But now ye also put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Colossians 3:8
Is anger always a bad thing? A man walking down a street saw a smaller boy being bullied by a larger boy. In anger, he stepped in between the boys, and ordered the larger boy to leave, offering comfort and support to the smaller boy. This man’s anger led to his doing something positive and helpful. There are times when anger is not only justified by also wise. The Lord Jesus displayed anger on occasion: ‘And when He had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, He saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other’ (Mark 3:5). Anger is not a sin if the Lord Jesus could be angry. So why does our text tell us to dispose of anger, along with wrath, malice, cursing, and smut? Our text is not speaking of righteous indignation, but of uncontrolled anger that takes us beyond the bounds of godliness.
Ecclesiastes 7:9 warns us about anger: ‘Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools’. So does Matthew 5:22: ‘But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire’. Serious words! According to Romans 12:19, God wants to take such anger out of our hands entirely: ‘Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord’. When Jacob was speaking prophetically concerning his sons Simeon and Levi, he was harsh in his criticism of their anger in slaying the men of the city where Shechem the Hivite lived: ‘Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel’ (Genesis 49:7). Proverbs 29:22 also has a strong warning about anger: ‘An angry man stirreth up strife, and a furious man aboundeth in transgression’. The Scriptures have praise for those who will control their anger: ‘He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city’ (Proverbs 16:32).
Do we have a right to be angry? Many times, the answer is yes. But are we right to be angry? We had better take great care how we answer that. And we had better take a careful look at how our great Example dealt with anger against Himself: ‘Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously’ (1 Peter 2:23). If He had struck back, or even spoken back, in anger against those who were tormenting Him, He would have failed in fulfilling the words of Isaiah 53:7: ‘He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth’.
Putting away anger is not such a big deal when we consider how willingly our Saviour was to do it for us. -Jim MacIntosh