The Destoyer

The Destroyer.  In many instances in Scripture, God is distinctly, righteously ferocious. “The Lord has roared; who will not fear?” (Amos 3:8). He has legitimate fury and wields genuine wrath but never with bad temper or uncontrolled rage. God doesn’t fly off the handle; he initiates, explains, enforces, establishes, and executes justice to such an extent that the most appropriate, albeit paradoxical result is not terror but gladness. “He will judge the peoples with equity. Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice” (Psa. 96:10-11). God alone is awesome in the most literal sense, awe-inspiring in the most holy, glorious way. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31). Thus, encountering God without the covering of Christ is lethal. Encountering God with the covering of Christ is no less lethal, but all God’s lethality has fallen upon his Son on behalf of the redeemed.

It is highly shocking yet perfectly congruent to notice first at the Passover, but then fully in the Passion of the Christ, that God is the Avenger. Just as God deliberately crushed his Son vicariously for the sins of humanity—“It was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief” (Isa. 53:10)—God deliberately caused the Ten Plagues for the sins of Egypt. “For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you” (Exo. 12:23). To strip God of his lethality is awfully dangerous.

Some questions remain as to whether the Lord himself is the Destroyer, a holy angel is the destroyer as God’s appointed executioner, or an unholy demon is the destroyer that God has commandeered to accomplish his good purpose of justice. But any controversy is moot because, clearly, the Lord is intimately involved. “At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt” (Exo. 12:29). Psalm 78 remembers the Ten Plagues and attributes to God directly the actions upon Egypt. “He turned their rivers to blood” (Psa. 78:44). “He let loose on them his burning anger, wrath, indignation, and distress, a company of destroying angels” (Psa. 78:49). “He struck down every firstborn in Egypt” (Psa. 78:51).

The New Testament unflinchingly names God himself as the Destroyer (1 Cor. 10:10; Heb. 11:28). Thus, the Destroyer is also our Deliverer. The same God who judges sin is also the Sacrifice which takes away sin. “Note then the kindness and the severity of God” (Rom. 11:22).