Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense.
Anger is motivation. Anger is not integrally sinful; anger is often righteous. But anger is dangerous, and anger is tempting, and anger is easily perverted. It is a primal motivation, and so our evil natures, dead or still awaiting the fullness of resurrection, hijack it to our destruction. Against this deep danger we must set the full force of our self-control and the full mastery of our reason, with full reliance upon the Lord.
Anger is not basically sinful. We should not read verses like Ephesians 4:26 simplistically. We are to eschew anger against our fellows in Christ (of whom Ephesians 4:25 speaks). That anger is, verse 27, an opportunity for the devil. Of this danger, we must take the advice of Proverbs 17:9. Yet not all anger can be condemned so: “The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate” (Prov. 8:13). Thus says wisdom personified. God Himself hates evildoers (Ps. 5:5), and we are told directly to “Hate evil” (Ps. 97:10).
The distinction here is that anger must be submitted to His law. That which He has revealed to us to be hateful, worthy of hate, we must hate with the full force of anger. Evil, evil deeds, and those persons (devils) who have become fully identified with evildoing, these are the objects of righteous hatred (as Ransom discovers in Perelandra). Insofar as a man hates God, God hates him, and we ought to do likewise. But all else we must not hate; it is God’s creation (Gen. 1) and even His image (Gen. 1:26). We must rather love- including all in the wicked man which still remains lovable, His image which remains in the sinner by His mercy until bodily death. Hate the sin and the sinner, but love the man despite his sin, thirsting for his salvation (Rom. 9:3).
But we, in our sin, grow angry against the lovable (and, less relevant today, feel good regard towards the hateful). How do we answer this tendency, counteract it?
First, we must exercise self-control. We must, in other words, slow down our impulse towards anger. Such self-control is not easily gained; in many, it comes from long habit. In those who do not struggle with it, too, the lack of opportunity to develop restraint may lead to its absence when at last self-control is needed. Other practices of self-control over desire—over fear, over pity, over lust, over affection—cross-pollinate, thankfully (and to the detriment of he who abandons restraining one of them, thinking to restrain the rest regardless. The adulterer does not merely lose his skill in leashing lust and cupidity).
Self-control has too a physiological component. We are body-and-soul, both in a now-imperfect union, and so self-control builds into a physical as well as a spiritual habit. It waxes and wanes with physical health as well as spiritual. Control of anger (and thinking clearly, the next bit) reside most directly in the spirit, and by God’s grace every infirmity of body and soul can be overcome, but many of you who read this blog know how ill-health runs rampage across the rest of life, including self-control, with direct and indirect assault.
Second, having leashed anger so that the decision to become angry is conscious and considered, we must find whether we should be angry or not. In this, we have a broad array of tools and resources. We must think clearly and carefully, and we must think on a foundation of Scripture, knowledge of the circumstance, and understanding of our own duties, how the anger will motivate us. Prayer is always mete, however brief. Regardless, the decision must be made by deliberate wisdom, grown by God’s grace, not by cultural bias, unmastered desire, or hurry.
Third, we must remember that always this entire exercise is pointless unless sanctified. If we do not stand upon the Lord, we stand halfway down the abyss and falling (Matt. 7:24-27). The sum of all wisdom is to love the Lord and fear Him (Deut. 6:4; Ps. 111:10); the secret to eternity is to repent and believe (Mark 1:15). Sin’s anger, like all of sin’s elements and works, can be conquered only through His grace, through the faith and love which produce a pattern of obedience (James 2:17). Only by submitting to His Lordship can we have true lordship of ourselves, as stewards of the Holy One.
God bless.
Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.
Colson Potter writes copious fiction and nonfiction, including a weekly Proverbs post and his blog at Creational Story.
