It is sad how many ideas there are on the nature of God's wrath that don't line up well with scripture. How can we view God as angry with humanity, when the main theme of the Bible is His immense love for us and His desire to rescue us from our fallen state? Can God be divided? (1) Can He be wrathful, angry and described as love? I believe that with some reflection on the biblical idea of sin, the way God judges, and his eternal purpose for us we can, if not fully understand, at least come to a deeper understanding of His total and complete love for humanity.

According to scripture, sin and judgment existed before the fall of man. (2) When we take this into account we see that man did not just figure out how to sin and make God angry. No, man was infected with sin, catching it from Satan himself.  Sin is a disease with a pre existing judgment, death. Scripture talks about Hell as a place prepared for the devil and his angels. (3) It is not a place designed to punish humanity, it is a place to put evil away from God's perfect creation. How sad must our loving  God  be that His people, made in His image, contracted a disease that He, the perfect righteous God, has made a perfect judgment on. This disease of sin infects our spirit, soul and body like leprosy rotting us, cutting off the nerves. Thus, making us less sensitive to our God given conscience and to God himself. What's more, this disease affects our very genes, our seed, so that generation passes to generation the disease of sin, and its coming judgment. A judgment not deigned for us, but for the devil himself.
It is because of the nature of our disease that Jesus in His flesh was born of a woman, by the seed of God. (4) Only God's seed is free of infection, making Jesus a kind of second Adam, (5) a fresh start. This idea also helps us understand the old and new covenant.
Under the old covenant, the promise of freedom and forgiveness of sin was passed from generation to generation as a people set aside for God, namely the Israelites. Now we recognize that even when we are in Christ our children born of our physical seed still have the disease of sin. It is only through the spiritual seed of Jesus that we are made whole. Gods people don't just grow through natural reproduction, but through the knowledge of Jesus and His transforming Spirit (seed) in our lives. The Spirit of God produces fruit in our lives, and as we know all fruit has seeds, and the Seeds of His Spirit fall into the lives of others and begin to take root. It is through His goodness in us that we produce children in Him. It is the goodness of God that leads men to repentance.(6) Biblical repentance is not just turning away from sin, it is turning to God.

Now that we have looked at the nature of sin, I believe that we can look at how God judges with a clearer line of sight. Amos the prophet said that God does nothing without revealing it to his prophets. (7) God does not just smite nations out of the blue. Actually God is always at work to protect us from the infection of sin and bring us back to Himself.
First, lets look at the flood. (Genesis 6-8) In the time just before the flood the earth had become so rotten with sin that God had to thoroughly wash it with water. Did you know that when Cane kills Abel in Genesis and God tells Cain that his brothers blood (8) cries out to him from the earth, the Hebrew word for blood could be translated bloods. The idea being that Cane didn't just kill Abel, but he killed Abel's children, and his children's children and every subsequent generation to come. Generations that God had seen as if they existed. When God looked at creation and mankind, the object of his affection, He saw that the infection of sin was so complete that He had to wash away the dead flesh from the earth so that the wound sin caused could heal. Look at the rotten stink of sin and death in the world around us and realize how much worse it would be if our loving God had not thoroughly cleansed the infection of sin then. God didn't smite them out of the blue,  He first sent Noah,  with a stadium sized boat, to invite repentance. God loves those people just like you and I. It was not punishment out of anger but a washing of love putting humanity through a type of baptism. In fact, Peter says that Jesus went to those people and preached the gospel during His time in the grave. (1Peter 3:18-22)
Later, in Genesis 18 and 19 we find the story of Sodom and Gommorah. These cites were so infected with sin that even when Lot told them the error of their  ways they would not listen.  Even when he told his own sons-in-law they would not listen but thought he was joking. They were so infected with sin that they had lost connection with their conscience. God had to cauterize this wound in humanity. The infection had gone so deep that it wouldn't stop bleeding cries of injustice against them. God was forced to allow them to experience the result of sin like a hot iron, cauterizing the wound, not only staunching the bleeding but stopping the spread of the infection. When God allows nations and peoples to experience the results of their sin, death, it is not out of anger of wrath directed at them, but out of love, to protect all of humanity from the result of evil. God loves those people and to understand God's wrath toward sin we have to recognize His desire for all of humanity to be restored to Himself. 
Jonah knew something about God that I wish more people would understand today. He knew that God was sending him to Nineveh with a news of coming judgment in order to turn the Ninevites to Himself. (9) Jonah wanted no part of it. He knew that if he pronounced God's judgment on their sin that they could repent, and God would save them from the consequences of their sin. Sin must be judged, but in the same way that the flood washed the infection of sin and the fire cauterized the wound of sin in Sodom, true repentance inoculates the infection of sin and is the way God most desires to heal humanity.  From the very beginning when humanity repented and turned to Him, God has been faithful to stay His judgment until He poured it out fully on Jesus Christ.

As we approach the idea of God's eternal purpose for us, the word that I feel has to be stressed is us. God made man in His image. (10) God loved all of mankind so much that He sent His own son to take the punishment of sin for us. (11) God told Abraham that through his seed all the nations would be blessed. (12) The revelation of God's intimate love directed toward you or I is important, but if we don't understand His love for all of mankind, past, present and future, we will find nothing but conflicting ideas in the Bible.
In the first creation psalm of the Bible (Genesis 1) we see God creating everything from the stars to the insects, but He creates mankind last. Have you ever asked yourself why? I'll tell you why, because the first five days of creation He spent preparing a gift for the object of His affection, mankind. The stars, the atmosphere, the continents, plants and animals were His birthday gift for us. We are beings of flesh and blood, yet, He put his spirit in us, gave us souls and bodies that carry His image. He gave us the whole earth as a gift and made us powerfully in His image. Then, the first thing He did was take a day off to spend time with us. How can we come to any other conclusion than that His eternal purpose for us is to lavish us with love. The love we offer Him in return (for He first loved us) (13) is childish in comparison.
When we caught sin from Satan, by joining our free will with his lies, we put God in a hard spot. As I said before, the disease of sin was already under God's judgment but He couldn't remove sin from us without destroying us as well. Even in face of this problem, God was not scared or even surprised. Just about the first thing He did is tell Satan that He will use the seed of the woman to crush his head and cast him out of creation. (14) When John wrote in his gospel the words of John 3:16, he knew that God had, in Jesus, brought mankind back into right standing with Him. If we just allow Him to wash away our sin, by believing in Jesus, and accepting the washing of His Spirit, this is how God separates the infection of sin from our very being. (15)
Paul tells us in Romans that the Israelites are a picture of the true seed of Abraham. The true seed of Abraham is all of us, who have been made righteous before God, through faith in Jesus Christ. (16) It no longer matters race, gender, or social status because we are all made alive and whole and free from the infection of sin only through Jesus. (17) This was the promise that God was referring to when He told Abraham that through His seed all the nations would be blessed.

God loves us. (18)There is no shadow of turning in Him. (19) As we read the Bible and grow closer to Him, let's recognize that from long before creation, mankind has been the object of His affection. From the time of mankind's infection God has been lovingly and tenderly pursuing and restoring us, battling the infection of sin. He is more than great enough to finish His work. (20) As we go through life, as we recognize the reality of the rot of sin still affecting our own lives, let's be slow to anger and quick to forgive as He is. It is true that God hates sin, but we can not accuse Him of hating people because He always forgives us if we let go of the bondage of sin and turn to Him and His loving purpose for us.