How can we be angry and not sin?
In Psalm 4:4 David states that we should “Be angry, and do not sin.” Paul repeats David’s words in Ephesians 4 saying, “Be angry and do not sin” (Eph 4:26). In both cases, David and Paul tell us that we ought to be angry yet without sin.
How can we be angry and not sin then? The answer to this question matters because we all get angry, and we all strive to avoid evil and do good.
Thankfully, the Bible does not leave us without answers.
David’s Answer: Self-talk and Silence
David answers the question in Psalm 4:4 by giving two follow-up commands:
(1) Speak to your heart;[1]
(2) Be silent, that is, only speak to your heart (internally) and not with your mouth (externally).[2]
To put these two commands in context, we need to understand what the Bible means by anger. In Psalm 4, the word anger refers to trembling, disturbance, and importantly being “caught in restless motion” (HALOT 1182–3).
It is pretty easy to see how this works. When we get angry or upset, our bodies can often shake. Blood rushes to our cheeks. Our minds bounce to and fro. And our words often come out in unrestrained ways.
This lack of restraint explains why the Bible often calls anger or wrath sinful. Yet evidently, it is also possible to be angry without sin.
When Anger Is Sinful
As a rule, anger is sinful when it overpowers our mind.
Anger often leads us to lash out or panic or feel excessively restless. But David tells us that as we lay upon our beds at night in anger, we ought to ponder and speak with our own hearts. We should speak to our soul while remaining silent externally.
This silence, however, does not mean we remain silent in every sense. David says “speak to your hearts!” Psalms 41 and 42 provide a concrete illustration for how to speak to your heart, or your soul.
Take a moment and read through these two psalms.
Now that you have done so, notice how the psalms encourage us to speak to our own souls? This self-talk or internal monologue plays a major role in our spiritual formation.
When Anger Leads to Righteousness
But David does not only advise self-talk. He also points to two further actions: “Sacrifice with righteous sacrifices, and trust in Yahweh” (Ps 4:5).
I suspect that David’s language conveys more than just cultic sacrifices. Note that David says elsewhere, in the person of Christ, that God desires our obedient hearing, not our cultic sacrifices (Ps 40:6-8; Heb 10:5–7). David has a holistic view of righteous sacrifice. Note the New Testament agrees with this ancient testimony. For example, Paul says, “present your bodies as a living sacrifice” (Rom 12:1).
In other words, anger may naturally arise when we see injustice or experience trauma. But this natural anger often leads to sin when we consent to its power.
Instead, God wants us to understand our anger by speaking to our souls, by contemplating the anger in silence, and then by doing the next right thing. And this will demonstrate by our acts that we trust in Yahweh, and not in our own devises.
Anger then plays a key role in rousing us to just actions, as long as we do not let it overpower our mind. We must instead speak to our soul and use the energy that anger spawned in us to act justly. “Sacrifice with righteous sacrifices, and trust in Yahweh.”
Righteous Anger Can Be Harnessed for Justice
Anger creates in us an initial energy that promises a passion for righteousness. But anger does so, when we know how to harness its power by our mind. Otherwise, as in the vast majority of cases, we allow anger’s power to create in us a restless and uncontrolled anxiety that spawns many sins.
With all that said, let us return to the main point. How can we be angry and not sin?
If we follow David’s words in Psalm 4 and the broader biblical teaching, it would look like this: talk to soul, keep your mouth closed until the moment has passed, and do the next right thing.
Our minds must harness the initial anger that reacts to injustice in our hearts. We must not consent to the passion of anger.
If you do that, you can be angry without sinning. And even more than that, you can be angry and act justly.
[1] Hebrew: אִמְרוּ בִלְבַבְכֶם.
[2] Hebrew: וְדֹ֣מּוּ.
