Remind Your Angry Heart: You’re Not God

“I am not God” is a truth that can save us from sinful anger.¹ It’s the truth Joseph declared at the climax of Genesis, when his brothers worried that he might be angry: “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God?” (Genesis 50:19). 

Similarly, in the New Testament James asks those caught up in angry conflict: “There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?” (James 4:12). It’s the same essential question Joseph asked, just in a more expanded form: “Are you in the place of God? Are you the One Lawgiver, Judge, Savior, and Destroyer?”

There are many ways the truth “I’m not God” directly opposes sinful anger. You’d do well to study and meditate long and prayerfully on the connections. In this blog, I’ll limit myself to a few thoughts based on the four categories brought up by James 4:12. 

1.     Because I am not God, I am not the Lawgiver.

Anger is our justice emotion, our natural response to a perceived evil or injustice. It’s the hot displeasure we feel whenever we make a negative moral judgment about something that matters to us (i.e. that something is “wrong,” morally speaking). But when we are sinfully angry, it’s often simply because someone has not done what we wanted, or has gotten in the way of what we wanted (James 4:1–2). Why would that cue our emotional response of perceiving evil, injustice, or moral wrong?

It happens because proud sinners put themselves in the place of God, so we act like it is wrong for us not to get what we want, as if our will is the law that determines for other people what is good and evil. It isn’t. God’s will defines what’s right or wrong.² If we get angry because our desires aren’t met, we are treating our wishes and expectations like they are the will of a god that others must bow to, or else be judged as an evildoer or perpetrator of injustice.

When you’re angry, remember: I’m not the Lawgiver, so it isn’t morally wrong for other people to fail to do my will. There is nothing objectively unjust or unfair about that. There is only One who gives the Law that defines goodness and justice, and you’re not Him.

2.     Because I am not God, I am not the Judge.

The Lawgiver sets the standard that defines wrongdoing, but the Judge is the one who applies that standard to determine whether a person has actually done wrong in a particular situation.

Don’t misunderstand this point: God doesn’t want us to suspend all moral judgment about others (as if we should be moral agnostics or relativists in how we view them). Actually, we couldn’t stop making moral judgments even if we tried because God made us moral beings, in His image. Instead, as we make our moral assessments, we should not only be careful to use God’s standards (since He’s the Lawgiver), we should also be careful to recognize the limitations of what we can rightfully judge. Simply put: we cannot see and know what God sees and knows.

I have found sinful anger or bitterness is often fueled by assuming what other people must be thinking, or what must be motivating another’s actions, or what they must be doing when we aren’t watching. But we can’t know. We are not omniscient, and we can’t see the heart. We must let God be God, the only Judge before whom all hearts are laid bare.

Caution your angry heart: “Do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation [or condemnation] from God” (1 Corinthians 4:5).

3.     Because I am not God, I am not the Destroyer / Punisher.

Sinful anger often seeks revenge. But when we seek personal revenge, we are putting ourselves in God’s place. “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Romans 12:19). Payback for wrongdoers is God’s job. Leave it to Him, and trust He will do a good job; the Judge of all the earth will do what’s just (Genesis 18:25).

Because we are not God, we characteristically do a bad job of doing what’s just when we try to pay back wrongdoers. James says it directly: “The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:21). We may think we’re enforcing justice and making things “right” when we give vent to our vengeful anger, but our sinful anger usually compounds injustice instead.³

Put another way, when we act in sinful anger, to punish, we don’t end up destroying evil and accomplishing good. We end up doing things that are evil and destroying things that were good (or at least making them worse).

When you’re angry, remember: acting as the avenger is not your right, and you won’t actually make things right if you try . . . because you’re not God.

4.     Because I am not God, I am not the Savior.

It is not up to us to decide what others must do to receive mercy instead of wrath. God is the Savior, and God our Savior says all who repent will receive mercy because of Christ.

Thus, Christ tells us, “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him” (Luke 17:3–4). He clarifies in Matthew 18 that we must forgive from the heart—instead of clinging to sinful anger—or else we should expect we’ll face His anger, instead of find His salvation (Matthew 18:34–35).

We need to remember that all sin is first and foremost against God, so rescue from His righteous wrath is the ultimate salvation we all need. He has made a way, sending Christ to make propitiation for our sins. Christ’s offering on the cross satisfied God’s wrath, so we could be forgiven for our evils, as a free gift of grace.

When you’re angry, remember: I’m not the Savior, God is—and what a Savior He is! So we should be merciful, even as He has been merciful, in Christ. We can have God’s mercy, despite our sinful heart, because of Him. We have proudly put ourselves in God’s place, in our anger, but Christ humbly put Himself in the place of angry sinners, on the cross.

When you’re angry, remember the gospel. Bow low before the cross of Jesus, the humble Savior. And then bow in humility under this blessed truth: I am not God. If you humble yourself in that way, you will pull up the roots of your sinful anger, and also open your hands to receive His grace (James 4:6). By that grace, purchased by Christ, God will forgive you for your God-playing anger, and He will also strengthen you to be more like Him: merciful, patient, slow to anger, willing to forgive.

We can’t sit in God’s place, but through the gospel, we can grow to share His heart.

¹ This is one of Dr. Jim Newheiser’s “5 Important Truths for Overcoming Anger.” These can be found in his booklet Help! My Anger is Out of Control (LifeLine Minibooks, 2015) or numerous places online (easily found through simple internet search).

² Thus, for anger to be righteous, it must be provoked by actual sin, defined by God’s Law in Scripture. For this and other criteria of righteous anger, see Robert Jones, Uprooting Anger (P&R, 2005).

³ A couple of chapters after James tells us, “The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God,” he tells us what can produce it. Somewhat counterintuitively, it’s the opposite of our sinful anger: “a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace” (James 3:18).