Expert: Scott Talbot - 3/12/2009

Question
I've been discussing the issue of God's personality with a friend (formerly a Christian) and he thinks the God of the OT is an "angry God". Firstly, do you have an idea of how many incidents of God's anger occur in the OT and what do you think about my friend's theory?

Answer
Hi Ann,

It's nice to hear from you.

If you go to www.crosswalk.com and click on BIBLE STUDY TOOLS and then ONLINE STUDY BIBLE, you will be able to do a search for the word, "anger," and see exactly how many times it is used in relation to God.

Without counting, I can tell you that you will find a significant number of occasions in which God is described as being angry.

Generally, we view anger as a bad thing. Therefore, one may be confused to think of God expressing anger. However, anger is not always necessarily bad.

Ephesians 4:26 says, "In your anger do not sin." So, according to this verse, there are certain cases in which it is possible to be angry without sinning.

What is anger? It is a negative feeling about something. When someone offends you, you might become angry. That anger may not be appropriate, because it's likely to be an expression of pride--a feeling of offense resulting from your not getting what you think you deserve. God may instead prefer that you show mercy, grace, and love, and make your "rights" subservient to the other person.

However, suppose you saw someone beating up an innocent homeless man in a back alley. Would you be angry? I certainly hope so! And that anger would be justified, because your negative feelings are caused by the senseless harm being brought on another person.

What if you heard someone criticizing Jesus Christ, claiming that he was just a "good teacher," or worse, a deluded cult leader? You would likely be angry, because Jesus is being unfairly attacked.

When God gets angry, He is always justified in doing so. His anger typically stems from someone rebelling against His desires--desires to carry out a plan that is good for all people, including the one rebelling.

One might say that it's selfish for God to become angry when someone goes against His wishes--that this is an expression of pride. Well, with God, it's different. We don't have rights. We don't deserve ANYTHING good. But God is GOD. He is the Creator, and the Master of the universe. He DESERVES our obedience, our respect, our love and honor. With God, there is no such thing as pride or selfishness ... because He is DESERVING of honorable treatment.

When one complains about God's anger, my guess is that he's using it as an excuse to push God out of his life. No genuine Christian--no born again follower of Jesus Christ--would ever take issue with God's righteous anger.

On a separate note, I firmly believe that, if one is a genuine Christian (note that I said "genuine"), he can never become a "former Christian." In other words, once a person is born again into God's family and becomes a child of God, despite the fact that he may become a rebellious child, he will never lose his salvation. There are those who would debate this, but I can back it up with Scripture.

It sounds like you are dealing with someone who is uncertain of his faith, or perhaps was never truly born again. I assume this based on the fact that you are having conversations with your friend about spiritual issues. I commend you for this, and I would be happy to pray with you that God will soften his heart.

I hope this helps. Feel free to write back if you would like to talk further.

Scott