The righteous suffer as training, not punishment; God's justice overthrows the wicked

For it is clear that if a righteous person suffers anything, and the house of a righteous person too, this is a contest from the unrighteous who oppose them, and not a punishment from God. It is also clear that evils will not overpower the one who suffers in the manner of training, but he will rise up as from sleep, just as it was said in the third psalm (Psalm 3); and if he falls seven times, according to the proverb, he will rise again (Proverbs 24:16) (Ps 92:1b; Prov 24:16).

It is possible, then, to speak of putting on glory and girding on power with reference to what is known among human beings, but it is more fitting to speak of it with reference to the dishonor that came to Christ in his first coming and to his human weakness. He himself leads the world, made firm in him for secure good things, which it is no longer possible to move in any way.

It is not possible, he says, for unjust kingdoms to share in your power, which bring toil on those who keep the law, by whom the righteous person is hunted for arrest and the one who does no wrong is murdered (Psalm 94:20-21; LXX 93:20). In these words he shows altogether the overthrow of injustice, which is established by the righteousness of God. You will not give power to the wicked, he said, but you will place security around the righteous person, standing as a stronghold for him and strengthening his hopes in you. And what the wicked thought would succeed for them against the righteous, these things will turn back and come upon themselves; and as they plotted to make the righteous invisible, so they will go away into invisibility. This is the end of the vengeance that comes from you.

Let the God whom we worship be known, the one who has heaven and the glory above heaven, to whom beauty is present, to whom power and majesty belong in secret—according to his incorporeal and divine excellence, since the bodily sizes and beauties of temples have been produced with technical precision and lavish wealth, and for the nations they are for demons (Psalm 96:6; LXX 95:6). But in Israel, even if these things were present, they had come into being from the beginning as a type of the invisible things, and it was said through Moses, and they yield to the invisible things—especially now in the present proclamation of the gospel, when spiritual majesty is sought and contemplated, but also in ancient times among the wise, as with Solomon, who said that he was building a temple for God as the greatest and most lavish, since God is the greatest, yet also said that not even heaven can contain the glory of God (2 Chronicles 2:6).

The words "The Lord reigned" must be heard in one way just now and in another way now. For from his first coming he reigned, as in a summary, condemning sin in his holy flesh and abolishing death; and in his second coming he will reign through each one of those who share in him, having destroyed evil and corruption, when people will come to behold the steward of eternal life, being already able to be filled with life from him and to behold the glory of his kingdom, which is manifested in them as in a royal house, and which makes the opponents invisible as fire melts wax (Psalm 97:5). So he says again that the earth rejoices and the many islands are glad—that is, the nations—and then next that the earth is in labor and the mountains melt. In one place he speaks of the saints, and in another of the opponents, whose height through pride he likens to mountains, and he compares the overthrow of their pride to the melting of mountains. And to those who are alien he shows cloud and darkness meeting them before the sight of the Lord, signifying fear and distress; but to those who are receptive to light he says his lightnings flash and his glory is seen, and also that the fire of judgment will consume the ungodly, when the righteousness of the Lord is revealed from heaven, as the apostle says. And the psalmist says that the revelation from heaven is announced by the heavens, calling the manifestation an announcement, and he says that heaven itself is established by righteousness and judgment as on some support. He makes it clear that the throne is not bodily, but that the kingdom is called a throne.

He prays that those who through great insensibility and foolishness worship the images which they themselves carved may be put to shame, having received perception. For such a thing will be for their good. For being put to shame, they will depart from this foolish opinion which they held as if about gods.

Evil is opposed and hostile to God, though not by any opposition in nature.