Anger
According to Merriam Webster, the definition of anger is “a strong feeling of displeasure and usually of antagonism”. (For the uneducated, which includes myself, antagonism means active hostility or opposition.) Essentially, anger, like joy or sorrow, is an emotion, or a feeling. I really appreciated the quote by my pastor, which most likely was said by another wiser pastor, that “emotions are good indicators, but terrible leaders”. Considering anger in this sense, the root of anger can be tracked down to love.
Who we are
We are an emotional human being, some more than others. Yet, we are made “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:27b). Since “God is love” (1 John 4:7a), we also share in the same characteristic as Him; essentially, we are people of love. However, being corrupted by sin, our definition of love has also been corrupted. We have drifted from the divine purpose to be loved by God to a twisted view of the creation, believing the lies that pulls us away from His thoughts and intentions for and to us, ultimately destroying our view of the Creator. The existence of sin, or in another word evil, along with the existence of good creates a sense of injustice and an active desire to punish the wrong. This is the wrath of God.
Who He is
“Defending the love of God by denying the wrath of God destroys the love of God.” — John Piper
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I love John Piper, but a pastor I respect called him Daddy John. Anyways, this quote by Piper articulates the characteristic of God in a deeper, and not just a feel-good-understanding way. In Exodus 34:7, Moses declares to the Israelites that “He will not let the guilty go without being punished”. This is who He is. He is perfectly just even though He is perfectly loving. I believe this dilemma we discover of Him in our sin and wickedness is what makes the Gospel more mysterious and, for the purpose of an interesting word, attractive to us. Even in Jesus, who is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), we can see the perfect definition of anger when He flipped the tables the money changers set up to sell sacrificial animals. He saw the evil in people’s heart to gain profit by selling products at a higher cost, making a place of prayer a den of robbers, and saw it fit to go against the present evil; Jesus became angry.
Even the phrase “Jesus became angry” is hard for me to write because of the disfigured definition of anger that this society carries. When I think of anger, I think of a parent arguing with each other, or a kid throwing a tantrum, or friends fighting over misunderstandings. Nothing good seems to come out from the emotion anger, and this is precisely what I mean by the disfigured definition of anger. Sin not only corrupted our relationship of God, but also the view of God and how He views the world, including emotions such as anger. God Himself feels anger, yet He is all loving, in fact, He is love. How does this make sense. Again, this is what sin did to our minds.
Misdirected Love
The root of anger, I believe, is love. This definition would better prove why God can feel anger. We do not get angry randomly, although we can love randomly (by randomly I mean without a specific reason). Anger has to have two opposing sides by definition, more specifically good and evil, even more specifically love and hate. Let me put it into perspective. I think most people, I can’t say all because I don’t know all (knowall, smarty-pants), get angry mostly towards their parents. Why is that so? I believe that it is because most parents love you with the love that you do not appreciate yet. Their nagging and constant reminder of the same dang thing might frustrate you and you might feel opposed, having to react to the opposition you sense from them with anger because you only love what you appreciate and of the things that you can see the benefits of right away, or a childlike love (not the good kind, the immature kind). The misunderstanding of love that the parents have as something that is against your definition of love is why you subconsciously think they are against you, and eventually why you feel angry towards them. In this not-so-rare case, the parents love you with their, perhaps corrupted, love and you love what only you love and refuse to appreciate even their faulty love at times. Very messy, and this is what I mean by the misdirected love. In the case of Jesus flipping the tables, the people loved money and even at the sake of defiling the sacred temple, the money changers chose to put themselves above what obviously has to be above them. His anger stem from His love for His Father in Heaven and seeing the opposing side, the love for money, growing in His Father’s house, He flipped the tables and ceased the market, not the sellers.
God never goes out of His character; He is YHWH. He is forever who He says He is and never will not be Himself. Even in anger, His love for His people does not change the slightest. He simply obeyed the commandment of the Father to love Him with all His mind, soul and heart and to love His neighbors as Himself. We, who carry the image and characteristics of God, are also to love, even though the emotion anger might result in an effort to do so.
