12:1
This short chapter rounds off the section after chapter 6 and is a wonderful song of praise, one which should bring joy to our hearts. It expresses the response we will have on the day of salvation. “Although you were angry with me ...” We don’t like the idea of God being angry, and many try to dismiss the idea, saying it merely demonstrated the mistaken or inadequate thinking of ancient people. This is a very impoverished approach to things. We do need to appreciate the truth that we are sinners and sin has extremely serious consequence. God was indeed angry with us, and rightly so. The glory of God’s love is that He has forgiven us, He has fully dealt with our sin, rather than merely overlooked it. Moreover, God has comforted us. Our sin doesn’t just hurt others, it brings pain into our lives, it brings guilt into our lives. But through Christ God comforts us. We experience all sorts of horrible feelings and thoughts because of sin, God comforts us in all this.
12:2
“Surely God is my salvation”. We become convinced of God’s salvation, indeed that He is our salvation. Since we were under the wrath of God one might have thought we needed to be saved from God, but the glory of the gospel is that we are saved by God. So we put our trust in Him and we are not afraid. We all face many problems, many dilemmas is life. In all of them we need to put our trust in the Lord, and so banish fear. He is our strength, our defence and our salvation. Before we believed in Christ we sought all sorts of defences and sources of strength, none of which worked that well! Now we know the one who truly saves and protects.
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