Your Anger Makes Me Mad (2)

We have to be careful with anger because we know that James 1:20 warns: “…the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” But is there ever such a thing as justifiable anger?

We know that anger itself isn’t sinful because there are plenty of illustrations of God being angry in the Bible (Ex: De 32:21-22; Ps 2:5; 78:21-22; Is 5:25; 13:9; Ro 1:18; Re 19:15). Even Jesus was angry at times (Mk 3:5).

Before we go much farther, I want to stress that not only was (and is) God’s anger always controlled and justified, He was always, “Slow to anger and abounding in steafast love” (Ex 34:6). So, His anger wasn’t a tantrum and it took a lot to provoke it.

Also remember that God is really good at things we’re bad at. God’s wrath DOES produce righteousness because He executes it perfectly while we do not. God warns us about things like anger, jealousy, hate, and judging – all of which He does because He can always handle it while we struggle a LOT with them.

Yes, there is such a thing as us being justifiably angry. We can be angry with the devil. We can be angry with sin (our own and what we see in the world). We can be angry with the things God is angry about. But again, even these are not without risk – so be careful

Matthew 5:55 says, “But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment…” So, “without cause” implies that there can be a cause for anger. However, we are risking judgment if the cause isn’t really justified! Anger feels good and can blind us. Instead of authorizing anger, this verse is actually warning us to do a double-take (or triple) before justifying anger. Eternal judgment is at risk!

Ephesians 4:26 says, “’Be angry, and do not sin’: do not let the sun go down on your wrath”. The first part is sometimes quoted to justify anger – you CAN be angry and not sin. While this is true, don’t use this verse to cling to anger. The verse is actually stressing the need for us to get rid of anger: “…let not the sun go down on your wrath.” In other words, work to quickly resolve anger. That won’t always be easy, but we’re committed to working the righteousness of God and we know our anger can hurt that, our relationship with God, and our relationships with others.    dd