In the timeline of end-times events, when does God's wrath begin? One fact is not under debate: God's wrath begins during the Day of the Lord (Zeph 1:14–18, Isaiah 13:6–13). However, the Day of the Lord contains two sets of judgments: the seven trumpets and the seven bowls. So when, during the Day of the Lord, does God's wrath begin? During the trumpets? Or the bowls?

God's wrath, as defined in an end-times context (keep this in mind — this is a very important point) likely begins with the bowls. Although there are many more reasons than I shall list here, let's start with the fact that the word “wrath” in Revelation.

The word "wrath" is not used during the first set of judgments, the seals, until the sixth seal, when the sun turns dark, the moon turns to blood, and the stars fall from the sky, the triple sign that indicates the arrival of the Day of the Lord. At this time, the unsaved of the world cry, “The great day of God's wrath has come! Who can stand?” (Rev. 6:13).

The great day of God's wrath is a synonym for the Day of the Lord, which according to Joel 2:31, begins after the sixth seal. During the sixth seal, we see the unsaved crying, “The great day of God's wrath has come!” Clearly, the unsaved are referring to a future, but imminent event. Indeed, the Day of the Lord is poured out during the seventh seal, which is made up of the trumpet and the bowl judgments.

The use of the word “wrath,” however, is not used again until the end of the trumpet judgments. At this time, just as it is during the seal judgments, it is not used until the sixth judgment — the sixth trumpet: “The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come. And the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints” (Rev. 11:18).

Has come. In Rev. 6:17, this verb tense looks forward to an imminent but future event, the Day of the Lord. In Rev. 11:18, we see the exact same verb construction in the same order of the judgments. If the term “the great day of God's wrath has come” during the sixth seal indicates an imminent but future event, then consistency demands that the observation here, in Rev. 11:18, should also refer to an imminent, but future event.

God's Wrath Poured Out

In fact, it does. The seventh trumpet contains the seven bowl judgments, and as the bowl judgments are poured out, John writes: “Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God who lives forever and ever” (Rev. 15:7). This is the first time a specific judgment is linked with the wrath of God. The linking of God's wrath to the bowl judgments from here on out is unmistakable.

John continues: “The temple was filled with the smoke of the glory of God and from His power. Then I heard a loud voice from the temple saying to the seven angels, `Go and pour out the bowls of the wrath of God on the earth'” (Rev. 16:1).

And the first angel poured out his bowl upon the earth.

And the second angel poured out his bowl upon the e.

And the third angel poured out his bowl upon the earth.

And the fourth angel poured out his bowl upon the earth.

And the fifth angel poured out his bowl upon the earth.

And the sixth angel poured out his bowl upon the earth.

And the seventh angel poured out his bowl upon the earth.

From the beginning of the bowl judgments on, the word "wrath" to describe these judgments occurs nine times. The fact that the bowls are God's wrath seems so clear that it is difficult for me to understand how anyone could see it otherwise.

A reader recently asked me about Rev. 15:1, which introduces the bowl judgments. In this verse, it states: “Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous: seven angels having the seven last plagues, for in them the wrath of God is complete.” In them the wrath of God is complete. Doesn't this imply that God's wrath began earlier than the bowls? By implication, during the trumpets? Isn't the entire time period that is the Day of the Lord God's wrath?

Not necessarily. First, it is a basic rule of biblical interpretation that, if you have nine verses that are clear and one verse that is not clear, you interpret the unclear by the clear, not the other way around. If one verse, in this case Rev. 15:1, is indecisive, and even appears to contradict those that are clear, the preponderance of weight should be placed on the clear verses, not the one that is an anomaly. Not that the anomaly should be ignored. It should not. But anomalies should never be used to casually dismiss the preponderance of clear, direct evidence to the contrary.

So why is Rev. 15:1 indecisive? The Greek word used here for “is complete,” teleo, means “to end, i.e., complete, execute, conclude, discharge — accomplish, make an end, expire, fill up, finish....” If you look up teleo in a word study Bible, you will find that all of its uses have the sense of bringing to a conclusion an event that started in the past and is brought to completion in the present. Examples include Matt. 7:28, Luke 18:31, 2 Cor. 12:9, and Rev. 10:7, among many others.

So does this mean that God's wrath started in the trumpets? Not necessarily. God's wrath started sometime in the past and is brought to completion during the bowl judgments. But the question is...how far back in the past? How far back do we go?

Wrath From the Beginning

If we use a concordance to look up references to God's wrath, we find that God's wrath has been in evidence from the beginning. To see examples, you can go back as early as Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. There are many, many examples of God's wrath being kindled against both His people and the unbelieving world.

Here are just a few:

“And in the greatness of Your excellence, You have overthrown those who rose against You. You sent forth Your wrath. It consumed them like stubble” (Exodus 15:7).

“But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was aroused against the people, and the Lord struck the people with a very great plague” (Numbers 11:33).

“Remember! Do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord” (Deut. 9:7).

“Did not Achan the son of Zerah commit a trespass in the accursed thing, and wrath fell on all the congregation of Israel?” (Joshua 22:20).

God's wrath is in evidence during New Testament times, too. In Ephesians 5:6, Paul writes, “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things [sinful behaviors], the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” He writes almost the identical admonition to the Colossians: “Because of these things [sinful behaviors], the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience.” In both cases, the verb is erchomai, which is used only in the present and imperfect tenses. This is not a future outpouring of wrath, but a present one.

Thus, when discussing God's wrath during the end times, we must remember that God's wrath upon the earth is nothing new. His wrath abided on the Israelites throughout the Old Testament and His wrath has abided “on the ungodly” throughout history. Therefore, in the most technical sense, one cannot say that God's wrath “begins” with either the trumpets or the bowls because God's wrath is not waiting for the future.

Two Kinds of Wrath

Therefore, if God's wrath has been in existence since the beginning, what is under debate in Revelation? It is not God's wrath in general, but the final outpouring of God's wrath during the 70th Week prophesied by the Old Testament prophets. They spoke of this time as a time of "great distress" and "wrath upon this people." And in 1 Thess. 5:9, the Apostle Paul promised the believers at Thessalonica that "we are not destined for wrath, but to salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 5:9). The context of Paul's comment was the Day of the Lord and God's judgment upon an unbelieving world.

The Day of the Lord wrath is not God's wrath in general, which has been around since the beginning of humanity, but a specific period of time that God has set aside to pour out, or fill up, with His wrath. Because God's final wrath is contained in the Day of the Lord, and the Day of the Lord does not begin until the seventh seal, we know that this outpouring cannot start any earlier than the trumpets. And the clear, direct evidence of Revelation is that it actually begins with the bowls.

Is there scriptural evidence for these two types of wrath in Revelation itself? Yes.

Let's start with the sixth seal. The mighty men cry out, "The great day of God's wrath has come." Now let's look at the seventh trumpet. The elders cry, "God's wrath has come." Let's look at that again. In the seals, the mighty men say "the day of God's wrath," or the Day of the Lord. In the trumpets, the elders say only, "God's wrath." Scripture is making a distinction between the day of God's wrath and God's final outpouring of wrath upon the earth itself. If scripture makes this distinction, so should we.

In both instances, the events being anticipated — the day of God's wrath and, later, God's wrath itself — are fulfilled immediately after the annoucements are made. In the sixth seal, the mighty men cry "the day of God's wrath has come," in anticipation of the Day of the Lord, which falls immediately with the next judgment. In the seventh trumpet, the elders cry, "God's wrath has come," in anticipation of God's final outpouring of wrath, which falls immediately with the next judgment. The parallels in wording, in placement, and purpose are identical. Furthermore, in the trumpets, we see no specific indicators of God's wrath. In the bowls, we see indicator after indicator, as seen in the citations above.

This leads back to the same conclusion as before: The bowl judgments are the most likely candidates for    God's final outpouring of end-times wrath. The trumpets are not.

Arguments from the Apostle Paul

One of the arguments for the trumpets being God's final wrath is that the Day of the Lord is described as bringing swift and sudden judgment. Furthermore, the apostles appeared to make no divisions within the Day of the Lord. As far as they were concerned, it was all God's wrath. Therefore, since the Day of the Lord brings swift, sudden judgment, and because the apostles did not make any distinctions, neither should we. It must be all God's wrath.

First, it is important to remember that, when verses like 2 Thess. 1:6-10 were penned, Revelation had not been written. The breakdown between seals, trumpets, and bowls had not yet been revealed. The Day of the Lord was just seen as one big, mean time period with everything all jumbled together. It wasn't until Revelation that it became clear that the Day of the Lord was made up of discrete parts.

God's decision to hide the complex nature of a prophetic event until a later date has much company throughout scripture. One of them is the coming of the Messiah. Consider the Old Testament prophets, who were looking for the Messiah to come both as the Suffering Servant and the Conquering King at the same time. Throughout the Old Testament, the prophecies of Christ's coming included His Servanthood and His Kingship in the same context. It was not until centuries later that the dual coming of the Messiah, and thus the mulit-part nature of the prophecy, was revealed. If the multi-part nature of the coming of the Messiah was hidden from the Old Testament writers, why could not the multi-part nature of the Day of the Lord have been hidden from the New Testament writers?

Indeed, it was. The early New Testament writers saw only one time period that is the Day of the Lord, a fact that is very clear from their writings. Even Paul saw the Day of the Lord this way. However, the multi-part nature of this Day (and, indeed, all of the 70th Week) was not revealed until the Apostle John wrote The Revelation many years after the gospels and the epistles were written. They were revealed after most, if not all, of the other apostles, including Paul, had died.

There is no question that the Day of the Lord brings swift, sudden judgment. Immediately upon its outpouring, the unsaved will know that they are about to enter into a time of God's displeasure. But the execution of judgment and the outpouring of God's final, Day of the Lord wrath are not one and the same.

The trumpets will be nasty, but they will also be a time of evangelism. Time must be allowed for the unsaved to coming to a knowledge of the Messiah, who after the sixth seal will have appeared in the sky, where “every eye will see, even those who pierced Him” (Rev.1:7). At this time — after seeing the physical, undeniable presence of Jesus Christ — many will come to faith in their Messiah. The final outpouring of God's wrath, on the other hand, appears to be like pouring out a caldron of hot oil — ferocious, inescapable, and indiscriminate. Rev. 14:10 describes this time as when God's wrath is “poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation.”

What About Post-Rapture Believers?

Why must this time be allowed? Won't there be people coming to faith in Christ during the bowls, too? Not likely. Rev. 11: 10-11 tells us that if anyone worships the beast (the Antichrist) and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead of on his hand, "he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb." In other words, those who take the mark will be lost forever.

This is important because, earlier in Revelation, we are told that without the mark, no one will be able to buy or sell. Therefore, those who do not take the mark will risk starving to death. For believers, there is strong incentive for not taking the mark, even if the price is starvation. The consequences of their decision will be eternal. But what about nonbelievers? There is no such incentive. They will take the mark. And if they do, they will know that they are buying into the Antichrist's Satanically empowered system. When Jesus appears in the sky to rapture the Church, it will be clear to everyone that He is Lord. If anyone takes the mark of the beast, they will know that they are choosing the Antichrist over the God of Heaven and Earth. But the lie that blankets the earth (2 Thess. 2:11) will cause them to believe that the Antichrist has the power to protect them.

There may be some during the trumpets who hold off making this decision, but they will not be able to hold off forever. Starvation and martyrdom at the hands of the Antichrist is at stake. At some point, likely very early in the trumpet judgments, they must choose between Jesus as Messiah and Lord or the false god. If they choose the Antichrist, this decision cannot be reversed. Indeed, we can see by the fourth bowl tells us that these decisions have been made:

...and they blasphemed the name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give Him glory (Rev. 16:9).

Indeed, as the waters are being turned to blood, the angel of the waters cries out, "You are righteous, O Lord, The One who is and who was and who is to be, because You have judged these things. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and You have given them blood to drink. For it is their just due" (Rev. 16:5-6).

And another angel from the altar cries, "Even so, Lord God Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments" (Rev. 16:7).

These verses give us an indication that the trumpets and the bowls are different in kind. While God's wrath has abided upon the earth since the days of the Israelites, the specific, terrifying time of God's final wrath will likely not begin at the commencement of the Day of the Lord. In God's infinite mercy, He will hold off this final, horrific time until after the trumpet judgments, when it is poured out in the bowls.