Now when the emotion of anger in a
most pure spirit like God comes into contact with moral evil, there is harmony
between the feeling and its object. It is a righteous feeling spent upon a
wicked thing. When God hates what is hateful and is angry at that which merits
wrath, the true nature and fitness of things is observed, and he feels in himself
that inward satisfaction which is the substance of happiness. Anger and hatred are
associated in our minds with unhappiness, because we behold their exercise only
in a sinful sphere and in an illegitimate manner. In an apostate world, the
proper and fitting coincidence between emotions and their objects has been
disturbed and destroyed by sin. A sinner hates the holiness which he ought to
love and loves the sin which he ought to hate. The anger in his heart is
selfish and passionate, not legitimate and calm. The love in his heart is
illicit; and hence in Scripture it is denominated “lust” or “concupiscence”
(epithymia). In a sinful world, the true relations and correlations are
reversed. Love and hatred are expended upon exactly the wrong objects. But when
these feelings are contemplated within the sphere of the holy and the eternal;
when they are beheld in God, a most pure spirit, without body, parts, or
passions, and exercised only upon are beheld in God, a most pure spirit,
without body, parts, or passions, and exercised only upon their appropriate and
deserving objects; when the wrath falls only upon the sin and uncleanness of
hell and burns up nothing but filth in its pure celestial flame; then the emotion
is not merely right and legitimate, but it is beautiful with an august beauty
and no source of pain either to the divine mind or to any minds in sympathy
with it. (William G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology: Complete and Unabridged,
Volumes 1-3 [Reformed Retrieval, 2021], 124)
