Jonah 4:4 Then said the LORD, Do you well to be angry? There is an anger that is sinful, and there is an anger which is not sinful. The difference lies not so much in the character or even the degree of the emotion, but rather in the motive which rouses it and the object towards which it is directed. Jonah's anger was that of a mortified vanity and a wounded self-love; it was the anger of bodily discomfort and an insubordinate will; the anger of a most irrational jealousy, of an utterly selfish and heartless pride. Sometimes we read of anger in our Lord Jesus Christ. There we see it having place in the heart of absolute love and goodness, where selfishness is a name unknown, and where yet the very fire which warms and illuminates is a fire also of consuming fierceness towards the evil which will not have it for its good. The maxim "Be ye angry and sin not" has a voice for all of us. Anger need not be sin, but in human hearts it always borders upon it. Anger cherished and fostered is a sin at once. Being angry without sinning is an important point in Christian ethics. 1. There is a feeling to which we give the name of moral indignation. We thus distinguish it from other kinds of anger, more or less selfish and self-asserting, such as anger at an inconvenience, at a slight, at a disappointment, or even at a providence. Of this kind are all those broodings over the superior advantage or happiness of other ranks or other people, over the circumstances of the station or the education or the success in life, over the events which make a home dreary, or over the natural temperament which makes a heart gloomy, or over the peculiar predispositions and tendencies which make it doubly difficult to be good, — all of which, when thoroughly sifted, are a "replying against God." Moral indignation is characterised chiefly by this, that it is quite unselfish. It is the feeling that rises in the breast of a man on seeing the ill-treatment of an animal, a child, or a woman. To stand by and see these things without remonstrance or without interference is no forbearance: it is cowardice, it is unmanliness, it is sin. In such cases to be angry is a virtue. It is a higher exercise of the same virtuous indignation, to feel where it does not see — where it only reflects and meditates upon the misery and the wickedness and the living death which hangs so heavily and so hopelessly upon the world. 2. There is place also for anger, not only in the contemplation of wrong, but in the personal experience of temptation. There is aa indignation, even a resentment, even a rage and fury, which may be employed without offence to the Gospel, in repelling assaults upon our peace and virtue. "Be ye angry and sin not" has often been exemplified, in its truth and power, in the experience of the man, young or old, who would none of the tempter's enticements, or of the companionship of the profligate. 3. There is a place for moral indignation in connection with the great personal tempter. (C. J. Vaughan, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then said the LORD, Doest thou well to be angry? |
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