The antagonism is wholly on man's part.
True, man's opposition necessarily turns certain sides of the divine
character to present a hostile front to him. Not only God's physical
attributes, if we may so call them, but the moral attributes which
guide the energies of these, namely, His holiness and His
righteousness, and the acts of His sovereignty which flow from these,
must be in opposition to the man who has set himself in opposition to
God. 'The face of the Lord is against them that do evil.' If it were
not, He would not be God.
But still, God's love enfolds all men in its close and tender clasp. As
the context says, in close connection with the threat to burn the
briers and thorns, 'Fury is not in Me.' Man's hostility does not rouse
God's. He wars against the sin because He still loves the sinner. His
love 'must come with a rod,' but, at the same time, it comes 'with the
spirit of meekness.' It gives its enemy all that it can; but it cannot
give all that it would.
He stoops to sue for our amity. It is the creditor who exhausts
beseechings on His debtor, so much does He wish to 'agree with His
adversary quickly.' The tender pleading of the Apostle was but a faint
echo of the marvellous condescension of God, when he, 'in God's stead,
besought: 'Be ye reconciled to God.'