Anger: Self-Righteousness or Holy Passion

When you think of anger, what comes to mind? Is it an outburst of frustration? Is it heat or an elevated heart rate? Is it the cold shoulder or silent treatment? Or maybe it’s just sheer aggression that wants to come out physically. If you’re like me, you think of the little red guy from the Disney movie, Inside Out, that’s always on fire and yelling. All these things are manifestations of anger. But at the core, what is anger? Robert D. Jones, author of Uprooting Anger, gives us a profound definition of what anger is.

“Our anger is our whole-personal active response of negative moral judgement against perceived evil.”

Here are my thoughts when looking at this definition:

Number one, anger is an “active response”, meaning that it is something we do, not something we have. We don’t have anger, we respond in anger. That is why in the Word it tells us that we should be “slow to anger” (James 1:19). We should be slow to choose anger as response.

Number two, how we respond has a direct connection to our moral judgement, our belief system, and how we perceive or determine what is evil. This is dangerous because we are human. Our judgement is compromised. We have “negative moral judgement.”  We as a people are fallen and broken, and therefore we can’t properly define good and evil. That’s what got us in this predicament in the first place. (Thanks, Adam and Eve.) But we know this to be true, because even Jesus said that nothing good can come from our hearts, only evil (Mark 7:21-23). 

Now, anger itself is not bad. There is such thing as a "righteous anger." Remember, it’s a response to evil, or a response to an injustice. In the Bible, God was angry multiple times. God is a righteous God. His moral judgement is perfect, He is morality. So His response to immorality is completely justified. We see God’s anger anytime man came against Him and His kingdom.

A perfect example of this is when Jesus drove the merchants out of the temple. In John chapter 2, Jesus saw that merchants were using the temple, a holy place of honor and worship to His father, as a place of self-promotion and the exploitation of the people. They were defacing the name of God and this caused Jesus to respond in an aggressive way. Again, Jesus is God and therefore His judgement against evil is right and true, and justice demands that wrongs be made right. “…Stop turning my Father’s house into a den of thieves…” I think we can all agree that taking advantage of people in the House of the Lord is a big no no. This kind of anger is justified against sin which is true evil. How do you know its sin or a true evil? Does God deem it as such? Righteous anger focuses on offense against God and His name, not me and mine. Righteous anger is also tempered with The Fruit of the Spirit. Although anger is a strong emotion it is still controlled. It may sometimes demand intense action, like driving people out with a whip, but it does not go beyond what is required. 

We must temper our anger in accordance with God’s proper response of anger. Left to our own devices, it will produce bitterness and resentment, creating a victim spirit that thrives on self-pity. It can cause disunity and division where pride would have you stand and die on a hill that you were never meant to be on. Sometimes, anger may lead to a self-righteous complex, thinking you are better than others because you would never wrong someone the way they've wronged you. In an extreme case, if your anger is causing you to wish ill of another person, you have sinned. You might as well just run them over with a car. Jesus correlates this anger as an act of murder. (Matthew 5:21-23). Anger walks a thin line between justice and vengeance. Life or death. His kingdom or ours. 

So how do we keep our anger in check? It starts at the foundation of who we are—our heart. We must humbly submit our hearts to the Lord and evaluate the motive for our response. Who are we getting angry at? Is it a brother or sister? Or is it the enemy? Why are we getting angry? Have we been offended or Has God’s name been slandered? Having the self-awareness to understand and answer these questions will produce right anger. And if you are having a hard time with self-awareness, that’s ok. We have a friend and advisor to help us out also known as the Holy Spirit. True justice belongs to the Lord (Romans 12:19). We need to stop defining good and evil for ourselves and let the spirit renew our minds to align with His kingdom values. God is sovereign. He is above it all and therefore knows all. You have to believe that. He knows what is sinful and wrong, because His very being is righteous and true. So, I encourage you, place your pride aside. Let go of everything you think you know and humbly submit yourself to His authority. Let His spirit usher in the kingdom of heaven, rather than the kingdom of this world.