Bible Synapse
Is anger ever right?
Hard question · Psalms, wisdom and the prophets · raised by 2 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
“Stand in awe, and sin not”; the Greek translation reads ‘Be angry, and sin not’.
Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah.
“Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath”, and give no place to the devil.
Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil.
Jesus looks round at his critics with anger, grieved at the hardness of their hearts.
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.
“Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.”
Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.
Be slow to wrath, for the wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God.
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.
Put away all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour and evil speaking.
Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
The objection
Paul says, “Be ye angry, and sin not” (Ephesians 4:26). Ecclesiastes says that “anger resteth in the bosom of fools” (Ecclesiastes 7:9), and James says “the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God” (James 1:20).
The answer
The Bible distinguishes right anger from sinful anger, and these verses mark the line. Anger in itself is not sin: God is angry at evil, and Jesus “looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts” (Mark 3:5). Ephesians 4:26 quotes Psalm 4:4 in its Greek form, and its stress falls on the second half: be angry without sinning, and do not let the day end with your anger still burning, lest you “give place to the devil” (4:27).
The warnings are about a different kind of anger. Ecclesiastes 7:9 warns against being “hasty in thy spirit to be angry”. James tells believers to be “slow to wrath”, because quick, self-serving human anger does not produce the righteousness God wants (James 1:19–20). Five verses after Ephesians 4:26, Paul tells the same readers to put away “all bitterness, and wrath, and anger” (4:31): the resentful anger that lingers and turns to malice. Anger that is slow to rise, aimed at wrong rather than at injured pride, and quickly laid down can be right; hasty, lingering, self-centred anger is sin.
Other answers Christians give
‘If you are angry’
Some, Adam Clarke among them, read Paul’s first words as a concession, ‘if you are angry, do not sin’, rather than a command. Either way Paul assumes that anger need not be sin, and his concern is to keep it from becoming sin.
From the classic commentators
a man may be said to be angry and not sin, when his anger arises from a true zeal for God and religion; when it is kindled not against persons, but sinsJohn Gill, Exposition of the Bible, on Ephesians 4:26
If we consider anger as implying displeasure simply, then there are a multitude of cases in which a man may be innocently, yea, laudably angryAdam Clarke, Commentary, on Ephesians 4:26
Sources
- John Gill, Exposition of the Bible: Ephesians 4, at Bible Hub
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on Ephesians 4, at Bible Hub
- The Septuagint (Brenton edition), Psalm 4 (HelloAO)