A Treatise on Matt.

5:21-24Part 1--Anger "But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever shall say to his brother, 'Raca,' shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever shall say, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. If therefore you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering." (Matt. 5:21-24 NAS) When Jesus spoke these words he was speaking to a Jewish audience that was then living under the Law of Moses. Living approximately 2,000 years after the fact we today read this passage and it brings questions to our minds wondering exactly what he meant in some of the things he said here and what if any application the passage might have to us today. I suspect most of us have at one point in time or another just read over the passage and gone on. That is what we often do with passages we really do not understand. Yet, if there is a lesson for us in the passage as there was for those who first heard it we need to learn it. I begin with the subject of anger, the first clause of this paragraph. Does Jesus completely forbid anger? Are we never to be angry? Some translations add, after the word angry, the words "without a cause." Most scholars and most translations omit the phrase believing the evidence is against its inclusion. Be that as it may the question remainsdoes God forbid all anger? Is that what the first clause of this passage teaches? Jesus was angry in Mark 3:5 with the Pharisees in the synagogue, "And after looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, He said to the man, 'Stretch out your hand.' And he stretched it out, and his hand was restored." (NAS) We are all familiar with the passage in Ephesians 4:26, "BE ANGRY, AND yet DO NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger." (NAS) [I am not sure why the NAS has the capitalization it does but I copied it as it had it.] Unless one wants to talk about babies dying in infancy there is no one who has ever lived a life without experiencing personal anger. I admit that is an assumption on my part but I think you would readily agree from your own personal life experience. Does God want us to be angry? Of course not but he made a provision for anger so that it would not become sin to usEph. 4:26 just quoted. Do not let anger linger. Rid yourself of it quickly. While it is impossible to keep from becoming angry at times one does have the ability to cast it aside and not dwell on it, one has the ability to let go of the anger.

Does God mean we must literally cease being angry by sunset? What if you become angry at the midnight hour? What if someone has just beaten or murdered your son or daughter? Not all anger can be rid of so easily or quickly so I don't think God is telling us there is a time limit on anger like if it is two minutes before sunset when something happens to anger you then you only have two minutes to get over it but I think he is saying rid yourself of it, don't nurture it, and do so quickly. In fact, the very next verse, Eph. 4:27 reads, "and do not give the devil an opportunity." (NAS) Eph. 4:26 and 27 are all one sentence and the idea is if you stay angry it is going to likely lead to other things because staying angry is giving the devil an opportunity. After anger comes hatred, malice, vengeance, and many other evils. We know this is true and thus we know we cannot remain angry long without worse things to come. Anger ends up destroying the one who has it for it becomes a cancer within growing into things that destroy the soul and that make life miserable in the here and now. Paul closes the 4th chapter of Ephesians from which I have been quoting by saying, "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." (Eph. 4:31-32 NAS) In Col. 3:8 he says to put aside anger. James says to be "slow to anger" (James 1:19 NAS) and that "the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God." (James 1:20 NAS) So we come back to our questionis it a sin to be or become angry and the scriptural answer seems to be it depends on how you handle it. You cannot retain anger and please God even if you had just cause for indignation. Anger held onto becomes sin. Paul says to put it away and thus if we disobey that Holy Spirit inspired command it becomes sin to us. And then there is the question of why we are angry and over what? Often there is no real cause for anger and the problem is not that which comes from without a man to arouse just indignation but a problem from within the man, a problem of personal character flaws and of the heart. God certainly does not condone unjustified anger even for a short while. If we have a short fuse and are ready to fight at a moment's notice over the littlest thing, if we are ready to perceive a slight when most men see nothing, then the problem is within us and the anger totally unjustified. The KKK in this country in the days of segregation would lynch a black man occasionally for what reason? Because he was black. Are you angry at a man over the color of his skin? Surely this is not the type of anger that God would allow a man to hold even till sunset and declare it sinless so the matter of the cause of the anger also must enter into the equation. One could argue that this type of thing is not anger but hatred. I would not debate that for I think you would be right but anger can turn into hatred and thus is be gotten rid of

immediately before it is allowed to grow and develop. Usually, although not always, when the KKK lynched a black man it was because he did some little thing that amounted to nothing and the deed would have been declared to have been nothing had a white man done it but it aroused their anger revealing the underlying hatred they had developed over the years. Anger can eventually lead to hatred but the hatred may also come before the anger. "Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." (1 John 3:15 NAS) We ought to run from anger lest it turn into something far worse. Remember one can become and be angry up to a point without sinning (Eph. 4:26) but there is a fine line we dare not cross. We all know we are not happy when angry, when we are mad. There is no joy in anger. The wise man will forgive and forget even if the original anger was somewhat justified in that he was truly wronged. By forgiving and letting go of the anger one is allowing himself to be happy again and is thus doing himself a favor as well as doing God's will. It is good to also remind ourselves of what we already know. No one likes to be around an angry man. If we say we can hide our anger I would say I know we may try but it is easier said than done. When you are mad inwardly, even though you are hiding it, you are generally not much fun to be around, a person of sour disposition. We must learn to control our tempers so we do not become angry easily. As James said, quoted earlier, be "slow to anger." (James 1:19 NAS) The NKJV uses the word "wrath" where the NAS uses the word "anger." The Old Testament has several passages that teach and warn us about anger: "Do not be eager in your heart to be angry, For anger resides in the bosom of fools." (Eccl. 7:9 NAS) "Do not associate with a man given to anger; Or go with a hot-tempered man." (Prov. 22:24 NAS) "A hot-tempered man stirs up strife, But the slow to anger pacifies contention." (Prov. 15:18 NAS) "A man of great anger shall bear the penalty, For if you rescue him, you will only have to do it again." (Prov. 19:19 NAS) "Like a city that is broken into and without walls Is a man who has no control over his spirit." (Prov. 25:28 NAS) Man can and must learn to control his temper and thus his anger if he is to be happy, if he is to please God, if he is not going to bring himself to ruin. Anger destroys love, family, and relationships and endangers salvation and so it must be mastered.

In closing we ought to deal with this question of how the angry man in our text shall be guilty before the court. We have to remember, if this clause is to be taken as pertains to this life, what was previously statedJesus is talking to a Jewish audience living under the Law of Moses which was not only a spiritual law but a law of governance over everyday affairs. Since anger is a passion within and cannot be seen or known by others unless revealed by outward speech or conduct the man in the text has obviously done some act out of anger to make him guilty of law breaking before the court. The text says "everyone who is angry with his brother" which means to me, as I understand it, everyone who has done the same sort of thing out of angerthat is struck out unlawfully against the one with whom he was angry. All such will be found guilty before the court. But some Bible commentators will argue that this passage is all an allusion to God's judgment of these things in the end of time. I would not say that is impossible. It may well be. John Gill (1697-1771) says, and I quote, "in danger of judgment; not of any of the courts of judicature among the Jews, as the sanhedrim of three, or of twenty three, or of seventy one, which took no notice of anger, as a passion in the mind, only of facts committed; but of the judgment of God." I cannot say which of these two opposing positions is the correct one but I do know the application for today. Do not allow anger to abide in you for if you do surely it will turn to sin in due time and you will be judged for it. Anger against another will, if held onto, eventually turn on you and destroy you. So the Bible teaches. So it is.