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God, when it is said of Him that He is angry, is angry not to avenge Himself, but to correct us. Let us also imitate Him: to take revenge, therefore, is a divine matter, but to take revenge otherwise is a human matter. However, God differs from us not only in that He is angry justly, but also in that in God anger is not some kind of passionate irritation. So, let us not be angry in vain. Anger is implanted in us not so that we sin, but so that we stop others from sinning, not so that it becomes a passion and a disease in us, but so that it serves as a cure for passions (2).
God's anger is not a passion, but a threat that serves our benefit. Therefore, if we are converted, then He also turns away from anger and calms down, valuing our salvation most of all; That’s why He finds many paths to it, invents many ways to achieve it, for which it is rightly called the God of salvation. “Will You be angry with us forever, and will You extend Your wrath from generation to generation?” (Ps. 84:6). Even now the wrath of God against people is terrible; but since in this life God mostly shows long-suffering, future wrath is naturally even more terrible (3).
Every strong person, every ruler, every military leader, everyone with wealth, all, so to speak, splendor and power of man will then be destroyed and cease, and nothing will help them escape the wrath of God: neither bodily strength, nor experience in war, nor the abundance of wealth, nor the protection of power, nor a multitude of troops, nor anything else like that (4).
Tell me: if your slave, suffering a lot of evil from his comrades, did not pay any attention to others, but cared only about not angering his master, then could he not satisfy your anger with this alone? On the contrary, if he did not care at all about his misdeeds before you, but only cared about his relations with his comrades, then would you not subject him to even greater punishment? This is what God does: when we neglect His anger, then He shows the strongest anger against us; and when we are attentive, then we soften or, better yet, stop our anger. He wants us to punish ourselves for our sins, and then He no longer punishes. This is why He threatens punishment, in order to destroy negligence in us through fear; and when we are afraid of one threat, He no longer allows us to actually experience it (12).
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