The Gospel Coalition

There are two types of anger: God-centered and self-centered. God-centered anger is when you get angry because God has been dishonored and his ways have been maligned. Self-centered anger is when you’re angry because you have been dishonored or your ways have been maligned.

The anger that marks our fallen world is self-centered, not God-centered. People get angry because their purposes have been upset, their desires have been squelched, their preferences have been ignored. They get mad because they have been disrespected, discomforted, or inconvenienced.

The church is to exhibit a different type of anger: God-centered anger.

When Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:26-27 to be angry, he’s obviously thinking of the God-centered sort, not the self-centered sort. He’s not giving us the right to get angry because our ways have been frustrated. He’s not talking about being mean-spirited, joyless, and out of control. He’s not giving us license to lose our temper because somebody personally annoys us or to hold a grudge because we are personally irritated. What he’s telling us is to be people who hate the things God hates for the reasons that God hates them.

Our world needs more God-centered anger. Sin and evil and immorality — all these things should arouse our anger. In fact, the world needs to see our anger at evils like organized racial violence, torture, genocide, child abuse, drug and sex trafficking, low educational standards, corporate greed, adultery, pornography, and so on. Sadly, the church is guilty of ignoring these evils, of not expressing God-centered anger at the way God’s image bearers—human beings—are being de-humanized, mistreated, and denigrated by one another. When the church ignores these things we inadvertently communicate to the watching world that God has no social conscience; that he doesn’t care about injustice. But the fact is that God is a God of justification and justice. He not only cares about the salvation of individuals but, according to Isaiah 1:17, he cares deeply about his people being ready and willing to “seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, and plead for the widow.” God is angry when justice is not sought, when the oppressed is not rescued, when the orphan is not defended, and when the widow is not pleaded for. So when we see how sin causes human beings to treat each other in undignified, unjust ways, we should be incensed, not indifferent! Because God is angry at sin’s devastation, God’s people should be too. But why do these things make God angry?

Look at Mark 3:1-5. One day Jesus “entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand.” Meanwhile the Pharisees in the crowd “watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him.” Jesus didn’t hold back:

And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent.

And notice carefully what comes next:

And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.

Jesus, the God-man, was angry. And then we read immediately that he was grieved, seeing the hardness of the Pharisees’ hearts.

God’s anger is a grieving anger. It grieves because it sees the devastation sin has on human life. Jesus was angry because God’s ways were being maligned and God was being dishonored by these legalistic Pharisees. But his anger was fueled by grief — because in the lives of these hardened Pharisees he was able to see sin’s deadening effects. It was as if he was saying, “Why do you continue like this? Don’t you know, don’t you see, that you were created and designed for so much more than this?” It grieved him to see that, because of their sin, these Pharisees were shadows of what God originally intended for them to be—they were made to live for so much more.

In his book The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis allegorically describes the difference between people who are running toward God—on their way to “heaven”—and people running away from God—on their way to “hell.” The people moving further and further away from God become more and more see-through, less solid. They begin to lose their substance, their coloring. Whereas the people moving closer and closer to God become more and more concrete and brightly colored. In other words, movement away from God makes you less and less of what God created you to be. While movement toward God makes you more and more what God created you to be. When we become less and less of what God created us to be because of our sin, it makes God grievingly angry because we were fearfully and wonderfully made to live for so much more! 

I point this out for this reason: Our anger should be a grieving anger as well. When we see immorality and injustice, our anger should be stoked because of the devastating effects these things have on human life and community.

Godly, grieving anger is far different from the kind of perceived anger commonly associated with Christians. Lots of people think of Christians as embittered, angry people, especially in relation to highly charged social issues such as abortion and homosexuality. They view Christians as being frustrated because things just aren’t going our way—our conservative political agenda is being thwarted.

I remember being at a conference years ago when, during the panel discussion between the various speakers, one of the speakers (an editor of a conservative political-theological magazine) was expressing his frustration with many of the political “left-wingers” in an unnecessarily sarcastic and condescending way. When he was finished, John Piper (one of the other speakers sitting on the panel) spoke up and said to the man with the utmost seriousness and precision, “For a long time I have appreciated your ministry. You are an astute observer of our culture. I read your magazine every month. It’s always insightful. But there’s one thing missing from your ministry.” The other speaker looked at Dr. Piper and asked what it was. Piper looked at the man dead in the eyes and in front of 5,000 people said, “Tears!” In my heart I cheered! 

The world so often senses our anger — but do they ever sense our grief? They think we’re angry simply because we’re not getting our way, but I’m afraid they don’t feel our sorrow over sin’s negative, de-humanizing effects. Our anger is not communicated in a “You were made for so much more than this” type manner. They hear our anger without grief and conclude, “They’re not angry because they want what’s best for us; they’re angry because they only want what’s best for them and they’re not getting it.” No wonder they tune us out.

When we see the restlessness and wreckage in people’s lives because they’re not in relationship with God and they’re living sin-filled lives, it should stoke our anger — an anger that arises because we love them and grieve to see them living for something so destructive when God created them to live for something beautiful and satisfying.

Self-centered anger is not a grieving, love-fueled anger; God-centered anger is. So does your anger rage because your love for God and your love for others is radical? When people see us hating what God hates because our love for God and people is real and deep, then and only then will they pay attention to our message.