Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Tuesday - Psalm 76 - Of Anger & Fear


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T is ironic in a way that the one and only living God, who is a God of wrath and judgment, should chose Salem for His tabernacle. Jerusalem... the place of peace (Hebrews 7:2), is listed in this psalm as a home of our great and mighty God.  Now, what has He done there?  Well, to begin with, He soundly defeated the enemies of His people.  His rebuke was enough to render His foes absolutely impotent in battle.  This is the nature of the God we serve.

The God of the Bible is a God of anger (Psalm 76:7).  Some people want to know how a perfect God could ever become angry... isn't anger an imperfection?  Obviously not!  His anger is a perfect response against our imperfections.  His standard is holiness; perfection (Gen. 17:1, Deut. 18:13, Matt. 5:48, John 17:23, 2ndCor. 13:11, 2ndTim. 3:17 & Heb. 13:20-21).  We had perfection (in the form of innocence) prior to our fall and death in Adam. But, Adam’s willful rebellion, and ours, has put perfection beyond our grasp.

Another critic might ask, if He already knows what's coming, why does God get angry. This is a flawed opposition though. We humans who were made in God's image and patterned in His likeness get angry all the time as a result of things that we knew were coming... and that many times we could have even prevented. So, why should we be surprised if a similar emotive pattern is perceivable in our Creator.  Whatever divine and human emotions really are, they are not necessarily always connected to logic nor choice.  As such, rather than imagining what the world might look like if anger did not exist, we should realize that anger would not be needed if sin did not exist... and sin is our prerogative.  

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