The Completion of God’s Wrath (Revelation 16)

Big Idea: God's judgment against sin is certain, but those who trust in Jesus need not fear it — their sins were already judged when Christ died on the cross.

I bet you did not expect to read this text on Easter Sunday!

There are two words that bracket the passage that we looked at last week and the passage we just read.

The first of these words is a troubling one. It’s the word wrath. It’s central to the text we just read. In fact, you could say it’s the overall theme of the middle part of Revelation. The word appears at the start of the previous chapter, and it appears in the second last verse that we just read: “The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath” (Revelation 16:19).

This passage, from beginning to end, is about the wrath of God. It’s not just a mild wrath. Verse 19 talks about the fury of God’s wrath. What do you do with that? We can’t dismiss it. It’s all over Revelation. In fact, it’s all over the Bible. Let me give you just one example. 2 Thessalonians talks about the day:

…when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might… (2 Thessalonians 1:7–9)

Those are not easy verses to read. This is a troubling concept to think about. What do you do with this idea?

Then you have a second word that shows up in this section at the beginning and the end. “Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and amazing, seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is finished” (Revelation 15:1).

Then, in Revelation 16:17: “The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, ‘It is done!’” This is the final cycle of judgments. It’s the final expression of God’s wrath. And I would argue that this helps us not only understand a lot about what’s going on in Revelation; it also helps us understand the significance of Easter.

Let me walk you through three questions this morning:

• What’s this chapter about?
• How can we make sense of God’s wrath?
• What does this have to do with Easter?

What’s This Chapter About?

This chapter may be easier to understand than you think.

This is the third cycle of judgement. Revelation describes seven parallel cycles, with each cycle adding unique details while echoing similar themes. This is the third set of seven judgments in Revelation.

How do you make sense of the seven judgments in this chapter? These judgments are linked to a story from 1,500 years earlier in the book of Exodus. In Exodus, God sent ten plagues on Egypt to force Pharaoh to free the Israelites.

We’ve already seen in that the seven trumpets echoed the plagues that God sent on Egypt. In this chapter, you see the same theme all over again. Except ,this time, it’s worse. The seal judgments affects a quarter of the earth. The trumpet judgments affected a third. These judgments affect everyone. The entire earth is decimated. It’s terrifying.

Read what happens. Don’t forget as you read that this is meant to make you feel something. You’re supposed to squirm as you read about these judgments. They’re horrible.

• In the first bowl, in verse 2, painful sores afflict those who worship the beast, recalling the plague of boils in Egypt (Exodus 9:8-12).
• In the second bowl, in verse 3, the sea turns to blood, killing all sea life, similar to the Nile turning to blood (Exodus 7:14-24).
• In the third bowl, in verses 4 to 7, the same theme continues. Rivers and springs become blood as judgment on those who shed the blood of the saints and prophets.
• In the fourth bowl, in verses 8 and 9, the sun scorches people with intense heat, yet they curse God and refuse to repent. It’s not tied to a specific plague, but it reminds us of God’s power over creation.
• The fifth bowl, in verses 10 and 11, is more targeted. Darkness engulfs the beast’s kingdom, just like darkness came over Egypt (Exodus 10:21-29). It caused anguish, but people still refuse to turn to God, just like Pharaoh refused to repent when he experienced these plagues.
• In the sixth bowl, in verses 12 to 16, the Euphrates River dries up, preparing the way for armies to gather for the battle at Armageddon. John uses Megiddo, a place of Israel's past victories over enemies, to symbolize the final spiritual battle between Christ and Satan’s forces. There will be more on this bowl later.
• In the seventh bowl, in verses 17 to 21, a final judgment brings earthquakes, lightning, and massive hailstones, devastating the earth and signalling the completion of God’s wrath. It reminds us of the Egyptian hailstorm (Exodus 9:13-35), but with next-level cosmic-scale destruction.

The seven bowls in Revelation 16 are similar to the plagues of Egypt in Exodus, representing God's judgment on enemies and his deliverance of his people. The seven bowls in Revelation symbolize God's total judgment against evil, echoing the Egyptian plagues on a larger scale. The message is clear: Just as God judged Egypt to free Israel, he will also bring a final, more destructive judgment on global wickedness. These judgments demonstrate both God's supreme power and his absolute justice in defeating evil once and for all.

“The holiness and righteousness of God is ultimate reality and never to be played with” (Matt Chandler). Don’t mess with God.

How Can We Make Sense of God’s Wrath?

Let’s be honest. We face some challenges in understanding the content of this chapter. But the hardest part isn’t understanding the details of this passage. The hardest part is that we have a hard time getting our minds around the wrath of God. It's difficult for us to accept the idea of God's anger directed at the world, especially given its current suffering.

Part of the problem is that we tend to think of God as loving with good reason. The Bible speaks regularly about God’s love and compassion. For instance, God reveals himself in Exodus 34:6-7:

The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin…

What do you do with the rest of the passage, then?

...but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.

All throughout Scripture, God reveals himself as loving and gracious. We like that, but we don’t know what to do with God’s wrath.

As Trevin Wax pointed out recently, it’s really good news that God hates sin. God’s judgment is actually good news. He’s co-writing a catechism. Hear his question and answer:

How does God respond to sin?
God is not a permissive grandfather who winks at sin, but a perfect Father of fiery love. He hates sin because it defies his righteous character, disrupts our fellowship with him, and defaces us—his beloved image-bearers.

He explains:

We’re pushing back against the idea that “it’s my job to sin; it’s God’s job to forgive me.”…
God isn’t a passive observer, indifferent to our rebellion. He isn’t a permissive grandfather who shrugs at sin. Nor does he sweep evil under the rug. Instead, Scripture reveals a God who thunders against sin, whose holy love demands he confront and destroy it.
God’s hatred of sin isn’t at odds with his love; it’s an expression of it. If sin separates us from the source of all life, leading to death, how could a loving God remain indifferent? His wrath isn’t cold, detached anger but the white-hot response of a holy, loving Creator who sees sin corrupting and destroying his people. If God stood passively by as sin disfigured those made in his image, then we’d have reason to question his love.
He must hate sin because not only is it an affront against his goodness, but it stands in the way of all he wants for us. He sees how sin wounds, deceives, and leads to death.

What we see in this passage is how much God hates sin. He hates it so much that he must judge it, not by losing his cool, but by justly judging all that stands in rebellion against him, against all that is destroying his world and his people. God’s wrath is warranted and controlled, and it is real.

Theologian Leon Morris argues that the wrath of God is God’s “strong and settled opposition to all that is evil.” It’s a strong and settled opposition “arising out of God’s very nature.” God’s wrath “is a burning zeal for the right coupled with a perfect hatred for everything that is evil.”

God's judgment is good news because it shows he cares enough to actively oppose everything that damages his world and his people. His wrath isn’t impulsive; it's a rightful response of holy love against everything that corrupts and destroys the world.

What’s this chapter about? God's complete and total judgment against evil. How can we make sense of God’s judgment? It’s his perfect expression of holy love against the evil of the world. There’s one more question I want to ask:

What Does This Have to Do With Easter?

This passage has more to do with Easter than you might think.

There will be a day when God's wrath is poured out completely. If you're not a Christian, that day is still in the future. But if you've trusted Jesus Christ, that day already happened 2,000 years ago on Easter weekend.

Jesus was executed on a cross. He was counted as among the worst offenders. His death was real, and it was really terrible. He was an object of wrath. But not just of Roman and Jewish wrath; in fact, not mainly of Roman and Jewish wrath (John 19:11). Jesus was primarily the object of his Father’s wrath — the most just, righteous, and terrible wrath there is. And he became that object willingly, even when his every human impulse longed for escape (Mark 14:36). It’s the very reason he came. (Jon Bloom)

Jesus took the Father's wrath for our sins and fully satisfied it, so we don't have to face the punishment described in Revelation 16.

And then, Jesus was raised on Easter Sunday to show that his payment for our sins was sufficient and complete. Paid in full. Jesus' resurrection proves that his payment for sin on the cross was accepted. If his sacrifice had been incomplete or insufficient, death would have held him. By raising Jesus, the Father declared the debt of sin paid in full. It is finished (John 19:30).

This sermon is about the completion of God's wrath, and there's a bit of a double meaning. The completion of God's wrath is a theme that shows up in this chapter. One day, God's wrath will be finally satisfied. But the completion of God's wrath is also a good term to describe what happened on Easter Sunday. At the cross, God's wrath was completed. That's very good news for anyone who trusts in Jesus.

In Revelation 16, God shows his final wrath against the world's wickedness. But as we look at the cross, we see the final expression of God’s wrath for anyone who trusts in Jesus. We don’t have to fear the judgment of Revelation 16 because Christ has satisfied God’s wrath.

At Calvary, God's hatred of evil and his love for sinners met perfectly. He poured out his judgment on Jesus rather than on us. The connection between "It is done" (Revelation's final judgment) and Jesus' cry "It is finished" (at his crucifixion) highlights a key truth: the same God who judges sin also loves humanity and sent his Son to bear that judgment. Through faith in Christ's sacrifice, we can avoid the coming wrath and receive eternal life instead.

God's judgment against sin is certain, but those who trust in Jesus need not fear it—their sins were already judged when Christ died on the cross.