August 19

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion. He will not always accuse us, nor harbor His anger forever. — Ps 103:8-9 BSB

God is angry—and justly so—at the sins of His people. He hates sin with a perfect hatred and cannot cease to be angered by it. Sin is utterly opposed to His holy and pure nature, and wherever He finds sin, His wrath is provoked against it. Until we come to a clear understanding and experience of Christ, assuring us of a saving interest in His blood and finished work, we cannot separate God’s anger toward our sins from His anger toward us as individuals.

But when the Lord graciously reveals His goodness and mercy to us in Christ, we can see by faith that, although He is angry with our sins, He is not angry with us personally. We are accepted in the Beloved, having been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before Him in love. God’s anger is not held against us forever because it has been atoned for and put away. Christ has offered Himself as a sacrifice for our sins, removing the punishment we deserve and appeasing God’s wrath. The penalty for our sins was laid on Jesus as He stood in our place on the cross, enduring God’s fiery indignation against sin. This is why God’s anger is not retained forever—because it has been fully satisfied through Christ’s atonement, and it will never burn against us, His people.