- Not Anger
Psalm 103:9
He will not always chide:
Neither will be keep his anger forever.
A part of the classic description of the essential character of the Lord (Exodus 34:6) is that He is “slow to anger.” Yes, God will get angry, because His holiness and justice is offended; that kind of perfection demands just punishment or it could no longer be called holy and perfect; sin and rebellion must be punished; sin and its punishment event involves anger, disappointment and frustration. But God is also perfect love and so He does not want to punish us or to stir up His wrath upon Sin; therefore it will take quite a lot to rile Him up.
God is extremely longsuffering and patient, that is, He is willing to wait a very long time and suffer insults and mockeries from sinners over and over again. It may be slow but in time He will get angry and His holiness will explode in wrath and judgment, as we have witnessed in the Flood and in Sodom, among other events, where He waited for the people to repent but they did not. Lesson: repent now; don’t make God wait long.
The further good news and soothing promise is that He will not always chide or keep his anger forever (He desires to save us before the End comes). The Holy Spirit in us does become grieved over our sins and He does chide as a warning about the path we are heading down; but He will not always chide, for either He finally stops warning and lets us go our own way to destruction or He turns us around through repentance and faith and sets us back on the path of life.
In addition, He promises not to keep his anger forever. First of all, this means that God himself has solved the dilemma within himself of demanding punishment of sin but not desiring to punish the sinner: He sent His own Son to suffer the wrath of God and take on Himself the unjust punishment of our sin (die for us) so that in Christ God the Father could satisfy Justice (sin must be punished or the universe would collapse) and please Love (sin is therefore legally forgiven and the sinner is saved). God spends, even exhausts, his righteous anger and wrath upon Jesus Christ on the Cross; “He will not keep his anger forever.” The Lord’s anger upon me, the sinner, is completely dissipated and taken up by Jesus Christ on Calvary. Presto! Change-O! God is not angry with me any longer: He does not keep his anger forever.
But make no mistake: God does finally become angry, genuinely angry, with me and my sin, every day; the sin is real, the anger is real, the punishment is real; but even “more real,” if that’s possible, is the forgiveness, compassion, love and mercy of God on account of Jesus Christ. Go into that secret place with God and confess your real sin and hear Him speak His real forgiveness to you. He stops chiding; He takes you in His arms; He hugs you and loves you. That’s a promise.