Understanding the Anger of God
A World of Anger
In a culture of hyper-tolerance, the word “anger” carries a negative connotation. However, it seems that everyone is angry all of the time. Even those who preach tolerance are wickedly angry at the intolerant. American politics is a highly volatile mine-field, filled with rage on both sides. People are angry at injustice, social media companies, Big Pharma, their left-leaning neighbor, or their right-leaning neighbor. Everyone feels entitled to their anger, and yet it is offensive to think that God would be angry too. Everyone can have anger, and everyone justifies their anger, but God is not allowed to have His.
We see this disdain for the anger of God play out when people ask “How can a good God send people to hell?” The idea that God exercises any kind of wrath or vengeance seems counterintuitive to the image of God that we often create in our minds. Even professing Christians have fallen into this trap, separating the God of the Bible into two separate beings; the Old Testament God who was always angry, and the New Testament God who gives nothing but love and kindness.
This separation runs contrary to what is found in Scripture, which is a God of both anger and love, wrath and kindness, judgment and mercy. God is not a two dimensional character in a Hallmark movie, rather, He is the complex, beautiful, and transcendent source of all things. The truth that we all must admit is foundational yet offensive; a god without anger is no god at all. Whether you realize it or not, you want God to be angry. You want God to have wrath. You want God to exercise justice. Often, we just don’t want it directed at us.
The Nature of Anger
The problem is that we have been lied to about the nature of anger. We have raised our children (and especially our boys) to believe that niceness is the ultimate virtue. And if niceness is the ultimate virtue, then any kind of anger must be the ultimate vice. The church has bought into this full-force, oversimplifying a complex issue by declaring a war on any kind of aggressive emotion. This is why many churches have raised timid, emasculated boys, but that’s a topic for another article.
It is understandable why Christians have fallen into this error. Christians are a people marked by love. Jesus said that the world would know us by our love (John 13:35). The primary motivation for Godliness in the life of a believer is love for God. It is love, and not fear, that causes us to be obedient to Christ (John 14:23). Scripture records that it is the love of God that has been poured into our hearts (Romans 5:5). The greatest commandments, the two commandments through which all the others are interpreted, are “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-38). It is not exaggerating to say that love is the primary disposition of God and the primary call of His people.
However, in our rightful pursuit of love, we have assumed that anger is the opposite of love. If someone is angry, vengeful, or exercising wrath, they must be unloving. In reality, the Bible never speaks of anger in and of itself as sinful or unloving. Anger, rather, is a neutral emotion; it can be sinful or righteous, depending on its object and motivation. Paul even shows us that there is a way to be angry without sinning (Ephesians 4:26). In other words, the sinfulness or righteousness of our anger is determined by what has caused the anger and the motivation of our heart behind the anger. When we are angry about the right things, motivated by a properly positioned heart, then our anger is righteous. When we are angry about the wrong things, or motivated by a prideful or selfish heart, then our anger is unrighteous. This distinction allows us to see the anger of God more clearly, and to value His anger as a beautiful part of His nature.
The Beauty of Holy Anger
We see examples of God’s anger all throughout the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament, we see a recurring theme of God’s anger being kindled by the sins of His people (Lamentations 2:1-22, Deuteronomy 4:25, Psalm 78:58, Deuteronomy 9:8). He exercises His anger in judgment upon Israel at various points in their history (2 Kings 17:18-20, Amos 2:6-8). His anger is directed at idolatry (1 Kings 16:13), oppression (Malachi 3:5), and murder (Ezekiel 16:38), among other sins. The Psalms even record that God feels indignation every day (Psalm 7:11). An exhaustive list of God’s anger would be too long for this article. Suffice it to say, the Old Testament has no shortage of references to it.
Contrary to popular belief, this expression of God’s anger carries into the New Testament as well. Paul speaks of God’s wrath, the expression of His anger, being stored up and revealed against the unrighteous (Romans 1:18, Romans 2:5). For the Christian, God’s anger for our sins has been placed upon Christ, whereby Jesus drinks our cup of wrath for us (Matthew 22:39). We see that His anger will be completed in the final judgment of the wicked, where the wrath of God will be drunk from the “cup of His anger” by every person who rejects Christ (Revelation 14:10).
These depictions of God as angry can be shocking to us, especially because of all of the passages about love that we discussed earlier. God loves perfectly. God gives mercy perfectly. God is perfect, and that means His anger is perfect as well. God being angry is not a bad thing, rather, it is a good thing that we praise Him for. We want a God who gets angry. We want a God who has wrath. As a matter of fact, wrath and anger are often a bi-product of God’s love.
When we think about murder, rape, the abuse of children, or the sins of tyrants, we cry out for judgement and appeal to our inner sense of morality. We become righteously angry. The same can be said of God. We want God to be angry at murderers, rapists, and tyrants. If He weren’t, we would call Him unjust. How could God love people and not be angry at that which harms them? Sin harms people. Sinful people harm people. In a sense, it is the love of God that causes His wrath. God loves human flourishing, therefore God has wrath toward that which would corrupt and destroy His people.
We even see that the wrath of God is a means of hope for the people of God. When God is comforting Israel during a time of great distress, he points to His anger and vengeance as a source of their hope and comfort:
“Say to those who have an anxious heart, ‘Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.’” (Isaiah 35:4)
Israel could have peace, because all that is wrong in the world will be made right. In the end, it is the wrath of God that will save us from the wickedness of those who seek to kill and destroy. This is why all of the saints and angels will cheer at the judgment of God in the last days; God will defeat evil by pouring out His judgment on all who live according to wickedness (Revelation 19:1-4). God will destroy all evil. God will judge the unjust. God will avenge that which He loves. This is good news, and a beautiful reality of God’s perfection.
Escaping His Anger
When we peel back the layers of our offense at God’s anger, the problem isn’t that God has anger, it’s that we want to determine where His anger is placed. We like that God is angry against murderers, but we want Him to draw the line just before our own sins. We want God to judge oppressors, but not gossips. We want God to judge rapists, but not adulterers. We want God to be angry with serial murderers, but not with those who stir up strife and dissension.
But God is not held to our standards. If we want a just God who condemns rapists, then we must also recognize that His justice extends to liars as well. We cannot ask for a perfect God to only judge the sins that we deem as heinous. In His perfect judgment, He also expresses His anger on the sins that we justify in our own hearts. God judges and is angry with sin and sinners. Thankfully, anger is not the totality of God’s character.
We hold in harmony the love of God and the wrath of God. God loves, therefore He has wrath. God has wrath, but offers escape from His wrath because of His love. Each of us, by the sins that we commit, have stored up for ourselves wrath for the day of judgment (Romans 2:5). The bible speaks of bowls of wrath surrounding the throne of God (Revelation 16:1). We deserve to drink the bowls that we fill. At the final judgment, God will ensure that all sins are paid for. The question is, will you drink the wrath that you have accumulated, or will Christ drink it for you?
Because of His great love, God offers a way to escape His wrath. He offers His Son as the payment for our sins (Romans 5:8-9). Jesus died to take the punishment that we deserve, so that we can receive the blessing that He deserves (2 Corinthians 5:21). The only way to flee from the wrath of God is to run to the mercy of God. God will punish sin; He is a just God. But He also offers a way out. Our sins can either be punished at the cross of Christ or paid for in eternity apart from God. It is not unfair that God pours out wrath. God is a good judge who only gives the exact measure of what is deserved (Romans 2:5). What is unfair is God’s mercy. God’s mercy is not the fair payment that we deserve for our actions. We deserve death, and yet by His grace He gives us mercy. If you read these words and have not received this great salvation, run to His mercy, and you will find relief from His judgment. Christ has paid the way. Receive Him by faith.
