"Anger & Strife an Abomination to God"

The Bible describes anger as a sin - a sin of mental attitude. As a sin, anger expresses antagonism, exasperation, indignation, resentment, and outrage. Anger usually produces an emotional feeling, but the feeling is not the anger. The thought pattern, which produced the feeling, is the sinful anger.

In the Bible, the type of anger, which is not sinful, is more properly called "righteous indignation". Righteous indignation does not produce emotion. Thus, whenever emotion is involved, sinful anger is the cause.

The Bible uses two Greek words for anger: orge, referring to mental anger, and thumos, for emotional anger. It's possible, but not common, to have mental anger without an emotional response. In Ephesians 4:31 it reads, Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice, both types of anger are related to bitterness.

Anger is a sin, which promotes sins against other people, such as gossip, self-righteous judging, maligning, and complaining.

Both anger and righteous indignation are mental reactions to events or circumstances. If the mental reaction is unjustifiable, it becomes a reaction such as irritation, exasperation, or irrationality.

But if a reaction is justifiable, it is never irrational. An example would be righteous indignation regarding heresy or secularism.

What is righteous indignation?

In Mark 10:14 it reads, When Jesus saw this he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these". Jesus became opposed to the disciples when they forbade the children to be brought unto Him. This was not anger, it was as understanding of a wrong.

Another example of righteous indignation is a Christian's mental attitude toward criminal activity. You can pursue, prosecute, and sentence a criminal without compromising such principles as grace, forgiveness, or impersonal love. You are aware that the criminal's act is wrong and that he must be stopped. That is righteous indignation.

But you don't hate the criminal of fall apart emotionally because of sinful anger. Impersonal love is a result of Christian growth and allows believers to have a regard for even the most obnoxious people that does not depend on their character or behavior.

It is righteous indignation that allows God to be "angry" about sin but to love us anyway. His love for us depends on His character, not on ours.

What are the characteristics of sinful anger?

1. Anger is sin from the sin nature.
Galatians 5:19-21, "Now the deeds of the flesh [sin nature] are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these . . ."

2. Anger is related to foolishness.
Ecclesiastes 7:9, "Do not be quick to be angry in your heart, for anger resides in the bosom of fools."

The Bible defines a fool as a person without wisdom. He may be a genius, but his thinking is from human viewpoint. He thinks and acts apart from God 's standards and controls. The paramount fool (and the beginning of foolishness) is the person who has said in his heart, "There is no God."

Look at Romans 1:18-31 for a detailed description of the results of deliberately turning away from God. A fool is on a rapid downward slide towards destruction, both in this life and the one to come. In the list of terrible sins, which characterize the ungodly are several which are either causes or results of anger.

3. Anger is associated with grieving the Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 4:30-31, "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other. Just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." Notice the contrast here between conditions of anger and the results of impersonal love.

4. Anger is a violation of the Christian's code of conduct as a member of the Body of Christ.
Colossians 3:8-9, "But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, {and} abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its (evil) practices."

5. Anger hinders effective prayer. 1 Timothy 2:8, "Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dissension."

6. Anger is always accompanied by other sins.
Proverbs 29:22, "An angry person stirs up strife, and a hot tempered person abounds in transgression."

Anger promotes the sins of gossip, self-righteous judging, maligning, revenge, complaining, bitterness, and many others.
Hebrews 12:15 reads, "See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled."

7. Anger makes a person his own worst enemy; he brings misery upon himself.
Proverbs 22:8, "He who sows iniquity will reap vanity, and the rod of his fury will perish." The unhappiness comes from many sources:

Lack of growth means lack of joy, lack of love, lack of divine viewpoint.

8. Anger promotes jealousy and cruelty.
Proverbs 27:4 reads, "Anger is cruel and fury overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy?"

9. Anger causes misery for loved ones, friends and community. Anger destroys a nation.
Amos 1:11, "Thus says the Lord, "For three transgressions of Edom and for four I will not revoke its (punishment). Because he pursued his brother with the sword. While he stifled his compassion; His anger also tore continually, and he maintained his fury forever."

It is possible to respond to unfairness or offense without sin. A person may sin against you, yet you can remain without sin. You can put the matter in the Lord's hands, stay in fellowship, and maintain a relaxed mental attitude. Furthermore, because you stay in fellowship, you are in the best position to be of service in the situation. You can forgive the other person and be open to any reconciliation he might offer. You will at least do your part to keep lines of communication open.

The Bible continually emphasizes righteousness maintained in the face of unfair treatment.

You cannot build your happiness on someone else's misery. This is what retaliation tries to do. But you'll never obtain happiness through revenge or by straightening out the other person. To punish someone else using verbal sins or violence is a revenge operation; worse yet, it obstructs divine judgment and discipline. "Judge not, that you be not judged" is intended to warn us to let the Lord handle matters of sins against Himself. The angry person who arrogates to himself the position of judge is in a position of compounded divine discipline himself, worse off than the one who originally caused the trouble.

How Is God's Anger Different From Our Anger?

Each of us is an artist. We all paint pictures. We use shapes, colors, sizes, ideas, concepts, dreams and experiences and unfold masterpieces of imagery in our minds.

We use imaginations to liven up dull lives and break up boredom. Yet, at times our imaginations fail us. There are limits to what we can conceive. Take the subject of God, for instance. It is hard for our minds to understand what He really is like.

So we have a standoff between the vastness of God and our limited minds. We try so hard to raise our capacity of knowledge and wisdom, and it seems so hopeless.

"The foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength". (1Corinthians 1:25)

Even advance scientific knowledge is still at a loss when trying to define such things as time, space, energy, and eternity. No wonder we have trouble understanding all there is to know about the God Almighty.

Since we can't boost our intelligence enough, we try to lower God to the reach of our understanding. We humanize God and we've been doing this for a long time. Using human traits to describe God is called anthropomorphizing.

For example, we know that God is a spirit (John 4:24). Therefore He is not confined to a physical body, and we find it hard to discuss a bodiless person in loving, intimate terms. So we anthropomorphize Him.

"The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their cry; the face of the Lord is against those who do evil." Psalm 34:15-16

Now we have a God has hands, eyes, ears, and a face. This helps us to relate to Him in personal way. We do the same thing with God's personality.

We are told that God is knowledgeable.
"Lord, You know all things" (John 21:17). And we think of God as Professor Santos, who had three doctorates and was fluent in 26 languages.

We learn that God is good.
"Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His love endures forever" (Ps 118:29). This reminds us of Miss Torres, who lived next door and never said an unkind word about anyone in her whole life.

God is loving.
"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love" (1John 4:8). This makes us think of Mom, she rocked us in her lap.

Our mistake is that we begin to think we can limit God to human categories. It all looks so different from above, and this is an extremely important distinction. God is not a glorified, sinless, exalted man. His character is unique, His own and will not be found in human categories.

Another example is when we compare God's anger to a situation in which we have been angry, or when people have been angry with us - then say to ourselves, "That's the way God's anger is". But God's anger is not like ours.

If God did not restrain His anger, there would be no one left to praise Him, to bring Him glory. The book of Revelation, we are reminded of God's restrained anger in our present age.

God's anger is neutralized by our repentance.

Romans 11:22 reads, "Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in His kindness". Let us not fool ourselves. Our rebellion with against God should throw us into great fear of the consequences of our actions. God longs to see people repent so He can shower forgiveness on them.

God's anger remains until it accomplishes its purpose.

God's anger is not supposed to be the final state of our relationship with God. It has a function. It is a tool to achieve God's will. God is not a moody, temperamental despot who will change His mind if we give Him sometime. When He is angry, there is a problem that needs correction. His anger is not diminished until situation is rectified.

Back to the Lord is my Shepherd and He Knows I'm Gay

!-- BEGIN LINKEXCHANGE CODE -->

This page has been "hit" times