I mentioned in the sermon Sunday that the Bible has much to say about the topic of anger, and that we could spend a lot of time unpacking it. One aspect of the Bible’s teaching on anger that can be very fruitful to consider is the anger of Jesus, and how this relates to other aspects of his character.
For our purposes here, I want to consider the relationship between anger and compassion in the life of Jesus. This is both because this can help us better discern between sinful and righteous anger in ourselves, and because this topic is explored in depth by B.B. Warfield (in his “The Emotional Life of our Lord“, free online), and to a lesser degree by Dane Ortland (In Gentle and Lowly, drawing on Warfield’s study).
My contention, drawing on Warfield’s study, is that anger and grief are not only both displayed by Jesus, but are in fact necessarily related. And one of the ways we ought to grow in godliness is in this possession and display of both anger and compassion. A few biblical texts will be a helpful starting point:
Mark 3, which I mentioned in the sermon:
Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. 2 And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3 And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” 4 And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. 5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6 The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. (Mark 3:1–6)
Jesus experiences “anger” because of the religious leaders’ unwillingness to “do good,” and their greater commitment to their man-made laws and self-righteousness. They lack compassion and mercy, and Jesus is angry over this.
And yet, he is also “grieved”—the term means to feel sorry for, or sympathize with—”at their hardness of heart.” He is angry at their lack of compassion, at the failure of their heart to be moved for the suffering of others. And at the same time, his heart is moved with compassion for them, seeing the effects of sin in, and on, them.
I think this is more, and different, than simply affirming that Jesus hates sin, but loves sinners. I don’t think sin and sinners can be so neatly separated. At one and the same time, Jesus is angered by sin and at sinners, AND filled with sympathy and grief towards the same people.
Surely this has to do with the fact that there is a blindness and hardness of heart behind all sin. If we truly saw things rightly, saw the glory and worth of God, saw the results of our sin, and had hearts alive to God, we would not sin. The religious leaders in Mark 3 do not fully understand what they are doing. Their hearts are hard; their eyes are blind. And for that, Jesus has pity on them. This brings to mind Jesus’ prayer for those putting him to death: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luk 23:34)
We see something similar when Jesus weeps over Jerusalem. In Matthew 23, we read:
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (23:37)
And then in Luke 19, we read:
And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42 saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side 44 and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” (19:41-44)
Though “anger” isn’t explicitly attributed to Jesus here, it seems clearly in view: he laments that Jerusalem (likely referring to the people of Israel) has killed “the prophets,” and was not willing to turn truly to God for protection and salvation. This is a largescale picture of the hard-heartedness, lack of mercy, and failure to truly receive God that is often seen in smaller scale in the religious leaders.
And yet anger or indignation is not the only emotion attributed to Jesus here. He laments that Jerusalem/Israel is not willing to turn, even being moved to tears. He sees both their unwillingness (Mt. 23:37) and their blindness (Luke 19:42).
More examples could be stated, but if these two passages give us any clue, we see that Jesus—as fully God, and fully man; and without sin—possess both anger and compassion. And towards the same people, in the same instance.
And this does not seem to mean that his anger is tempered by his compassion, so that it’s a mild anger; or that his compassion is tempered by his anger, so that it’s a conservative compassion. As if he were sort of angry, sort of compassionate. Nor does it mean that at times, he is angry towards sin, and at times he is compassionate towards sin (hopefully you get him on a good day!).
No! Jesus is perfect in all his attributes, and shows a perfect anger and indignation towards sin. His anger is never out of proportion to what is right, given the nature of sin. We must acknowledge, in fact, that the descriptions of God the Father’s anger in Scripture often shock us. Though God is never out of control, led along by something other than the perfection of his attributes, this does not mean his anger is mild and meager.
And yet at the same time, we must behold his compassion. And his compassion is not merely proportionate or balanced, as that is not the nature of attributes like compassion and mercy. Scriputure tells us that he is “rich in mercy” (Eph. 2:4), and speaks of “the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight” (Eph. 1:8). There is an overflowing abundance to his compassion, which is more than what is ever deserved or called for. But it’s who Jesus—God in the flesh—is. It’s who God, the Father is.
B.B. Warfield dives into the logic of this, and why it must be so in Jesus:
“…he who loves men must needs hate with a burning hatred all that does wrong to human beings, and that, in point of fact, Jesus never wavered in his consistent resentment of the special wrong-doing which he was called upon to witness.”
It is a simple enough point: If God truly loves mankind, the pinnacle of his creation, then he hates all that does wrong to mankind, including the sin committed by mankind themselves.
Warfield goes on,
“’…the man who cannot be angry cannot be merciful…’”
Wow! Think about that. It’s true, right? In a world of sin and suffering, we must be able to be angry if we are to be merciful. This brings to mind the old adage: The opposite of love is not hatred (or anger), but indifference.
“’…the man who cannot be angry cannot be merciful,’ and it was therefore precisely the anger of Christ which proved that the unbounded compassion he manifested to sinners ‘was really mercy and not mere tolerance….’ Jesus burned with anger against the wrongs he met with in his journey through human life as truly as he melted with pity at the sight of the world’s misery: and it was out of these two emotions that his actual mercy proceeded.”
What does this mean for our own anger, and the ease at which our righteous anger turns to sinful anger? Dane Ortland ends his chapter on this topic this way:
“Are you angry today? Let us not be too quick to assume our anger is sinful. After all, the Bible positively orders us to be angry when occasion calls for it (Ps. 4:4; Eph. 4:26). Perhaps you have reason to be angry. Perhaps you have been sinned against, and the only appropriate response is anger. Be comforted by this: Jesus is angry alongside you. He joins you in your anger. Indeed, he is angrier than you could ever be about the wrong done to you. Your just anger is a shadow of his. And his anger, unlike yours, has zero taint of sin in it. As you consider those who have wronged you, let Jesus be angry on your behalf. His anger can be trusted.”
Quick side note: our anger cannot fully be trusted, and must be handled with great care.
“For it is an anger that springs from his compassion for you. The indignation he felt when he came upon mistreatment of others in the Gospels is the same indignation he feels now in heaven upon mistreatments of you.
“In that knowledge, release your debtor and breathe again. Let Christ’s heart for you not only wash you in his compassion but also assure you of his solidarity in rage against all that distresses you, most centrally death and hell.” (pg. 112)