Righteous Anger

By Jeannette Paulson

In Uprooting Anger, Robert Jones  says that most references in the Bible to anger are about God –several hundred to be exact.  He calls God “the most loving and the most angry person on our planet.”   Jones describes our anger as a “whole-personed active response of negative moral judgment against perceived evil.”  This helps us to understand the anger of God: it is also a whole-personed response that involves his mind, affections, will, and actions.  God is angry with sin and with sinners.  Jones says it well: “He maintains righteous wrath against all forms of wickedness.  God’s anger is his perfect, pure, settled opposition to evil.”  Psalm 2 says “The One enthroned in heaven laughs….and terrifies them in his wrath.”  If God was not angry but complacent in the face of evil, he would not be righteous.
Understanding the righteous wrath of God can help us to evaluate whether our anger is righteous.  We need to be very careful here because the heart is deceitful beyond imagination and we quickly excuse rather than confess our sin.
Jones gives three distinguishing marks to judge between sinful and righteous anger:

1. “Righteous Anger Reacts against Actual Sin.”If we ask ourselves what provoked our anger in a certain situation, we often have to admit that it was not actual sin but something other.  For example, if the baby is teething and keeps us up for most of the nights and we are angry, it is not righteous anger.  If Johnny spills his milk — again, and we are angry, it is not righteous anger.  If your husband wants Christmas and vacation done differently than your father did, and you are angry, it is not righteous.  This means that we should do a thorough study of the ten commandments and their implications (The Westminster Larger Catechism is a GREAT place to start for such a study — just google for it)  in order to evaluate our anger properly.  The psalmist says in Psalm 119 “The tears in streams flow from my eyes, Because Your law they do not keep.”  Whether to tears or anger, God’s law must be the standard for what provokes us.
2. “Righteous anger focuses on God and His Kingdom, Rights, and Concerns, Not on Me and My Kingdom, Rights and Concerns.”Jones says, “Righteous anger focuses on how people offend God and his name, not me and my name….In other words, accurately viewing something as offensive is not enough.   We must view it primarily as offending God.”  Our anger must have a serious God-ward aspect if it is to be righteous.  I may be a very irritable person and have a short fuse.  The disciples were irritated with the children coming to Jesus.   They were offended by the blind man calling out.  But Jesus was not offended.  We must not take offense where God has not taken offense.
3. “Righteous Anger is Accompanied by Other Godly Qualities and Expresses Itself in Godly Ways.”This mark of righteous anger is extremely useful to aid our discerning.  Let me quote Jones again: “Righteous anger remains self-controlled.  It keeps its head without cursing, screaming, raging, or flying off the handle. Nor does it spiral downward in self-pity or despair.  It does not ignore people, snub people, or withdraw from people.”   In fact, it is self-controlled and confident.  It leads us into worship and service, helping the oppressed, working for justice, exposing and rebuking evil, and calling for repentance.

If sinful anger is akin to murder — and Jesus says it is — we must examine our anger.  Sinful anger is cruel.  It destroys.  May God teach us to count our days and set our heart on wisdom’s ways.

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