Was
the Savior every angry? Yes and no. No, he did
not lose control, did not let passion or emotion
rule, did not retaliate
against those who abused him. But yes, he got
angry in the sense of righteous indignation,
the kind of controlled by powerful anger and
action that repulsed temptation (Matthew 4:8-11);
that rebuked any lack of compassion (Luke 16:19-23);
that rebuffed those who took from the poor and
loved their own honor (Luke 20:45-47); and that
reprimanded strongly the double standards (John
8:3-11), the hypocrisy (Matthew 23:23-28), and
letter-of-the-law-above-compassion attitudes
(Mark 3:1-5).
Perhaps
the most remembered illustration of his indignation
is the time when the Master drove the merchants
from his Father’s house (John 2:13-17). Yet
here, as always, there is no hint of loss of
control.
Christ’s
anger undoubtedly was awesome, powerful, but
with a great and much-needed purpose.
There is much evidence that his indignation
was frequently followed by an overflow of love
that separated the Lord’s hate of the deed from
his love of the person. Matthew 23 shows Christ
giving some harsh denunciations, yet it ends
with a beautiful statement of his love.
Destructive
anger is anger that is connected to hate. Christ’s
anger was inseparably connected to perfect love.
He simply loved people too much not to
feel indignation toward the things that would
destroy them. Indeed, the Lord, being perfect,
could not have avoided this sort of anger, for
it is wrong to be complacent in the presence
of wrong, and he was bound sometimes to express
himself forcefully.
The
Master turned his other cheek to those who persecuted
and reviled him, but he turned the full
force of his indignation upon the evils that
could hurt and destroy those he came to save.
In
the dawn of time, our Lord and his Father (our
Father) exercised righteous indignation by casting
out the one-third who fought against your free
will and mine, against our ultimate progress
and joy. The Lord’s indignation on this earth
was a continuation of that same pure love for
us and that same pure rejection of all that
could lead us astray.
Next
week we move into a consideration of several
of the Lord’s qualities that relate to sensitivity,
beginning with is poetic empathy.
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