Does God get angry?
God's anger is one of the parts of His character that people most want to explain away, yet the writers in this collection insist it stands on nearly every page of the Bible. The questions worth asking are not whether He is angry, but what kind of anger it is, whether it can live alongside His love, and what He has done about it.
The Plain Answer of Scripture
The first thing the commentators do is refuse to soften the record. One writer answers those who claim God has never been angry with a sinner by pointing to what is actually written:
J. N. DarbyIt is not true that Scripture says God never had any anger against him. It is expressly said that "indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish" will be rendered "to every soul of man that does evil," and that wrath from heaven is now revealed. "Now is the accepted time, the day of salvation"; but those who despise the grace of it are treasuring up for themselves wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.
Another notes that this is precisely the theme modern teachers step around:
F. B. HoleBehind the truth of propitiation lies the fundamental fact of the anger of God against sin, which expresses itself in penal retribution. Here is the real reason why every teacher of "modern" tendencies avoids the subject, even if he does not flatly deny it or explain it away. And yet how often it is repeated in Scripture! Terrible indeed, yet staring us in the face on almost every page of our Bibles.
("Propitiation" means the sacrifice that satisfies God's just claim against sin.)
Not Temper, but Judicial Anger
The word "anger" carries baggage from our own experience of it, so the writers draw a sharp line. God's anger is not spite, and it is not a mood:
J. N. DarbyIt is not true, then, that wrath cannot be where there is love. A father full of love may be rightly angry with his child. When Dr. W. says "wrath in the heart," he is misled altogether, and confuses hatred with judicial anger. There is certainly no hatred in God toward man. Yet God is a righteous judge, and God is angry with the wicked every day, and ought to be so.
(The last phrase quotes Psalm 7:11 in an older translation; the ESV reads, "God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day.")
A second writer draws the practical line from this, since what is right in God is not automatically right in us:
A. T. SchofieldIt must be remembered that God's anger is always righteous anger — ours surely is not. So we often have the expression "provoked Him to anger" applied to God, and rightly. But man, who is dependent, should not give way to anger; he should leave the matter with God as supreme.
Anger and Love in the Same Look
The clearest picture is Jesus in the synagogue, healing a man with a withered hand while the religious leaders watched to accuse Him. One writer answers the objection that God cannot love someone He is angry with:
Paul WilsonOur answer to this is "yes," for God's wrath against the sinner because of his sin is not inconsistent with infinite and sovereign love. So Christ in the synagogue looked on them with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts. The grief was love; the anger was His righteous estimate of their sin.
Another puts the reverse case — that a person incapable of such anger is missing something:
William KellyYet it is certain that anger, in the true and godly sense of hatred of evil, was part of the moral nature of our Lord Jesus. There is no greater mistake in modern times among many Christians than shutting holy anger out of what is morally perfect.
Slow to Anger
Scripture's own summary of God's character sets His anger inside His patience — and one writer argues this actually makes it weightier:
J. N. DarbyHe has long allowed evil to go on. He is not impatient, as our poor hearts are. He is slow to wrath — a wrath all the more terrible because it is the justice of One who is never impatient.
For His own people the proportion is different again. Commenting on Psalm 30, a writer weighs the two spans against each other:
L. M. GrantCertainly holiness requires anger against sin, but that anger is limited by the grace of God's heart. By comparison it is only "for a moment," while His favour is "for life" — with no limit at all.
Revealed Now, Answered at the Cross
The present moment is described as an interval — the anger is announced, but held back:
Hamilton SmithIf in the gospel we have the full setting out of the righteousness of God that can save, we have at the same time the revelation of the wrath of God against sin. On our side, we can afford to face the full revelation of the wrath of God against sins if we know there is righteousness with God to forgive sins. The wrath is not yet carried out, because God is acting in grace, but it is revealed.
And the way out is not that God changed His mind, but that the anger fell somewhere else:
J. N. DarbyGod's wrath against the sinner, because of the sin and guilt he lay under, is taken away for the believer by the death of Christ. "By His stripes we are healed." The Lord has laid on Him our iniquity. We were children of wrath — a wrath that will be carried out against unbelievers — but we are saved from wrath by Him.
Summary
- Real. God's anger is not a figure of speech. Scripture states it repeatedly, and avoiding the subject is a modern habit, not a biblical one.
- Righteous. It is judicial anger, not hatred or bad temper — the settled verdict of a just Judge, never a loss of self-control.
- Loving. In the synagogue, grief and anger met in one look: the grief was love, the anger was His true estimate of the evil.
- Slow. He is slow to anger, and toward His own people the anger is momentary while the favour lasts a lifetime — patience that makes the eventual judgment more serious, not less.
- Answered. The wrath is revealed but not yet executed; at the cross it fell on Christ, so for the believer there is a Deliverer standing between them and it.