Rage takes hold of me
Because of the wicked, those who reject your law (Psa 119.53).1
I would speak in defense of “righteous rage,” realizing that, ironically, most people will hate and condemn me for it, opposing “righteous rage” with fury. They are obviously self-condemned.
You ought to be deeply angered, to the very core of your being, by the sins of the ungodly, and compelled by that anger to oppose it fervently, using every legitimate means at your disposal. The lack of righteous rage is a serious sin in itself, a symptom in a person with a severe moral defect. Without some measure of righteous rage you cannot go to heaven because you are still the same old sinner you ever were, unchanged by God’s grace.
Lest I be misunderstood, I would define my terms. By “righteous,” I mean that which is in accord with God’s moral law in Scripture, both in heart and conduct. By “rage” I do not intend the first dictionary definition, “violent uncontrollable anger,” but the third in the Pocket Oxford English Dictionary, “a vehement desire or passion,” where “vehement” is defined as “showing strong feeling, forceful, passionate, or intense.” The phrase “righteous indignation” has lost some of its usefulness and has practically come to mean justified annoyance, since “indignation” now means “annoyance provoked by what is perceived as unfair treatment.”
We are terribly liable to what Scripture calls “the wrath of man,” and this, it warns us, “worketh not the righteousness of God” (Jas 1.20). Therefore we should be “slow to wrath” (Jas 1.19). In this we imitate God (Psa 103.8). Many times the Bible warns about hasty and unrighteous anger and praises the man of self-restraint and moderation (Prov 14.17, 29; 15.18; 16.32; 19.11, 19; 25.28; Eccl 7.9; Matt 5.22; Eph 4.31; Col 3.8, etc.). We are so vulnerable to flying off the handle, venting our angry feelings, even hurting people, and then rationalizing that we were justified in all this, when we should be deeply ashamed of ourselves because we have acted like wicked fools. God forbid that we should ever commend such proud, carnal, even Satanic conduct (Rev 12.12)!
Rather, we have in mind that holy virtue which loves the God of all truth and purity so much, along with His righteous law which is a revelation of His praiseworthy nature, that any settled opposition to God and His law provoke us to rise up and take God’s side, opposing His enemies in this conflict, “the weapons of our warfare [being] not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor 10.4-5), as Paul wrote. When he was Saul the Pharisee, he was infamous for his violent rage, but now God had transformed him—not into one without any anger, but expressing righteous rage in the right way.
The average Christian today has nothing of this spirit. He seems hardly to recognize anything as hate-worthy, and he emits an apathetic yawn in the face of evil, or feels sorry and sympathetic toward the most egregious offenders against truth and right. A “nice” response, without a shred of anger, is sickeningly praised as most spiritual. This lack of anger, brethren, is a wicked, worldly spirit.
A CONFESSION OF RIGHTEOUS RAGE
The psalmist confesses to righteous rage in the first line of this verse, and this is not a confession of sin, but a humble testimony of God’s grace at work in his soul. He is not ashamed of what he is feeling; it is a statement of his emotional faithfulness to God expressed in his most truly pious frame of mind in devout prayer.
It is very important that we grasp the true sense of the Hebrew noun in the first line so we can embrace the doctrine of this text. This word is most interesting and graphic. Used literally, it meant a scorching, burning heat, a weather condition familiar with the ancients in the Near East, when hot, dry, burning winds blew through a desert with deadly effect (used this way in Psa 11.6, “a burning wind,” NKJV, though even here it is a figure for punishment sinners will receive from God). It could also be used of fever induced by famine (used in Lam 5.10, “the burning heat of famine,” NASB). It is easy to see how this word, then, is used for “hot [or, burning] indignation,”2 “rage,” “vehement wrath,”3 “fury,”4 and comparable words and phrases. The Bible often compares anger to a fire as something that might be “kindled” (Gen 30.2; Deut 6.15). “Fear” (1599 Geneva Bible) misses it altogether.
The psalmist confesses more than that he felt righteous rage. He says that it “takes hold of me” or “seizes me” (ESV). This expression starts with the concept of this rage as something “out there,” foreign to my experience, and then it comes and takes control of me, so that I am not my usual self any more—that is, as I was before the exercise of faith. Things that did not used to bother me—indeed, things I used to do myself—now provoke my spirit so deeply, that my whole being and conduct are consistent with this new, righteous rage.
THE PROVOCATION OF RIGHTEOUS RAGE
Hearing this, you may rather pity the psalmist. You may think, “I hope I never become like that!,” but this is the same spirit that dwelt perfectly in the bosom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and was seen clearly when He drove the moneychangers out of the temple (John 2.15-17, citing Psa 69.9; cf. Psa 119.139).
What provoked the godly psalmist, and Jesus, to righteous rage, was not a personal slight, insult, or injury. These are the things that easily stir up our unrighteous anger. Rather, the occasion of righteous rage was beholding “the wicked, those who reject [or, forsake, abandon] Your law.” He may have had outright pagans in view, or more probably, apostates, former professors of faith who had fallen away from the Lord and proved traitors to His cause.
Friends, this is a revealing test we may apply whenever we are angry. What is the occasion of our anger? Is it someone’s false doctrine or blatant immorality? If so, we must still inquire further. Am I enraged because of a pure zeal for God’s glory and the welfare of His people, or has my pride been wounded in some way? And we must not forget to test ourselves concerning the expression of righteous rage. Have I first, like the psalmist, taken it to the Lord in prayer, and with a clear conscience told Him how angry I am, and why? Am I seeking His wisdom and guidance so that I might act upon this righteous rage in a manner that will be pleasing in His sight and keep the standards of His righteous law intact?
When we apply such tests to ourselves, we discover how unusual and even rare is truly righteous rage in our own experience, and we discover grounds for true humiliation before God that we have been unrighteously angry so often, without just provocation, and that even when we were justly provoked, we have expressed ourselves in an unrighteous and unloving manner.
Aristotle said, “Anybody can become angry—that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way—that is not easy.”5
We ought to approach the Lord in prayer confessing our sins in this regard, and begging His grace to possess the real virtue of righteous rage instead of its counterfeit, that we might be more like our Lord Jesus, totally devoted to the glory of God, the salvation of His people, and the ultimate triumph of good over evil.
All this accords with the New Testament exhortation for Christians, “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath” (Eph 4.26). Calvin’s comments are full of wisdom:
There are three faults by which we offend God in being angry. The first is, when our anger arises from slight causes, and often from no cause whatever, or at least from private injuries or offenses. The second is, when we go beyond the proper bounds, and are hurried into intemperate excesses. The third is, when our anger, which ought to have been directed against ourselves or against sins, is turned against our brethren. Most appropriately, therefore, did Paul, when he wished to describe the proper limitation of anger, employ the well-known passage, Be ye angry, and sin not. We comply with this injunction, if the objects of our anger are sought, not in others, but in ourselves, — if we pour out our indignation against our own faults. With respect to others, we ought to be angry, not at their persons, but at their faults; nor ought we to be excited to anger by private offenses, but by zeal for the glory of the Lord. Lastly, our anger, after a reasonable time, ought to be allowed to subside, without mixing itself with the violence of carnal passions.
Let not the sun go down. It is scarcely possible, however, but that we shall sometimes give way to improper and sinful passion, so strong is the tendency of the human mind to what is evil. Paul therefore suggests a second remedy, that we shall quickly suppress our anger, and not suffer it to gather strength by continuance. The first remedy was, Be ye angry, and sin not; but, as the great weakness of human nature renders this exceedingly difficult, the next is — not to cherish wrath too long in our minds, or allow it sufficient time to become strong. He enjoins accordingly, let not the sun go down upon your wrath. If at any time we happen to be angry, let us endeavor to be appeased before the sun has set.6
Notes:
1. NET Bible. “Horror” (KJV) does not today convey the sense of the Hebrew accurately, though in its older usage it could mean “terror or a sensation approaching it, accompanied with hatred or detestation. Horror is often a passion compounded of fear and hatred and disgust. The recital of a bloody deed fills us with horror” (Webster’s 1828 Dictionary).
2. ASV, ESV, etc.
3. Hengstenberg, quoted in JFB Commentary.
4. NJB.
5. Cited in The Believer’s Bible Commentary on Eph 4.26.
6. Commentary on Ephesians, in loc.