Yes, God Can Get Angry

“Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease.” (Ps 85:4 AV)

This is a hard verse is the sense we do not like to think of God being angry.  We want to remember God as the God of all grace.  Not the God who can be upset with us.  What makes this verse even more uncomfortable is His anger is not static.  His anger is active.  It is towards to people of God.  This should be upsetting.  This should give us pause.  This should make us reflect on just how we are living so as to examine our hearts that they be right and pure before the LORD.  In days past, we would hear preachers expound on the moral attribute of God called wrath.  In the last century or so, and particularly in our previous generation, we hear of God grace (which we should); but almost exclusively.  If we do not accept that God can exercise wrath and anger, then we are not accepting God as He is.  He is and does exercise anger towards those whom He loves.  He does so because of our stubborn disobedience.

This may sound odd, but hear me out.  I would not want to worship a God who did not get angry.  Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t like it when He is.  A God who does not get angry is a God who does not hold His creation accountable.  If God is all grace, then we do whatever we want to do with little to no consequences.  A God of all grace and no anger is a God who does not love.  For anger is the emotion expressed when love is violated.  When His saints choose to ignore His word and do as they please, they are doing despite to the blood of Christ.  We are insulting the very nature of who and what God is.  Worse, we say we love Him, but by our actions, we are revealing just the opposite.  Anger is the appropriate response when threatened by an outside influence.  God is not threatened in the sense anything will be successful against Him.  That is for sure.  His glory can be robbed.  His love can be spurned.  His character can be questioned.  When things like this happen, the LORD is justified in exercising anger towards those who would be forward enough to challenge or disrespect Him.

We do not like to think of God as angry.  That doesn’t change the fact that He can be.  We avoid thinking about it.  Like a child who knows his father is angry with him, we run to the opposite side of the house or run after our friends until we think it safe to return.  We avoid reality because we believe, in time, our father’s anger will abate.  That may be true in the earthly sense.  But not when we are speaking of an omnipresent and omnipotent God.  There is no place we can run.  There are no places we can hide.  Let the anger do its work.  It is important to meditate on the fact we disappoint the LORD and from time to time He is a bit upset.  When we do, we can begin true repentance on a more personal level.  We seek forgiveness not because we feel guilty and need that feeling to go away.  We do not seek forgiveness because we feel shame and need to pacify our conscience.  We do not ask for God’s mercy because we hope not to suffer consequences.  We seek God’s forgiveness because we realize we have angered Him.  We realize that we affected our relationship with God in a personal way and we had no right to do that.  We ask forgiveness because we have offended Him and He deserves much better.  Yes, God can be an angry God.  And that is a good thing.  His anger motives us to seek reconciliation for personal reasons apart from any benefit we might receive.  We seek forgiveness because God is a loving God who we have insulted.  And we are truly sorry.