Brother, I looked into the Gospels, and found that only evangelist Mark is making this record:
Mark 3:5 [b]And when he had looked round about on them with [i]anger[/i], being [i]grieved[/i] for the hardness of their hearts,[/b] he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.
Then:
John 5:30 [b]I can of mine own self do nothing:[/b] as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.
Phi 2:5 [b]Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:[/b]
Gal 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; [b]yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: [/b]
I think if we walk in the Spirit, we will allow His holy anger, thoughts, and grief to flow through us. If we walk in the flesh we will have fleshly anger, which is sin. Maybe the real question is are walking in the Spirit? Are we His vessel and pipe trough which can flow His righteousness? And the grief seeing the unrighteousness?
His name taken in vain. His name misused. Are we jealous for His glory?
And yet Paul warns:
Eph 4:26 [b]Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:[/b]
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The commentators are giving good thoughts for thinking.
[b]Barnes[/b]
[b]With anger[/b] - With a severe and stern countenance; with indignation at their hypocrisy and hardness of heart. This was not, however, a spiteful or revengeful passion; it was caused by excessive grief at their state: being grieved for the hardness of their hearts. [b]It was not hatred of the men whose hearts were so hard; it was hatred of the sin which they exhibited,[/b] joined with the extreme grief that neither his teaching nor the law of God, nor any means which could be used, overcame their confirmed wickedness. Such anger is not unlawful, Eph_4:26. [b]However, in this instance, our Lord has taught us that anger is never lawful except when it is tempered with grief or compassion for those who have offended.[/b]
[b]Eph 4:26 -
Be ye angry and sin not [/b]- It has been remarked that the direction here is conformable to the usage of the Pythagoreans, who were bound, when there were any differences among them, to furnish some token of reconciliation before the sun set. Burder, in Ros. Alt. u. neu. Morgenland, in loc.
It is implied here:
(1) that there may be anger without sin; and,
(2) that there is special danger in all cases where there is anger that it will be accompanied with sin. Anger is a passion too common to need any description. It is an excitement or agitation of mind, of more or less violence, produced by the reception of a real or supposed injury, and attended commonly with a desire or purpose of revenge. The desire of revenge, however, is not essential to the existence of the passion, though it is probably always attended with a disposition to express displeasure, to chide, rebuke, or punish; compare Mar_3:5. To a great extent the sudden excitement on the reception of an injury is involuntary, and consequently innocent. Anger is excited when a horse kicks us; when a serpent hisses; when we dash our foot against a stone - and so when a man raises his hand to strike us. The object or final cause of implanting this passion in the mind of man is, to rouse him to an immediate defense of himself when suddenly attacked, and before his reason would, have time to suggest the proper means of defense. It prompts at once to self-protection; and when that is done its proper office ceases. [b]If persevered in; it becomes sinful malignity. or revenge - always wrong.[/b] Anger may be excited against a thing as well as a person; as well against an act as a man. We are suddenly excited by a wrong thing, without any malignancy against the man; we may wish to rebuke or chide that, without injuring him.
[b]Anger is sinful in the following circumstances:[/b]
(1) When it is excited without any sufficient cause - when we are in no danger, and do not need it for a protection. We should be safe without it.
(2) when it transcends the cause, if any cause really exists. [b]All that is beyond the necessity of immediate [u]self-protection[/u], is apart from its design, and is wrong.[/b]
(3)[b] when it is against the person rather than the offence. The object is not to injure another; it is to protect ourselves.[/b]
(4) [b]when it is attended with the desire of revenge. That is always wrong;[/b] Rom_12:17, Rom_12:19.
(5) when it is cherished and heightened by reflection. And,
(6) [b]When there is an unforgiving spirit;[/b] a determination to exact the utmost satisfaction for the injury which has been done. If people were perfectly holy, that sudden arousing of the mind in danger, or on the reception of an injury; which would serve to prompt us to save ourselves from danger, would exist, and would be an important principle of our nature. As it is now, it is violent; excessive; incontrollable; persevered in - and is almost always wrong. If people were holy, this excitement of the mind would obey the first injunctions of reasons, and be wholly under its control; as it is now, it seldom obeys reason at all - and is wholly wrong. Moreover, if all people were holy; if there were none disposed to do an injury, it would exist only in the form of a sudden arousing of the mind against immediate danger - which would all be right. Now, it is excited not only in view of physical dangers, but in view of the wrongs done by others - and hence it terminates on the person and not the thing, and becomes often wholly evil.
[b]Clarke[/b]
[b]With anger.[/b] What was the anger which our Lord felt? [b]That which proceeded from excessive grief,[/b] which was occasioned by their obstinate stupidity and blindness: therefore [b]it was no uneasy passion, but an excess of generous grief.[/b]
[b]Henry[/b]
When they rebelled against the light, he lamented their stubbornness (Mar_3:5); He looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts. The sin he had an eye to, was, the hardness of their hearts, their insensibleness of the evidence of his miracles, and their inflexible resolution to persist in unbelief. We hear what is said amiss, and see what is done amiss; [b]but Christ looks at the root[/b] of bitterness in the heart, the blindness and hardness of that. Observe,
[1.] [b]How he was provoked by the sin;[/b] he looked round upon them; for they were so many, and had so placed themselves, that they surrounded him: and he looked with anger; his anger, it is probable, appeared in his countenance; [b]his anger was, [u]like God's,[/u][/b] without the least perturbation to himself, but not without great provocation from us. Note, The sin of sinners is very displeasing to Jesus Christ; and the way to be angry, and not to sin, is it be angry, as Christ was, at nothing but sin. Let hard-hearted sinners tremble to think of the anger with which he will look round upon them shortly, when the great day of his wrath comes.
[2.] How he pitied the sinners; he was grieved for the hardness of their hearts; as God was grieved forty years for the hardness of the hearts of their fathers in the wilderness. Note, It is a great grief to our Lord Jesus, to see sinners bent upon their own ruin, and obstinately set against the methods of their conviction and recovery, for he would not that any should perish. [b]This is a good reason why [u]the hardness of our own hearts [/u]and of the hearts of others, should be a grief to us.[/b]
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[b]This is a good reason why [u]the hardness of our own hearts [/u]and of the hearts of others, should be a grief to us.[/b]
What a thought!
[b]the hardness of our own hearts
should be a grief to us![/b]
Yes it should! |
