We can use some zeal and passion for the things of God:
Christians are to mirror their Lord. If he loved righteousness and hated iniquity, then we believers should do the same. We should love what God loves, weep over what God weeps over, and be indignant over what God is indignant over. His concerns should be our concerns.
So if God cares deeply about justice and deplores injustice, we should too. As Proverbs 28:5 puts it: “Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand it completely.” Or as we read in Amos 5:15: “Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate.”
So this is where the idea of righteous indignation comes into play. One can and should be righteously indignant about all sorts of things, including sin, evil and injustice. It should bother us when we see gross injustice occurring. It should upset us to see justice trampled underfoot and wickedness abound in the land.
I have written before on this topic, such as here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2007/06/16/righteous-indignation/
But I want to revisit the topic, based on what I just recently read in my daily Bible reading. In 1 Samuel 11:6 we find these words: “And the Spirit of God rushed upon Saul when he heard these words, and his anger was greatly kindled.” The chapter has to do with how Saul defeated the Ammonites, and the context is found in verses 1-7:
Then Nahash the Ammonite went up and besieged Jabesh-gilead, and all the men of Jabesh said to Nahash, “Make a treaty with us, and we will serve you.” But Nahash the Ammonite said to them, “On this condition I will make a treaty with you, that I gouge out all your right eyes, and thus bring disgrace on all Israel.” The elders of Jabesh said to him, “Give us seven days’ respite that we may send messengers through all the territory of Israel. Then, if there is no one to save us, we will give ourselves up to you.” When the messengers came to Gibeah of Saul, they reported the matter in the ears of the people, and all the people wept aloud. Now, behold, Saul was coming from the field behind the oxen. And Saul said, “What is wrong with the people, that they are weeping?” So they told him the news of the men of Jabesh. And the Spirit of God rushed upon Saul when he heard these words, and his anger was greatly kindled. He took a yoke of oxen and cut them in pieces and sent them throughout all the territory of Israel by the hand of the messengers, saying, “Whoever does not come out after Saul and Samuel, so shall it be done to his oxen!” Then the dread of the Lord fell upon the people, and they came out as one man.
So the unjust actions and demands of the Ammonites aroused Saul’s righteous indignation. But, some might say: ‘Didn’t Saul go off the rails? He cannot be held up here as some sort of template for us.’ Yes he did eventually lose God’s approval, but not yet at this point in the narrative. (We read about God rejecting him in 1 Sam. 15, and in 1 Sam. 16:14ff we read about God’s Spirit departing from him.)
And the text clearly states that the Spirit came upon him, and his anger was the direct result of this. So there is a place for righteous indignation, and the Spirit can even be behind this. And the obverse would also be true: if we do not get righteously angry about injustice and evil, that may indicate we are not heeding the Spirit.
The truth is, there are plenty of complacent Christians around who really do not seem to care about anything, except themselves. The war against marriage and family does not seem to matter to them. The slaughter of the unborn is not of concern to them. The global war against Christianity seems to mean nothing to them. They need the Spirit of God to rush upon them, wake them up, stir them up, and move them to take a stand against evil and injustice.
As John Woodhouse comments on the passage in 1 Samuel:
This was God-inspired rage. The anger inspired in Saul by the Spirit of God was obviously directed at the threat posed to the people of Jabesh-gilead by Nahash and the Ammonites. The association between God’s Spirit (or Breath) and his wrath against evil is an important Biblical theme (see Isaiah 40:7; 61:1-3; Matthew 3:11, 12). It was prominent in the book of Judges, where the Spirit drove the judges to violent action against the oppressors of God’s people (see particularly Judges 14:19).
In itself Saul’s experience seems almost identical to that of the earlier judges (see Othniel in Judges 3:10, Gideon in Judges 6:34, Jephthah in Judges 11:29, and especially Samson in Judges 14:6, 19 and 15:14 where the same verb “rushed” is used to describe the Spirit’s coming).
And while just above I mentioned things like the culture wars where we believers need the Spirit’s empowerment, Woodhouse focuses on evangelism. He writes:
Before we see the consequences that flowed from this remarkable victory (1 Samuel 11:12-15), let us come back to our earlier questions about Christian evangelism as warfare. What light is shed on our efforts to proclaim the gospel of Jesus by Saul’s conquest of Nahash? Let me draw to your attention just two things.
First, Christian evangelism has this in common with Saul’s conflict: the enemy is real. Precisely because the enemy in this case is not a physical enemy, evangelism cannot and must not be physically violent. However, we do not take the gospel into a happy marketplace, selling an idea to eager customers. There is an enemy. An evil enemy. An enemy hostile to God, God’s purposes, and God’s people. The enemy has an army: unbelief, godlessness, pride, ignorance, sin. And the proclamation of the gospel is a war against the enemy and his forces. Do not forget that the war is not a worldly war. Our weapons must be the weapons of righteousness — and no other. But do not think that what we go to do can be painless.
Second, and even more important, we must see that the New Testament uses battle language for gospel proclamation only after it shows us God’s appointed King has already won the victory. What God did through Saul that day is a pale shadow of what God did to the great enemy when King Jesus died on the cross. We go to battle only after the decisive battle. The blood has been shed. The enemy has in fact fallen. Do not be afraid.
Important points indeed. We need a passion to do God’s work in God’s way. We need the same zeal, and when needed, the same righteous indignation. Let me close by reminding you that this is not just something found in the Old Testament.
Indeed, I had a critic the other day say this in a comment to my site: “Christ preached love and tolerance, not hatred. Try reading the New Testament instead of the OT stories.” Actually I have read the NT, and I consider both Testaments to be fully inspired and about the same God. For example, consider what we read in John 2:13-17:
When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
That is a quote from Psalm 69:9. Jesus had real zeal, often leading to acts of righteous indignation. He hated evil and injustice. So should we. Believers today could use the same zeal and commitment that Jesus had.
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