62. There were theologians who assigned to God attributes that are merely human and unworthy of God. Their purpose in doing so was to preserve the integrity of the doctrine of justification, once it was established, and dress it up in some plausible fashion. They said that anger, revenge, damnation, and other things of the kind were traits possessed by God’s justice, and this is why such things are mentioned so many times in the Word and are (seemingly) attributed to God.

Mention of “the anger of God” in the Word actually refers to that which is evil in us. Because this evil goes against God it is called the anger of God. This expression does not mean that God is angry at us but that our own evil makes us angry at God. Because evil carries its own punishment with it (just as goodness carries its own reward), when evil brings punishment on us it looks as though God is punishing us.

This is the same, though, as criminals blaming the law for their own punishment, or our blaming the fire for burning us when we put our hand in it, or our blaming the drawn sword in the guard’s hand when we hurl ourselves onto the tip of it. This is the nature of God’s justice. (For more on these points, see Revelation Unveiled. On the justice and judgment that exist in God and come from God, see §668 there; on the Word attributing anger to God, see §§635, 658; on the Word attributing revenge to God, see §806.)

These are features of the Word’s literal meaning. They occur because the literal meaning is written in correspondences and in expressions of an appearance. These features do not appear in the Word’s spiritual meaning, however; in this meaning the truth stands forth in its own light.

I can attest that when angels hear anyone saying God was angry and locked the whole human race into damnation, or was reconciled from being our enemy through the Son as a second God born from the first God, they become like people who are about to vomit because their stomachs and internal organs have been violently heaved this way and that. The angels say, “What more insane thing could anyone possibly say about God?”

32. The existence of the divine Trinity is made very clear by the Lord’s words in Matthew:

Jesus said, “Go forth and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28:19)

The existence of the Trinity is also made clear by the following words in Matthew:

When Jesus was being baptized, behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Holy Spirit coming down like a dove upon him; and a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:16, 17)

The reason why the Lord sent his disciples forth to baptize people in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit was that this divine trinity existed within him in his then-glorified state. In the verse preceding the quotation from Matthew 28 just given, the Lord says, “All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18); and in the verse following, he says, “Behold I am with you all the days, even to the close of the age” (Matthew 28:20). In these verses, then, he mentions only himself and not three persons. In John we read, “There was not the Holy Spirit yet because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:39). He made the statement in Matthew after he was glorified, and his glorification was when he became fully united with his Father, the divinity that had been inside him since conception. The Holy Spirit was the divine quality that emanated from him once he was glorified (John 20:22).