The anger and the love God has for man, are motivated not by legalism, but by His concern for man, who is precious to him.
God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; the Lord revengeth and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet . . . the mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein . . . who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him. (Nahum 1:2-7)
The prophet here is seeing that the natural calamities of storms, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are signs of the anger of God against the wicked. In this case the wickedness was that of the heathen city of Nineveh afflicting the Israelites. God said to Ninevah: Woe to the bloody city! it all is full of lies and robbery. (Nahum 3:1)
Although God is angry with those who mistreat His people, (because of His love for them), He can also become angry with us if we are foolish. According to 1 Kings 11:9: the Lord was angry with Solomon because he married wives from evil nations and because they led him to build altars to false gods.
I will now discuss the fundamental cause of God's anger. Nothing that man can do, can directly hurt God, as Elihu said to Job: If thou sinnest, what doeth thou against him? or if thy transgressions be multiplied, what doest thou unto him? If thou be righteous, what givest thou him? or what receivest he of thine hand? (Job 35:6,7) If we cannot hurt God, why does He get angry?
God's anger is similar to the human anger of a woman whose husband neglected her, or to the anger of a woman if her children were mistreated. In such cases the woman would only become angry if she cared for her husband and children. Similarly God's anger is a sign of His care for us. This is why: he is a jealous God. (Joshua 24:19) God wants us to love Him, and not have our affections drawn away by evil.
If God becomes angry with us, we must repent. Then we can say: O Lord, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortest me. (Isaiah 12:1)
Jesus said: the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God. (John 16:27) But it is important that we are conscious of this love and can say: we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. (1 John 4:16)
We must not believe simplistic doctrines which allege that the Father cannot think about us directly without wanting to judge us. Such simplistic errors teach that only by redirecting the Father's thoughts away from us and towards Christ can the Father's anger be assuaged. Although it is true that Christ is our advocate with the Father to plead our cause, we should not let this obscure the fundamental fact that when the Father thinks about us He loves us, unless we have turned our back on Him. And even in such cases, God wants us to repent so that He will be able to love us again. I can think of no more serious fundamental doctrinal error than not to believe in the direct love of God the Father for man. Yet it is this error which leads to rituals, to confessions to priests, and to prayers to Mary and other saints. This error also leads into sin because it takes away from the motivation not to sin.
Although there are many reasons not to sin, such as that we are better off if we don't, the most fundamental reason is this: God loves us, and if we sin He is grieved and possibly angered, and if we persist is sin, He will stop loving us. This happened to some of the Jews, of whom God said: All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house, I will love them no more. (Hosea 9:15)
If we want God the Father to love us, we must obey Him. Jesus said: If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. (John 14:23) So we must understand that the love of God for us can only be enjoyed if we also love God and our neighbour, as demonstrated by our deeds, not just our words.
I am endeavouring to avoid speaking of the love of Christ, not because I want to detract from this doctrine, but because I wish to clarify that the love of the Father is in reality and not only in legality. But it is difficult to separate the workings of the Father from those of the Son because they are of one mind and purpose.
Having discussed the doctrinal elements regarding the reality of God's love, I will discuss the nature of God's love.
God says to us: Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands. (Isaiah 49:15,16) If God felt such righteous indignation against us, as is sometimes taught, how could He think of us in such terms. Mankind is not just one of God's neglected projects. To the contrary, He is continually thinking of us.
The psalmist David says: How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand . . . thou understandest my thought afar off . . . and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether . . . Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. (Psalm 139:17,18,2-6)
A woman would not adopt a child she did not like. If God did not love us, He would not have called us His children. Yet Paul writes that God: predestined us to adoption as sons. (Ephesians 1:4) He hath chosen us . . . before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. (Ephesians 1:5) God chose us for the same reason that He chose the Israelites, unto whom Moses said: The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: but because the Lord loved you. (Deuteronomy 7:7)
Although most of a mother's sentences to her children do not contain the word ‘love’, this does not mean she does not love them. Her love is shown by her kindness and concern for them. Similarly God's love for us is shown by His kindness and concern for His people throughout the bible even though the word ‘love’ may not specifically appear.
I do not say that the love of God for us is as great as His love for God the Son, but it is comparable, as it is written: God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son. (John 3:16) As I speak of the cross in my article: Atonement, I will not here elaborate, except to say that no cause in the universe other than the salvation of man was sufficient for God to send His Son to die.
We are so precious to God that He says to us: he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye. (Zechariah 2:8) So when a Christian suffers, God is personally grieved.
So we can see that love, which is an emotion in mankind that both leads to and results from good deeds, is also an emotion known to God. Some might say that I am wrongly attributing human emotions to God. But I would say that when man was made in the image of God, his emotions were modelled, at least to some degree, upon the emotions of God. Although the Devil tries to destroy what God has done, he has only partial success.
Although we learn of God's judgements that we may understand that god is more than a benevolent grandfather, the purpose of this knowledge: the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned. (1 Tim 1:5)
God loves and rejoices over his Son. He also rejoices over us. How can this be if God is so great in comparison to us. A mother pours out her soul towards her child in her bosom, but how could she rejoice over a speck.
The answer is that mankind, and even the Son of God, are insignificant in comparison to God's power and being , but not insignificant in comparison to God's soul, as God's soul is a smaller portion of his being than with man, or with the Son of man.
To explain, there is love, which is experienced by and that permeates our being, and there is the root cause of that love which resides in the soul. Man is a soulish creature, and so is the Son of man. This makes Jesus most beautiful, because that perfect love which is in his soul, is a greater proportion of his being than with the Father. But the Father is most beautiful, because the communication of that love from the Father's soul to his being, being Spiritual, is more beautiful in the him than in the Son, where the communication is more mechanical, being chemical.
It may be that the thousandth part of God's soul was invested in Christ, but only a billionth of a trillionth of his power. God also places a portion of his soul in those who overcome and will reign and with angels, perhaps the hudredth part of his soul by the Spirit. This integrates with our created Spirits, allowing God to fellowship with even more spirit and soul. Perhaps the combined soul of all mankind, allows God to fellowship on a one to one basis with mankind. This will only be realised after the glorification of the saints.
Then that love generated in God's soul by such fellowship with mankind and the Son of man, will be spiritually communicated to fill God's being with love. And that love will be billions of trillions of times the love of all mankind. As John says: God is love (1 John 4:16).