John Calvin:
[Commenting on Genesis 6:6—“And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.”] Since we cannot comprehend [God] as he is, it is necessary that, for our sake, he should, in a certain sense, transform himself [by using figures of speech about himself]…Certainly God is not sorrowful or sad; but remains forever like himself in his celestial and happy repose: yet because it could not otherwise be known how great is God’s hatred and detestation of sin, therefore the Spirit accommodates himself to our capacity…God was so offended by the atrocious wickedness of men, [he speaks] as if they had wounded his heart with mortal grief.4
The Westminster Confession of Faith (Il.1.):
There is but one…true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions…
In support of God being without passions, the Westminster Confession quotes Acts 14:15 in the King James Version, spoken by Paul and Barnabas to a crowd who mistook them for gods. “Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God…”Were Paul and Barnabas implying that “passions”—that is, emotions—are partly what distinguishes humans from God?
WHY WE THINK GOD’S GRIEF IS REAL
Despite our deep respect for the theologians quoted above and for their views in general, we think the Bible does teach that God feels grief over human sinfulness and suffering. Here are our reasons:
1. Passages about God repenting in the sense of “changing his mind” are clearly limited and narrowed in meaning by other Scriptures. But passages about God repenting in the sense of “grieving” over sin and suffering are expanded by other Scriptures.
1 Samuel 15:29 could not be clearer: “He who is the Glory of Israel does not he or change his mind.” Repeatedly the Bible claims that God does not change in any way (Numbers 23:19; Psalm 110:4; Malachi 3:6; Hebrews 13:8; James 1:17). Such verses force us to take God’s “changes of mind” as figurative.5
In contrast, many passages flesh out God’s strong emotional response to human sin. In Isaiah 1:11-14 God says that because Judah rebelled he took “no pleasure” in their sacrifices, their worship was “meaningless” to him, their incense “detestable.” What does he say about their religious festivals? “I am weary of bearing them”—“My soul hates” them—“I have had more than enough”—“They have become a burden to me,” he complained. Elsewhere he became “displeased” (Isaiah 59:15) and “provoked” (Hosea 12:14). He turned from Judah “in disgust” (Ezekiel 23:18) because her conduct was “like a woman’s monthly uncleanness in his sight” (Ezekiel 36:17). He couldn’t wait to “get relief” from it all (Isaiah 1:24).
As with human sin, so with human sorrow—many passages elaborate on how it touches God’s heart. We have quoted them abundantly throughout this book. The very passages that speak specifically of God’s grief add to the impression of something more than poetic language. In Genesis 6:6 God was not only “grieved” at humanity’s wickedness—the verse intensifies this by adding, literally, “and he was hurt to his heart.” The Hebrew word here for “hurt” is used elsewhere in the Bible of a deserted wife, of young men learning of their sister’s rape, of Jonathan realizing that his father wants to murder Jonathan’s best friend.
Nor is mention of God’s grief limited to the poetry of the Old Testament. In the cool logic of his epistles Paul urges us not to “grieve” the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30).
2. Other emotions of God seem to be non-figurative.
The Son of God entered our world “so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:11). Is this joy only figurative? Is “joy” used only to describe Jesus acting “as a man would when agitated by such passions,” to use Hodge’s words? What about God’s love? Jesus expressed a desire for the disciples to love him in the same way his father loved him; he once prayed “that the love you [the Father] have for me may be in them…” (John 17:26). Thus, isn’t our love for Christ (which certainly includes emotions) only a mirror of what God the Father feels?
We’re clearly told in Ephesians 5:22-30 that God designed marriage to teach us about Christ’s relationship to the church. Don’t we learn, however dimly, something of his love for us as we experience love with our spouse and children? Don’t we cherish the notion that God actually feels a certain delight in his people when he calls them “the apple of his eye” (Zechariah 2:8)? His love actually makes him sing over us (Zephaniah 3:17). Of course, the pinnacle of God’s heart going out was seen at the cross: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son” (John 3:16). He was willing to watch his son being murdered for us. But what love does this show if it cost the Father nothing emotionally—if the Father felt no grief as he watched the scene at Calvary?
3. The emotions of Jesus show that the Father feels as well.
Jesus said, “I and the Father are one” and “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 10:30; 14:9). If Jesus’ heart went out to people in a variety of emotions, the Father’s heart does also.
Consider the grief shown by Jesus in the gospels. See him with Mary, the sister of Lazarus, at the tomb of her brother. “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ‘Where have you laid him?’ he asked. ‘Come and see, Lord,’ they replied. Jesus wept” (John 11:33–35).
Did only his human nature weep, and not his divine? No, for Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing…” (John 5:19).
Remember his lament over the holy city? “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing” (Matthew 23:37). He is a mother whose children refuse to come—there is an aching. Did Jesus long only in his humanity, not in his divinity? No, his ardor mirrored Jehovah’s toward Judah six centuries earlier: “Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall…Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!” (Ezekiel 18:30-32).
The grief Jesus showed on earth reflects not only the Father’s heart, but also the Holy Spirit’s—for we learn in Isaiah 63:10 of the Spirit’s reaction to a straying Israel: “They rebelled and grieved bis Holy Spirit…” Thus the entire Trinity grieves over human sin and its results.
4. Acts 14:15 doesn’t necessarily teach that passions and emotions are foreign to God.
Paul and Barnabas once tried to fend off pagans who wanted to worship them by saying, “We also are men of like passions with you.” Were they saying that God, in contrast, doesn’t have passions and feelings?
What complicates the issue is uncertainty about the origin of the Greek word translated “like passions.” It is a combination of two words. The first is agreed upon by all and means “like, similar, same.” The second word is unclear—either of two similarly spelled Greek words could fit: a word meaning “passion,” or a word meaning “suffering.”6 One’s choice might make a difference. Are similar passions and feelings what distinguish Paul and Barnabas and their hearers from the true God? Or are similar sufferings and experiences—that is, mortality—the difference?
Interestingly, even though language authorities disagree on the word’s origin, the vast majority seem to agree that, over time, the word came to have the broad meaning of “having a similar nature as someone.” Thus, M. R. Vincent says in his Word Studies in the New Testament: “There is some danger of a misunderstanding of this rendering [“like passions”], from the limited and generally bad sense in which the word passions is popularly used. The meaning is rather of like nature and constitution.”7
The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology agrees. After offering its
opinion that word means literally “suffering the same,” it adds that the word is used more generally to mean “of similar disposition” (II. 501). With the exception of Abbott-Smith, the standard lexicons for New Testament studies that we checked concur. This is why the NIV translates Acts 14:15: “We too are only men, human like you.” Most English versions render it similarly. The point of the verse, then, is not that God doesn’t have feelings, as do humans. The point is that he is high above us, on a totally different level. Paul and Barnabas were saying in effect, “Don’t worship us; we’re just human—not even in God’s league.”
5. God’s emotions, unlike ours, are sinless.
Those who consider God’s grief as figurative are rightly trying to avoid attributing to him the sins and weaknesses that so often plague human emotions. But these human failings stem from our fallenness, not from the nature of emotions themselves. Nothing but perfectly righteous and honorably expressed feelings come from a holy God.
Our emotions are hopelessly contaminated by a heart that is “more deceitful than all else and…desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9, NASV). Our feelings goad us into losing control, wringing our hands, getting depressed, giving up, dumping on others, or acting in an undignified way. But God’s emotions, unlike ours, are not connected to flawed wiring.
For example, God’s contentment is not that of the spoiled rich kid with bedroom floor-to-ceiling TV screens and an indoor pool. His happiness isn’t that of the easy chair, the absence of chores, and endless snacks between meals. His delight is in his own goodness and wisdom, in the beautiful character of his Son, and in the complexity and wonder of all he has made. His is not a complacent, lazy joy—his is the rugged joy of the warrior returned home, the admiral sailing into port flying colors of victory, the bone-tired, soot-faced (hand-scarred!) but grinning hero carrying the child to safety from the burning building.
God’s anger is also righteous. In this connection, it’s interesting to note the word usually used by the Greek New Testament when speaking of God’s wrath. Except for the book of Revelation, the New Testament generally avoids the word meaning “rage” (from the root “to rush along fiercely,” “to be in a heat of violence,” “to breathe violently”). Rather, it favors a word stemming from the root “to grow ripe.” The idea is that God’s wrath slowly builds over a long period of time. It stems from perfect reasoning and consideration. It is “not so much a flaring up of passion which is soon over, as a strong and settled opposition to all that is evil arising out of God’s very nature.”8 The relevant point for us is that God’s anger is not a knee-jerk reaction as ours often is—it flows from holy, studied wisdom.9
As with his contentment, joy, and anger, God’s grief as the Bible describes it is a worthy emotion—without weakness, without impurity, without anything uncomely. It never paralyzes him, and it did not lead him sentimentally to ignore justice when seeking the salvation of his creatures. The bottom fine is this: when it is right to grieve, when grieving is the perfect response—that is what God does, because he is perfect.
6. Grief and joy can be experienced simultaneously.
Can God laugh and weep in the same moment? Jesus himself was “full of joy,” and prayed that “the full measure of my joy” might be in the disciples—yet Isaiah called him “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Luke 10:21; John 17:13; Isaiah 53:3).
We mortals—made in God’s image—also know joy and pain together. A father stands at the altar and sighs deeply as he gives his daughter’s hand to the perfect future husband. A woman finally lands that long-coveted job, but in taking it must leave familiar friends and the town she loves. A mother watches her son languish behind prison bars, but sees the experience bring the rebellious young man to genuine repentance and salvation. The apostle Paul was “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10).
Of course, no human analogy is ever sufficient when talking about God. We find life bittersweet, yet it is almost certainly wrong to think that God finds anything actually “bitter.” The Bible speaks of God in far too glorious a manner for this—his sorrows have a triumph to them that we can’t imagine.
How can this be? How does it all work in the mind of God? God is inscrutable, and guesses can be hazardous. But perhaps the answer lies in his ability to know all things and to see the eternal picture.
God does look down on his world and weep. But its twistedness did not catch him by surprise. He knew that humans would fall into sin. He knew the immeasurable sorrow this would let loose. He knew the suffering it would cost his own Son. But he decreed to permit this fall because he knew how he would resolve it: that Jesus would die, that his church would eventually triumph through innumerable trials, that Satan’s fingers would be pried off the planet, that justice would be served at the final judgment, that heaven would make up for all, and that God would receive more glory—and we would know more joy—than if the Fall had never happened. Can anyone but God see enough of this coming ecstasy to make sense out of our present agony? God sees this glorious end as clearly as if it were today.
This, in our opinion, is how he can be truly “blessed,” and truly weep.
NOTES
Chapter One: I’m Hurting Bad
1 During debate, Jesus’ opponents implied that he was of illegitimate birth. See John 8:19, 41.
Chapter Two: Ecstasy Spilling Over
1 American Bible Union Version, cited by Curtis Vaughan, ed. The New Testament from 26 Translations (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1967), p. 960.
2 Writing in the eighteenth century, Jonathan Edwards did special justice in several places to the topic of God’s happiness. Easier to read is John Piper’s outstanding The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God’s Delight in Being God (Portland: Multnomah, 1991). Run, don’t walk, to buy this remarkable work.
3 From the sermon “The Condescension of Christ” in Spurgeon’s Sermons, Vol. 4 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), pp. 366-367. Originally published as Sermons of Rev. C. H. Spurgeon of London (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers).
4 The phrase “God the only Son” is from the first edition of the New International Version and appears to be an informal rendering of monogenes theos—the best-attested Greek reading. The more literal and traditional translation is “only begotten God.”
Chapter Three: The Suffering God
1 Herodotus, Histories (New York: Penguin), p. 459.
2 We call him Abraham to avoid confusion. He was actually still named Abram at this time.
3 Deuteronomy 1:31; Isaiah 46:3; Ex 2:24-25; Psalm 44:3; Isaiah 49:16; Psalm 149:4; Judges 10:16; Psalm 106:46; Jeremiah 23:1; Ezekiel 16:32; Psalm 28:9; Zechariah 2:8; Psalm 148:14; Isaiah 49:15.
4 In John l:33, John the Baptist says, “I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’” No doubt this means that John wasn’t aware of Jesus’ identity as messiah until the moment of Jesus’ baptism. But it may also mean that the two had never met, which is the view taken by our chapter. Although their mothers were “relatives” (the word in Luke 1:36 is broad) and had visited when both boys were still in the womb, John and Jesus lived in different parts of the country. No other contact before Jesus’ baptism is recorded.
5 The literal “stay awake” (not in the NIV) seems more in keeping with the context than “keep [spiritual] watch,” although the latter becomes the more natural translation in verse 41. William Hendriksen, R.V.G. Tasker, and many others hold this view.
6 It goes without saying that Christ was completely innocent of these things. Peter wrote that Jesus “committed no sin…” Hebrews boasts that he was “without sin,” while positively lauding him as “holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners…” All of Scripture agrees. Old Testament guilt and sin offerings had to be “without defect” because they symbolized the morally perfect Lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world (1 Peter 2:22; Hebrews 4:15, 7:
26; Leviticus 4 and 5).
But in the most glorious mystery of all time, the Father transferred our sins onto his holy Son. Just as Christ’s righteousness is credited to our account as believers, so our sins were credited (imputed) to his account. “The LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). “God made him [Jesus] who had no sin to be sin for us…” (2 Corinthians 5:21). God treated his beloved Son as if Jesus had been a sinner, as if he were personally guilty—yet on the cross Jesus remained the spotless Lamb of God, steadfastly righteous in character.
The point of these pages is this: the experience of being identified with human sin was infinitely repulsive to Christ’s holy nature; enduring the wrath of his beloved Father (in our stead) far outweighed the physical pains of crucifixion. Yet we must keep in mind that Father and Son had planned the atonement together and were working in concert on that Good Friday. God loved the Son even as he punished him on our account. Does this boggle our minds? It was meant to.
Chapter Four: Does He Really Expect Me to Suffer?
1 “Disease” here is used for all medical problems, whatever their cause—microbodies, genetic disorders, accidents, etc.
2 Ephesians 1:7 and Colossians 1:14 contrasted with Romans 8:23 and Ephesians 1:14.
3 2 Timothy 1:9 contrasted with 1 Corinthians 1:18 and 2 Corinthians 2:15.
4 Matthew 1:21; 1 John 1:8.
5 Philippians 2:27; Romans 9:2; 2 Corinthians 6:10.
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