Anger is more common
that we usually like to admit. There’s anger in our world, and there’s anger in
our own hearts. Anger exists because things are wrong. And there’s a lot of
things that are wrong, both in the world and in our hearts. Sometimes we’re
angry on behalf of other people who have been hurt. Sometimes we’re angry
because people have hurt us. Sometimes we’re angry because of our own selfish, uncontrolled
desires. Often, it’s a mixture of all of these things. Some anger is perfectly
understandable: it’s a right response to the wrongs we see and experience. Some
anger is devastatingly obvious: rage and violence in full view of the world. Some
anger is insidiously destructive, hidden from public view but unleashed in the
privacy of our homes and relationships. Some anger never gets expressed, but simmers
forever, steadily releasing a poison that turns our hearts bitter and drains
our relationships of love and joy.

In these verses in
Ephesians, the apostle Paul talks about anger and what to do with it. “Be
angry…”, he says. Whether our anger is right or wrong, we can’t deny it’s there.
But Paul isn’t simply commanding believers to get angry. Paul is talking here
about what to do with our anger.

Be angry and don’t sin. Don’t let the sun set on your provocation and so give a place to the devil.Ephesians 4:26–27

Anger, sin, and God’s grace

What Paul says here about
anger needs to be understood in light of what’s he’s already said in the rest
of his letter. He isn’t simply giving a moral rule or a tip for living well. He’s
talking to people who believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and he’s showing
them what it means to live in light of that gospel. What Paul says here about
anger is an example of what it means to be renewed by
God’s Holy Spirit, putting on the “new humanity” that Jesus Christ has won for
us (see Ephesians 4:22–24). The truth about Christ and what he has done for
us undergirds everything Paul says here, and gives us the power to put it into
practice.

This isn’t the first
time Paul has mentioned anger in Ephesians. Back in chapter 2, he mentioned
another kind of anger: God’s righteous anger (or “wrath”) against all of us human
beings, who have gone our own way, done wrong, and followed our own desires and
the ways of the world and the devil (Ephesians 2:3). In many
ways, the gospel is a message about what God has done with his own holy
anger. Out
of his own great love, God has sent his Son Jesus Christ into the world. Christ
has willingly taken God’s wrath on himself, dying on the cross so that our sins
can be forgiven. Jesus has risen from the dead, and we have been raised to life
with him. So
we are saved by God’s grace. Left to ourselves, we would only be facing
God’s wrath. By
God’s grace, we are facing God’s riches of glory: life, love, certain hope, and
a future with him forever. Through God’s grace, we are a new
humanity, created by God to live for him and do good works. And so the
gospel of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit at work in us gives us the motivation
and the power to do these good works.