Oh Really?

God Suffers Too, You Know Talking about the mediating role that the Church in South Africa is to play between offenders and victims from Apartheid by virtue of creation a spirituality of reconciliation, Bishop Tutu is recorded as saying that this is done by entering more deeply into the anguish, desolation and pain in the heart of God (Tutu, D. 1994. The Rainbow People of God: South Africas Victory over Apartheid Ed. by J. Allan. London: Doubleday.). Does God suffer? I asked my wife. Of course God does not suffer! How can that be? He is all-sufficient in Himself and perfect in all things, including happiness, came the prompt reply. She did not even pause to think about it! Little did she know that she was at odds with the learned Bishop Tutu and various other scholars such as Stott, Barth, Bultmann, and even Donald Macleod, who was the highly respected Principal of the Free Church of Scotland Theological College. She, however, is on the side of Charles Hodge, the authors of the Westminster Confession of Faith, John Calvin, and Martin Luther. In the third century AD a movement sprang up known as patripassianism which taught that as the Son suffers so does the Father and the Spirit; God was said to suffer in all three Persons. This view of a suffering God as God is still being held today in certain circles and it is a damaging and reductionist view of our sovereign God. In March, 1996, a Scottish news reel when reporting on the Dunblane massacre, in which sixteen children and their teacher were killed, wrote, Every bullet made God shudder; He could not look. Well, tragic as the situation was, the presumptuous theology in the article is dismaying too. In an emotional situation this approach to Gods feelings is of course meant to make God appear more sympathetic. I understand that. But that does not make it true. It also makes God appear impotent, as if He were a powerless bystander decrying the evil that happened outside His control. Patripassianism was a reaction to the teaching of divine apathy (Deism) which is not true either. God does get involved in His creation, with mankind. Scripture testifies to that fact continuously; just witness His dealings with Israel in Exodus, with the New Testament Church on the Day of Pentecost in the Book of Acts. Yet, there appear to be contradictions in the Bible about God. On the one hand we read that God is Spirit (John 4:24); on the other we read about the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4), the eyes of God (Genesis 6:8), the hand of God (Acts 2:33). In Genesis 6 we observe that it repented God that He made man, and in Genesis 32:14 that He repented of the evil brought upon the people. Isaiah 63:9 tells us that God treads down people in His anger. This makes God appear as if He were emotional and reactive, that He has passions like men. That He is prone to situation ethics. Then we read in 1 Samuel 15:29 that the Lord does not repent. This is an absolute statement regarding Gods essence. We also know that God is all-knowing; He cannot add to His knowledge; He knows the beginning from the end; there are no surprises with God.

What we have here, in these apparent contradictions, is what theologians call anthromorphism, the phenomenon that God presents Himself for our benefit in human form. It is not that He reacts to a situation as in after the fact. God knows from eternity what is being played out in redemptive history. He does not learn about any event and then react. He knows all beforehand (see for instance Acts 2:23, Ephesians 1:4-5; 1 Peter 1:2, 11, 19-20). What we then see in these anthropomorphic cases is a display of Gods anger, repentance or joy as an exposition of what is characteristic of God eternally; God is eternally ill-disposed toward evil, God is eternally favourably disposed toward obedience and lovingkindness. Matthew Henry sums it up very well when he declares: God does not change His will, He wills a change. This willing a change is predetermined from eternity and is foreknown by all-knowing God. God, Scripture declares, lives in perpetual, eternal blessedness (Romans 1:25; Romans 9:5; 2 Corinthians 11:31; 1 Timothy 1:11; 1 Timothy 6:15). This means that God is perfectly happy; His happiness is perfect just like everything else in terms of His Being is perfect. Nothing disturbs Gods tranquillity and equilibrium. To suggest otherwise would make God the victim of circumstances outside Himself, which in turn would detract from His omnipotence, His being in total control over everything everywhere. Some one will remark by now that God did suffer, in the Person of Jesus Christ! And indeed, it is without doubt that Jesus suffered, He suffered greatly! Christians have confessed this throughout the centuries and across denominational boundaries in the Apostles Creed: He [Jesus] suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified and buried. However, Jesus could not and cannot suffer as God; the Lord suffered in His humanity. He is the Second Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45), He is truly man and as a man He suffered on behalf of His people, paying the debt which sinful human beings could not pay. The Heidelberg Catechism (1563 AD) puts it this way: Why must He [Jesus] be truly human and righteous? Gods justice demands it: man has sinned, man must pay for his sin, but a sinner cannot pay for others. Why must He also be truly God? So that, by the power of His divinity, He might bear the weight of Gods anger in His humanity and earn for us and restore to us righteousness and life. So then, at the same time Jesus continued to be fully God. His Person is the stumbling block for many, resulting in heresies which deny the full essence of Jesus as both fully God and fully man. His Being is totally unique, there is nothing like it; one cannot compare it with anything analogous within the created realm. Mans fallen mind cannot comprehend and explain it ultimately. It is taken on by faith and this faith is a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8). The Man Jesus Christ is also Immanuel, God with us. But Jesus did not suffer as God. That would have been useless in terms of mans redemption. He must be man to be mans penal substitute. And as man He suffered severely. But in crucifying Him, evil men crucified the Lord of glory (Hebrews 2:16). All this happened in the predetermined counsel of God (Acts 2:23). The omniscient God Who knows the beginning from the end did not act capriciously, on feelings or emotions. Does this make God indifferent and mechanical? Far from it! The Scripture informs us, and the history of Gods people impresses on us, that God is full of mercy, love, and patience (cf. James 3:17; 1 John 4:8). He is also just (Deuteronomy 32:4). God is such eternally and demonstrates this in His creational dealings.

Man will seek to present a God Who reacts emotionally to distressing situations, sharing in the suffering; this makes Him appear more sympathetic somehow. However, what fallen man needs is not a suffering God, but a sovereign God. A suffering, emotionally reactive God is a helpless God, akin to the gods in Greek mythology, those gods made in mans image. A helpless God becomes a distressed, a frustrated God, a confused God. This is not the God of Scripture. The God of Scripture is He Who created the universe, Who defeated the realm of darkness through an all-controlling plan predetermined from eternity in which God the Son also became the Man Jesus Christ to set free those who were in bondage to the prince of darkness. Dr Herm Zandman 06/02/2012