Seven Deadly Sins

by Lawrence Kelley

We want to distinguish between righteous indignation and ungodly wrath. The best contrast between virtuous anger and sinful wrath is seen in the attitudes exhibited at the healing of the man with a withered hand - Mk. 3:1-6 And He entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a withered hand. And they watched Him closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. Then He said to the man who had the withered hand, "Step forward." And He said to them, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill? But they kept silent. So 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. Then the Pharisees went out and immediately plotted with the Herodians against Him, how they might destroy Him. Notice three things about Jesus' anger here:

(1) Jesus anger was directed at their indifference to suffering and willful twisting of scripture.

(2) Their anger was directed at Jesus because they felt that he posed a threat to their position and power.

(3) The result of Jesus' anger was healed hand. The result of theirs was a decision to destroy a man.

From this example we can say that wrath is legitimate when: our perception of evil is accurate, the anger is proportionate to the evil, and the impulse is directed toward correcting the injustice. The truth is there is a lot that Christians need to get their ire up about in today's world. There is such a thing as a guilty complacency, a culpable silence, a sinful calm.

We also see that Jesus did not become angry over personal insult, as one writer observed, "Our problem is that we burn with indignation not at sin and injustice, but at offense to ourselves. In none of the cases in which Jesus became angry was His personal ego wrapped up in the issue. More telling yet, when he was unjustly arrested, unfairly tried, illegally beaten, contemptuously spit upon, crucified, mocked, He did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats (1pet 2:23). But rather from his parched lips came the cry, 'Father forgive them for they know not what they do.'"

On the other hand, Jesus opponents were filled with anger and plotted to kill Jesus. This gives us some insights into the causes of ungodly wrath. From other passages we know that Jesus was frustrating their desires. They had a nice tidy arrangement and He was tampering with their system. He was gathering a following at their expense, He was teaching and practicing things contrary to their longstanding traditions and every time they confronted Him they ended up looking like fools. It is evident that their anger took the form of personal resentment directed at Jesus, because He had exposed their ignorance, ambition and arrogance. In doing so, Jesus also reveals the causes of most of our anger as well - frustrated desires and insults to our pride. Neither of which are a just basis for anger.

Wrath is a powerful emotion that if, left unrestrained, will result in serious harm (Prov 29:22). When we sin with anger, we usually have an opportunity, after we have cooled off, to repair the damage, but as we go about trying to make things right we soon discover that it takes a lot longer to fix the problems, than it did to create them. In some cases, as we learned last week, the problems caused by anger are so extreme that they can never be put to rights.

How To Overcome Wrath: First we must desire to overcome it. Do you really want to live as God desires? Do you want to learn self control? Do you want to love people? Second, Face the real issue. Many angry people have never taken to time to figure out where their hostility is coming from. We need to isolate the source of our anger and learn to distinguish it from our response to it. Third, we must replace anger with acts of Kindness (Eph 4:31). Peace and fullness of love will not be activated unless we replace our angry spirit with a loving spirit. We must not focus on what we should not do but on what we should do. Finally, we must fully deal with each day's anger (Eph 4:26). So where are you right now? Have you put things right with your children, husband, friend? Have you put things right with God? Do not underestimate the importance of this. Most seething hostilities have enmity with God at the root.

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This page was last modified on April 25, 2007