What Does The Bible Say About Anger?

— Sharon Edmundson

What did you think when you heard what today's talk is about? When some people think about the Bible and anger, they think of the God in the older part of the Bible, who seems angry all the time, and the God in the newer part seems loving, as if they're two different people. If that's something you've wondered about, I've done a talk for Crowd before on this subject that you can listen to on the website. It has the really catchy title of "Is the loving God of the New Testament the same as the angry God of the Old Testament?"

As a child growing up in church, I heard verses such as the following one, and thought it was wrong to be angry at all.

“But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. ”

-- Matthew 5:22 (NIV)

It was a really unhealthy belief because when I got angry, which was often, I felt bad about it and tried to suppress it. And that turned into depression. I was angry at other people, myself and at God. Maybe you're like me and your natural tendency is to suppress anger and pretend that it isn't there. Or maybe you're the complete opposite and tend to be more explosive and to lash out. One of our kids used to communicate their feelings with their fists when they were little. Or do you fall somewhere in the middle? When I was in my 20s, I went for Christian counselling, and I found out some of what the Bible actually says about anger, and it started to set me free. Today, I'm gonna look at God's anger, our anger and other people's anger, and some suggestions on how to respond to each of these.

What is anger?

The Cambridge Dictionary defines it like this. Anger is a strong feeling that makes you want to hurt someone or be unpleasant because of something unfair or unkind that has happened. The Bible has many verses that talk about God being angry, but what makes him angry? Let's look at his anger in the context of the story of the Bible as a whole.

What makes God angry?

The Bible tells us that God made the universe, our Earth, all the animals and plants, but that us humans were a special creation, because we're made in the image of God Himself. God gave people a special role and a special place in the world. We're made to rule the earth and take care of it on His behalf, men and women together. How do you think we're doing so far with ruling the earth and looking after it? Not so well, maybe. God had this to say about what he created. God saw all that He had made and it was very good.

Have you ever done something creative, and been really pleased with what you've made? Our downstairs loo was, for years, we've had problems with major leaks. So there was no ceiling, the wallpaper was hanging off, there was mould. The toilet was broken. No one liked going in there. But recently, we did it up, we hid the pipes, tiled the walls, we had a new ceiling, we re-plastered and we painted. For a small room, it had a seriously huge amount of work done in it. I often go in there now, for no other reason than to stand back and admire the work. How much more must God have done that with the world he created?

But his world didn't stay a nice, shiny world. As people, we rebelled against Him, we did things our own way and made a big mess in the process. You just have to listen to the news to see that. The Bible tells us that the whole of creation is affected by our rebellion. So we see both signs of great design and purpose in the world but also of death and decay. And do you know what? If someone came into my house and smashed up my lovely downstairs loo, I would be so angry. How much more does God have the right to be angry when we mistreat each other and the world He has given us?

Here are some of the things that make God angry according to the Bible.

1. When we take advantage of the widow or the fatherless.

2. When we don't listen to him, disobedience.

3. Being stiff-necked.

4. Causing others to do wrong.

5. When we do wicked things.

6. When people sacrifice their sons and daughters in fire.

7. When people are exploited.

There are many other examples of things that make God angry. But if I could summarise them, it seems that God is angry when the people he loves, that's all of us, are mistreated or mistreating others and not living up to their purpose. Love and anger are like two sides of the same coin. Anger results when what is loved is threatened.

But here are some other things that the Bible says about God's anger:

“And yet He was compassionate; He forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them. He often restrained His anger and did not unleash His full wrath.He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return. ”

-- Psalm 78:38,39 (BSB)

“For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; ”

-- Psalm 30:5 (NIV)

So, God is slow to anger, his anger is short, and he restrains his anger. God is perfectly just and righteous in His anger. God loves us so much but He doesn't just brush off our evil and rebellion as if it doesn't matter, because it does matter. Just as I wouldn't brush off the issue if someone destroyed my downstairs loo, just saying, that would definitely not be okay.

God doesn't say that things that hurt us don't matter. He says they matter very much. When we're morally wrong, we deserve punishment. But instead of punishing us, He came to earth as a human, Jesus, and took our punishment on himself. By dying on the cross, He poured out His anger towards us on himself so that we wouldn't have to take it. He swapped places with us, he takes our filth and gives us his spotless righteousness. Take a look at this,

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! ”

-- Romans 5:8-10 (NIV)

How should we respond to God's anger?

Firstly, we need to recognise that God is always right in his anger and his judgement. We can tend to think that we're the ones who define what's right and wrong, but our life is just a speck in time. Do we really think that we know better than the God who created everything? What's our knowledge compared to his?

Secondly, we need to recognise that God has taken his anger for our rebellion on himself. We couldn't handle what we deserved. So he came in human form to live and die and rise again so that our relationship with Him is restored.

And thirdly, we have a choice. Forgiveness and a restored relationship with God are his gift to us. But he doesn't force it on us. We have to choose if we accept this gift or not. Accepting his forgiveness doesn't mean we go on living our own way. Because when we love someone, we don't want to hurt them. And when we love God, we don't want to hurt him by trampling on the things and people that he cares for.

John 3:36 says,

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them. ”

-- John 3:36 (NIV)

Can we be angry?

What about us? We're not God, we're just human. Is it wrong for us to be angry? The answer to that is yes, and no. Have a look at these two verses. Matthew 5 says,

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. ”

-- Matthew 5:21,22 (NIV)

And Ephesians 4 says,

““In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold. ”

-- Ephesians 4:26,27 (NIV)

So the first verse seems to be saying it's not okay to be angry. But the second one says it's possible to be angry without sinning, without being in the wrong. Whatever our reason for anger, these verses show that we're meant to deal with it quickly and not let it fester for days and turn into hate. Sometimes we are right to be angry, and sometimes we're not.

Now Tim Keller has done this fantastic talk about anger, and it's called "The healing of anger". And you can watch it on YouTube. In that talk, he says that because anger is part of love, our anger gets disordered, because our love is disordered. We're created to put God first and then love for other people. We're created to get our identity and significance from Him. But often we get things the other way around, and put things before Him. And we put our identity and significance in the wrong things. And because we've misplaced our love, we get angry at the wrong things.

And we can be a bit contrary at times, can't we? We get angry when we see evil and injustice in the world and we're angry with God for not doing anything about it. But we can also be angry with God when we see passages in the Bible where God having been incredibly patient will no longer put up with excessive evil anymore, and orders the destruction of those doing the evil.

Righteous Vs Unrighteous anger

Now I've had times where my anger is a righteous anger and times when my anger is all wrong. And I expect you probably all have as well.

So let me give you some examples. So I teach English to women from around the world whose first language isn't English. And when I listen to the stories of some of my students, some of whom have been trafficked or fled war situations, I get angry for the way they've been treated and the things they've been through. This would be a righteous anger, its the sort of thing that God gets angry about.

On the other hand, I remember a time when I was at Uni, and I'm sure there have been loads of times since this, but this one sticks out in my mind. And I remember that I was invited to a social gathering of some sort. And at that point I wasn't very confident at all. And it took me a lot of courage to decide to go to this event. And part of that courage was I thought my friend would go with me, but she didn't want to go. So I'd have to go on my own. And I was so angry with her. But she hadn't actually done anything wrong. It was my insecurity that made me angry.

How to deal with our anger?

#1 - Admit that you're angry

Firstly, we need to admit that we're angry, which is the part that I used to have trouble doing. We all get angry, it's part of being human. And in the book of Psalms, which is a book of poetry in the Bible, there are verses where the author pulls out all of their emotions to God, including requests to God to destroy their enemies. God can handle our emotions.

We can ask God to show us if our anger is godly or not. If it's not, we could admit to Him that we've got it wrong and ask for his forgiveness. And we can ask him to show us what is the root of our anger and to change us and help change us from the inside? Are we angry that someone more suited to the job got the promotion we wanted because our security is in our job title? I found that the more I've worked with God and learn how he sees me in the world, the more I've accepted His love. And the more I've accepted his love for me, the less angry I've got at the wrong things.

#2 - Practice Forgiveness

Another thing that has helped me loads is forgiveness. And we've done a couple of talks about this in the past, which you can watch on our website. When I didn't admit that I was angry with people, I couldn't deal with the hurt. So it all got stuffed down. And the result of this I said before was depression. But the other result was that anytime someone did even the slightest little thing to hurt me, I would overreact to it internally.

To give you an analogy, in our kitchen, we've got a cupboard which is known as the cupboard of doom. It houses all our plastic pots and our drinking bottles and stuff like that. And it tends to be often really full and not packed very well. So that when you open the door to put something relatively small in, other things just jump out at you. And it's like that with forgiveness, if we don't forgive, it's like we're collecting rubbish in our soul, or plastic pots. And when we've got something relatively minor that happens, we open the door to stuff that in as well. But all of the past hurts jump out on us. And we have an extreme reaction to something relatively small.

Forgiveness meant that what other people had done no longer had a hold over me, and no longer had that extreme reaction to the small stuff. When I first started to actually deal with all this, it took me literally weeks to forgive someone for really small stuff. But as I had more practice, it got a lot quicker. Of course, some things are much easier to forgive than others.

#3 - Ask for help

Sometimes we really need so much help from the Holy Spirit and from other people. The Holy Spirit doesn't just leave us to try and sort out all this stuff on our own. He is gentle and so humble and willing to help us. But maybe you're someone who really struggles with anger, but you have no idea why. It could be that you have loads of stuff buried deep inside you from childhood that you didn't know how to process at the time. Don't feel that you have to struggle on your own. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you process all that you've been through. And maybe there's someone at your local church who's skilled at helping with these things, or you could contact a counsellor.

Now, these next verses are a good reminder for me, from James 1 and they say,

“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. ”

-- James 1:19-21 (NIV)

Just as God is slow to anger, we too are called to be slow to anger. Sometimes my first reaction when something happens can be to feel angry. Maybe someone hasn't done what they said they'd do and I'm annoyed and verging on that anger. I'm still learning to take that step back. And I feel like to remember patience, maybe something that's happened that meant that they weren't able to do what they said they'd do, maybe I've misunderstood, maybe I forgot that we've changed plans, all of which are possible.

Romans 12:19 says,

“Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. ”

-- Romans 12:19 (NIV)

When we feel angry we're not to take revenge. We can leave the person to God knowing that He will take care of them. When I went to counselling, this next verse was really helpful to me, it's from Ephesians 4 and says,

““In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry. ”

-- Ephesians 4:26 (NIV)

It basically says that it's possible to feel angry and not sin. One of the great things about being human is that we can choose how to respond to situations. Just because we feel angry doesn't mean that we have to act on it in a negative way. Even if we have good reason for our anger, it doesn't give us reason to do the wrong things. We can choose to forgive, to be patient, to take a step back, to pray and ask God for his wisdom to get out of an abusive situation or to help bring justice to situations. We have choices. With God's help, we're not just at the mercy of our emotions. Proverbs 14:29 says,

“Whoever is patient has great understanding, but one who is quick-tempered displays folly. ”

-- Proverbs 14:29 (NIV)

Other people's anger

So let's look at other people's anger. Just as our anger can either be for good reasons or can be unjustified, so can the anger that other people have. Take a look at these verses,

“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift. ”

-- Matthew 5:23,24 (NIV)

These verses show us that if someone else is angry with us, we have a responsibility to do what we can to sort out the situation where appropriate. Of course, reconciliation isn't always possible if someone else is behaving wrongly. There are also verses that talk about confronting that person, taking another person as backup if needed.

And I've said before, God doesn't say that wrong doesn't matter and that we should brush it under the carpet. The complete opposite is true. If someone gets angry often and easily, maybe we need to take a step back from the relationship. Have a look at these verses,

“Do not make friends with a hot-tempered person, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn their ways and get yourself ensnared. ”

-- Proverbs 22:24,25 (NIV)

“An angry person stirs up conflict, and a hot-tempered person commits many sins. ”

-- Proverbs 29:22 (NIV)

Here are some more great verses that help us deal with other people when they're angry.

“A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. ”

-- Proverbs 15:1 (NIV)

“A hot-tempered person stirs up conflict, but the one who is patient calms a quarrel. ”

-- Proverbs 15:18 (NIV)

Many years ago, I was really angry with Matt about something. I know you're shocked about that. How could anyone be angry with him? I can't remember what it was. But I was rehearsing all the main things I wanted to say to him in my head. When I confronted him about the situation ready to have a go at him, his response was to apologise. Well, that totally took the wind out of my sails. The things I'd planned to say no longer seemed relevant.

It's the same for us. When we're dealing with other people's anger, maybe we don't have anything to apologise for. But still a gentle answer can have a powerful effect. And maybe you've got your own examples of where this has worked for you. So we've seen when dealing with other people, God wants us to be patient and forgiving. We're not to seek revenge. That can be hard enough in itself. But the Bible takes all this to a whole other level. Read these verses:

“Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. ”

-- Romans 12:19-21 (NIV)

Here God's saying not just to hold back from revenge, but to actually love our enemies, to repay evil with good. That's a bit shocking. Why does He say that? Because that's what He's like. And that's how His kingdom works. How is it possible for us to love our enemies? How is it possible to go from being angry about the fact that we've been mistreated to loving the people who've mistreated us?

I think we can only do that with God's help and by recognising that when we were God's enemy, he still loved us. When we receive His love and forgiveness for ourselves, we can then give it out to other people. It's not about trying hard to be good. It's about passing on what we've received ourselves.

Conclusion

I'll leave you with these verses from 1 John because they sum it up really well,

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

-- 1 John 4:7-11 (NIV)What does the Bible say about Anger_