What in the World Is Wrong with This World

What in the World Is Wrong with This World?

In 2013, as the Presbyterian Church (USA) assembled a new hymnal titled Glory to God, they sought to include the modern hymn “In Christ Alone” by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend. The song had already become a staple in churches around the world. There was only one problem. One line in the second verse troubled the hymnal committee: “Till on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.”

They asked the authors for a simple edit—replace “wrath” with “love.” Same tune. Same syllables. A softer message. Getty and Townend refused. They explained that the song confesses the biblical gospel, and the satisfaction of God’s wrath through Christ’s death is not an expendable detail. Change that line and you change the gospel. The committee chose to exclude the hymn altogether.

That decision reveals something deeply unsettling: many are willing to sing about the cross as long as it does not require the wrath of God. They want the poetry of Calvary without the reality that made Calvary necessary. Yet when the apostle Paul opens his great letter to the Romans, the very first attribute of God he insists we understand is this: “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men” (Romans 1:18).

Not “will be revealed,” but is revealed. Present tense. Right now.

We instinctively recoil at that idea. We want to soften it, edit it, or rush past it to something more comfortable. But Paul will not allow that. Before we ever reach the good news of Romans 3, we must sit with the bad news that begins in Romans 1. Only when we understand the wrath our sin deserves can we begin to grasp the staggering love that moved God to satisfy that wrath Himself through His Son.

Romans 1:18 answers a question every generation asks in one form or another: What in the world is wrong with this world? We look around and see violence, exploitation, corruption, and cruelty. Paul explains that these are not random failures but the fruit of a deeper disease. God’s wrath is being revealed against ungodliness and unrighteousness.

These are not two separate problems but two sides of the same coin. Ungodliness is living with indifference toward God—going about life with no acknowledgment of Him as Creator or King. Unrighteousness naturally follows. When God is removed from the center, the self takes His place, and sinful actions multiply. Godlessness always leads to wrongdoing.

This is difficult for modern ears because we tend to equate God’s wrath with human anger. Human wrath is often irrational, explosive, and vindictive. God’s wrath is nothing like that. It is His holy, settled opposition to all that is evil. It flows from His perfect goodness and His commitment to uphold truth and justice. A judge who refuses to punish wrongdoing is not loving; he is corrupt. In the same way, a holy God must oppose sin—or He would cease to be good.

Paul also insists that God’s wrath is not merely future. It is being revealed now in two primary ways. First, God sometimes intervenes directly in history: the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, Egypt’s plagues, divine judgments on kings and nations, and ultimately the final judgment to come. Scripture leaves no doubt that God can and does act decisively against evil.

Second (and more commonly) God reveals His wrath through the moral order of the world. Sin carries consequences. Betray trust and relationships fracture. Pursue greed and you reap ruin. Reject God’s design and life grows disordered and painful. Misery follows sin as surely as fire follows oxygen. This too is an expression of God’s justice, visible and ongoing.

But how does this happen if no one wants God’s wrath? Paul’s answer is stark: humanity suppresses the truth. God has made His existence plain through creation. Every person knows, at some level, that God exists and that He deserves honor. But acknowledging that truth would require submission, repentance, and obedience. So instead, the truth is suppressed, replaced with something more comfortable, more affirming, more manageable.

Like a patient who ignores a cancer diagnosis while celebrating normal cholesterol levels, people cling to partial truths to avoid confronting ultimate reality. And when God’s Word challenges those substitutes, the reaction is often hostility—not because the Bible is unclear, but because it threatens the suppression that keeps guilt at bay.

This is why the world bristles at “But the Bible says.” That phrase exposes what has been buried. It calls attention to a God who reveals, commands, and judges. And that is precisely what Paul is describing in Romans 1.

Yet this passage does not exist to leave us in despair. The gospel shines brightest against this dark backdrop. Jesus Christ came to rescue sinners from the wrath of God by bearing that wrath Himself on the cross. For those who repent and believe, condemnation is removed forever. But the good news only makes sense once we understand the bad.

What is wrong with this world? The truth of God is suppressed, and the wrath of God is revealed. What is right with the gospel? The wrath of God has been satisfied—in Christ alone.