7.29.2013

Where anger has no point (second conscious shock)

I've been reading The King in His Beauty by Thomas R. Schreiner, and it is scattershot, but it keeps pulling me back in. Here is a quote from the chapter on Psalms that I found very interesting:

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As Gerald Wilson points out, even in the shape of the Psalter there is a movement from lament to praise, so that laments are more common in the first part of the Psalter, and praise concludes it. “Praise,” Wilson says, “constitutes another reality in which the presence of God has become so real that anger has no point, pain has no hold, and death lacks all power to sting.”

Schreiner, Thomas R. (2013-07-15). King in His Beauty, The: A Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments (p. 250). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

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I think that language is unusual. "Praise constitutes another reality." Then this: "...in which the presence of God has become so real that *anger has no point*..."

That's what I was getting at with resentment. I was saying it this way: "What is the goal of our resentment? To what end?" Concluding that the only end is the ludicrous end of burning down the world, which is hell itself.

Where anger has no point. That's a state of being. A level of being to be reached.

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In other words:

"...in which the presence of God has become so real..." (First Conscious Shock)

"...that anger has no point..." (Second Conscious Shock)

Which would make 'praise' (which he calls another reality) akin to the third and fourth state of consciousness. It's interesting anyway that 'praise' goes from being an activity to being a destination. A place.

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It is striking how that phrase - "where anger has no point" - captures the second conscious shock in a deep and newly-articulated way.

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