Colossians 3:6 — The Wrath of God in the Present Time

“… because of which the indignation of God is coming on the sons of stubbornness…”

In the preceding verse, Paul named several “members that are on the earth”: prostitution, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and self-enrichment. Because of these things, the wrath of God is coming on the sons of stubbornness. Paul uses the same expression in Ephesians 5:6. It concerns people who refuse to heed and instead go their own way.

It is striking that Paul does not write that God’s wrath will someday come, although that is also true. Rather, it says here: the wrath of God is coming – present tense. This is a reality that is already being revealed. In Romans 1:18, Paul uses the same present tense. There he also explains how God’s wrath becomes visible. Not through bolts of lightning from heaven, but by God giving people over to their own desires (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28). He lets them go their way. God’s wrath is shown not by His intervention, but precisely by His letting go.

This closely corresponds to the expression “sons of stubbornness.” Whoever refuses to heed is ultimately left to himself. God’s wrath consists in man receiving what he so desperately wants. But the very desires that seem to promise freedom bring him under their dominion. In his stubbornness, he reaps the bitter fruits of his own choices.

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