctrine Of The Love Of God

4.) All I see is self righteousness in the school which flings around the accusation of self-righteousness against those who hold up God’s standard. All I hear them saying is, “Look how much more righteous we are because we don’t expect people to have God’s standard placed before them, unlike those mean people who insists that the Gospel must be preceded by the proclamation of God’s Law word.

5.) I quite agree that all God’s people have sins to repent of. That is why, in our Worship every week, we hear God’s Law, Confess our sins, and then hear God’s declaration of absolution.

6.) David, you said, “The individual sinner (me and you!) however, are not brought under conviction for the sins of our culture” —- Where, pray tell, do you get this David? I am convicted daily.

7.) You seem completely blythe to the fact that there is a set agenda being pushed upon the Church and culture to normalize particular sins. It is not me who is making a hobby horse out of preaching against “Sodomy” or “abortion.” It is the fact that my people are inundated with the message that sodomy and abortion are “normal.” Ministers, preaching in this cultural context, are fools if they don’t take a stand, for the sake of Christ and His people, against those prevailing sins of the zeitgeist that are seeking to force God’s people to conform to the zeitgeist.

8.) In closing allow me to suggest that it is you, by offering the love of a harlot as the love of Christ, who is showing a lack of love to and for the sinner. The good news is that Christ came to save those who see themselves under God’s wrath because they are sinners.

You can be sure that when I am face to face with someone broken by their sin the last thing I will offer is condemnation. You can be sure that whenever I am face to face with someone who is repentant all I have to offer is the Character of God who loves us in spite of our sin. You can be sure that when I am face to face with someone who is repentant what I do is enter into repentance with them.