Let's apply the principles of knowing and understanding from the previous post to the topic of anger. Anger is much like an explosive. It has to be treated and handled carefully with much discretion otherwise a simple spark can ignite a chain reaction that causes an unwarranted explosion leading invariably to many undesired effects, damages and casualites...And when the spark is lit it races towards the explosive source. BAM..... unless of course the initial spark is tamped out and handled skillfully. It is one thing to know that scripture gives allowance for such emotive inclinations and another to understand how to exercise it. Recently, the force of exigent circumstances thrust me into a place whereby I had to exercise thorough introspection in order to not lapse into sordid expressions of anger. In so doing, I gave considerable preponderance to the biblical conception of anger; which if misunderstood, can easily devolve into a resident evil. One that takes on the characteristics of a malignant tumor.
Why is this a notable topic? Well scripture gives precedent for justifiable anger or righteous indignation of sorts. For instance, Paul writes the Ephesians, "Be angry and do not sin...," (Eph. 4:26). But how are we to understand this reference to anger especially taking into proper and sound consideration that five verses after that statement Paul promulgates, "let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you," (Eph. 4:31)? Moreover, scripture provides far more injunctions against anger germane to humanity than it does approbations of it, (cf. Matt. 5:21-22, Gal. 5:20, Col. 3:8, 3:21, Titus 1:7). This juxtaposition alone places far greater weight on the restraint of anger as oppossed to its free administration. The ostensible allowance of anger in Ephesians 4:26 should not and ought not be a proof text to validate anger as a christian virtue, par excellence; especially when the locus of attention is given by Christ and Paul to the purgation of anger by way of sanctification (Gal. 5:20, Eph. 4:31, Col. 3:8).
I am reminded of the fury of the Jewish discontent when Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath when they themselves circumcised on the Sabbath. Christ's retort exposed their anger and irrationality, "If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man's whole body well? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgement," (John 7:23-24). They knew the law as it related to the Sabbath but failed to adequately understand (also see Mark 2:23-28). Those of Jewish extract failed to reason with and understand what they too hastily came to be feverishly angry with and who they became cynically distraught at. The quick tempered and angry tend to react to circumstances and respond to superficial phenomena instead of taking the full scope of things into proper perspective. This is why Christ charged them with judging by appearances.
These vices embodied by Jesus' malcontents are natural, or rather unnatural characteristics of the nature of anger. The Greek word/s for anger used and referenced above derive from the root orge. Its connotations include but are not limited to: desire, violent passion, vengeance, wrath, provoking to enrage, exsasperated, irascible, hot tempered, et al. Notice how Paul's prohibitions pertaining to anger encompass many of those expressions. Indeed, where you find anger you will find a hotbed and groundswell of sin. Paul inextricably associates bitterness, wrath, clamor, slander, malice, enmity, strife, jealousy, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, obscene talk with ANGER, (Gal. 5:19-21, Eph. 4:31, Col. 3:8). He incontrovertibly identifies such soteriological and pneumatological malfeasance as "works of the flesh," (Gal. 5:19-21), grieving the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:31), "earthly" and practices of the "old self," (Col. 3:5-11). This gives fresh creedence to Solomon's proverb, "Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare," (Prov. 22:24, 25).
Consider Cain who, "was very angry" because the Lord "had regard for Abel's offering," (Gen. 4:3-16). The Lord addressed the teeming anger Cain was fostering and admonishes him to "rule over" the sin that was crouching at the door. For Cain to excercise governance over his emotions and to rule over them his reason had to be intact in order to excercise his will in accord with the Lord's directive. As the Puritan doctor Richard Baxter put it, "It is easier to control anger in its beginning. Keep an eye on the first stirrings of your wrath and make it obey you. Your will and reason have great power in the control of anger if you will only use them according to their nature. A spark is easier to quench than a flame, and a serpent is easier to crush before it hatches out." Evidently Cain's capactiy to reason was remiss as is substantiated by his inablity to internalize the Lord's admonition. He became blinded by sinful rage. And as biblical history records Cain was overtaken by his anger thus culminating in the murderous rampage of his brother whom, in fact, he was to be keeper of. His sinful passions guided his will instead of sound and godly reasoning, for the Lord graced Cain to rule over his anger by telling him to rule over it.
This type of curmudgeon (a bad tempered or surly person) points to the role pride plays in human expression's of anger. Because Abel's "offering" was favored over Cain's, Abel consequently became the object of Cain's wounded ego. Perhaps Cain perceived himself to be upstaged or conscripted to an inferior role. He was now in the shadow of his brother.
Members of Christ's church might not physically end someone's life like angry Cain did to Abel. Instead, that murderous act is perpetrated through insidious maledictions and slanderous aspersions. This is the anger Christ defined in His Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:21-23). This is the very thing the Pharisees and their ilk were culpable of doing when conniving against Jesus. They villified Him to His own people and through murderous language arranged for his actual murder.
Christians need to guard against elevating their personal stock or value to such a level that whenever another fellow believer "actually" sins against them they magnify it to such a degree that it eclipses the fact that they have more seriously sinned against God (as King David acknowledged Psalm 41:4,51:4).
Again, Richard Baxter describes prideful anger poignantly, "A proud man considers things heinous or intolerable that are said or done against him. He that thinks lowly of himself sees things done or said against him as of little significance. He that magnifies himself sees offenses against him also magnified. Pride is a very impatient sin: There is no pleasing a proud person, without a great deal of wit, care, and diligence. You must take as much care around him as you do straw or gunpowder when you are holding a candle."
All in all, sinful anger signifies a lack of self control. When anger penetrates one's consciousness thereby superseding the ability to reason and think aright there is a reduction to an eradic, unstable and reactionary condition. This becomes a volatile state of affairs. Indeed hauntingly sordid and sinful. The preceding seems to evince that anger inordinately espouses an element of subjectivity that inevitably overtakes the rationale or mans reasoning capacity. The account of Moses and Aaron at the waters of Meribah illustrates this (Num. 20:10-13). They received explicit instructions from the Lord to "tell the rock...to yield its water." Yet, the peoples quarrelling provoked Moses who reacted by striking the rock twice in a fit of anger or frustration. His subjective element was not subject to the Lordship of God and consequently overcame him. Again, this underscores the assertion that anger within the human ranks more often than not signifies a lack of self control.
The issue of anger is of such gravity that it precludes such persons from ascension to clerical ranks. Paul proscribes any man who is, "arrogant or quick-tempered" from the bishopric,-episkopos, (cf. I Tim. 3:2,3).
So then what about Paul's statement about being angry and sinning not. Well the aforementioned enlarges upon that by way of negation. The next post will handle how to exercise justifiable anger in a more positive tone. I will also explore the expressions of God's anger recorded in Old Testament nomenclature in particular.
"Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools," (Eccl. 7:9).
Credo ut Intelligam
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