Within each of us, ofttimes, there dwells a mighty and raging fury.

The Incredible Hulk, opening credits
1978

Anger. It can be good or bad. Psalm 7:11 says, "God is a just judge, And God is angry with the wicked every day." In Mark 3, Jesus met a man with a withered hand in the synagogue. The Pharisees tested Jesus. "And when He had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man, 'Stretch out your hand.' And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other" (v. 5). Paul instructed us in his letter to the Ephesians, "'Be angry, and do not sin': do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil" (4:26, 27).

I want to -- well, frankly, I need to -- spend some time studying anger Biblically. I'm going to start with that last passage.

As you know, I like to grasp the context of a passage before I study it. So, we can actually go back to the Acts of the Apostles to learn more about the setting. In Acts 21:27-40, the Jews accused Paul of bringing Trophimus the Ephesian, a Gentile, into the temple. On this charge, he was arrested and eventually brought to Rome (28:11-16). [Rabbit trail: I've always liked that last passage as it mentioned a placed called The Three Taverns (Lat. Tres Tabernae) and I think that sounds cool.] There was great enmity between the Jews and Gentiles, which is also a theme of this letter. Most scholars place this letter as being written circa 60-62. Festus was governor of Palestine at this time and relatively fair, but the Jews themselves were still persecuting the Christians. (Nero was still a couple years in the future.) Paul stressed the need for righteous living to be a good witness to their neighbors (Ephesians 5, 6). There is also an emphasis on the sovereignty of God as many Ephesians were consumed with astrology (Acts 19:13-20) and the power of "Fate" (Ephesians 1, 3).

In Ephesians 4, Paul shows how to live the New Life. He tells them to "be renewed in the spirit of your mind." We could camp out here for a long time. Be renewed. Ananeoo. The verb is present - its fact, its real, its happening now. The verb is passive - be renewed. You're not renewing yourself, but are being renewed. Someone else is doing the renewing. Guess Who? What's also startling here is that what Paul described as the new life, the result of this renewing, is really quite agreeable to both the Jews and the Greeks. This is a rather universally ideal life. But the Jews would place this renewal in an eschatological category. The Jews expected such change only in the world to come, after the resurrection of the dead. Remember, the Jews believed in the resurrection at the last day (John 11:24). But Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live" (John 11:25). Those eschatological hopes of the Jews were fulfilled in Jesus. We do not wait until the last day to be renewed in the spirit of our minds, but we experience it now, in the present, in Jesus by the Holy Spirit. Okay, that's very exciting, but I've got to get back to this present study.

This new life is not only universally ideal, but it also represents universal struggles. Honesty, for example, is not only a struggle for Gentiles, but also Jews. But Paul turns to the Old Testament for authority on these "new" ethics. That might be startling for anyone who thinks they may limit themselves to one Testament. You may notice that in our passage, "Be angry, and do not sin" is in quotations. This is from Psalm 4 (I like the New English Translation of the Septuagint):

(By the way, we really don't know what Selah means. It could very well mean an interlude, even on strings, as suggested in this translation. There could have been a phrase from the Psalms that would be repeated here. Another option is that it could have meant to beat on a drum to emphasize the words. Consider a drum beating out with "Be angry, and do not sin.")

On February 28, 1712, Thomas Boston wrote a sermon entitled, "Anger Not to be Sinfully Indulged" on this very passage. In it he wrote:

It is not left to our option, whether to be angry or not, when there is a just cause. Coldness in God's matters, is hateful stupidity. The passions in the soul, are as winds in the air. If the winds blow not at all, or too calmly, they leave the ship at a great disadvantage; though it is sad when they blow so violent as to dash her upon the rocks. And what though anger in itself is neither good nor evil? The same may be said of love and other passions which are not in themselves evil, as envy is; yet doubtless it is a command, "Love as brethren." The apostle here, is directing us in practice, not what to think of anger in the abstract; which is never found in a subject, but vested with its due circumstances, and then it is either holy, good and just; or else it is irregular and impious. Thus the meaning must be, be holily angry, but not sinfully.

I think Mark Driscoll does a good job of demonstrating this:


Rev. Boston went on to say:

This we may discribe holy anger to be a commotion of the spirit, arising from the apprehension of a real sinful evil, with hatred of it, grief for it, and a regular desire of the vindication of the right and honour of the injured, for the destruction of sin.

He gave these boundaries for holy anger:

1. The grounds of holy anger are just and weighty, such as God's dishonour by our own sins, and the sins of others (2 Corinthians 7:11; Exodus 22:9).
2. The degree of holy anger is proportioned to the fault. [This is where I blow it all the time!]
   
3. The end of holy anger which it is directed, is the glory of God and the good of our neighbour (Proverbs 13:24; John 2:16, 17).
4. The effects of holy anger directly and indirectly, are just and good, for the man has rule over his own spirit, and no holy affection is inconsistent with another.

From this, he described a "twofold sinful anger":

1. There is an anger, which is originally, and in itself sinful; that, where there is no just ground at all to be angry, to which men's weakness of judgment and strength of passion often expose them.
2. There is an anger accidentally sinful, where there is indeed just ground to be angry, but by reason of the corruption of men, is carried beyond the proper bounds.

Okay, let me revise the above confession: I blow it on both of those. Interruptions are my pet peeves, whether it is my children interrupting me when I'm talking to my wife, or ... well, actually that's really it, isn't it? It is my children interrupting me when I'm talking to my wife. And they should not interrupt me. It's rude and disrespectful. But peeves make poor pets, and I need to send this one back to the pound.

We can read about overnight anger in Hosea 7:

These dome-roofed ovens have been found in excavations at Taanach and Megiddo. There was a hole with a door in the middle of the roof. You could open the door and drop in the fuel - wood or dung or grass - and light it. The flames escaped through the hole and once the flame had died down, the door could be closed, allowing the heat to be trapped within the dome. Bread dough was then stuck to the inside of the dome where it could cook over the coals. (I wonder how dung-fired bread tastes? On second thought, I don't really need to know.) When you let your anger burn over night, you burn the bread on one side and leave the other uncooked. In other words, you're half-baked.

You should settle your disputes on the same day. But this requires you to learn how to communicate. To do so, you must "let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers" (Ephesians 4:29).

I believe the imagery of 4:27 is further developed in chapter 6. We are at war. When you let anger cook overnight, half-baking your thoughts, so that you'll awaken with corrupt words in your mouth, you are surrendering precious ground to our Enemy. Paul is saying, "Hold your ground!"

Jeremiah Burroughs entitled his work, The Exceeding Sinfulness of Sin. That is something we too often miss. Rev. Boston gave these considerations to the exceeding sinfulness of sinful anger:

1. It is a degree of murder (Matthew 5:22).
2. It is a fit of madness, in which a man hath no rule over his own spirit, till he come to himself, for he goes out of himself in anger.
3. It makes a man most unlike Christ, who was meek and lowly.
4. It has most bitter effects.

So, what is our cure? Rev. Boston offers these suggestions:

1. Let us consider our own vileness and unworthiness, and how often we are provoking the Lord, and so turn our anger against ourselves.
2. Let us consider these things with which we are so ready to be hurried away, are the trials of our patience, and we are on our trial for heaven.
3. Let us propose to ourselves the example of the meek and lowly Jesus.
   

He then concluded his sermon:

Out of a sense of our utter inability to resist the least temptation, look to Jesus for strength, and by faith draw strength from him. When the temptation is like to catch us, let us lay hold of the promise, and of Christ in the promise. Without this, nothing will avail, acceptably to prevent or suppress it; and this is the reason, why sometimes Christians bear great affronts and injuries better than small ones. For in the latter, they trust to themselves; in the former to Christ. No wonder all goes to wreck, when men instead of the golden shield of faith made by the true Solomon, they like fools think to do with the brazen ones of their own stock. Amen.