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WT768 (2006):41-50

DIVINE IMPASSIBILITY ANDTHEPASSIONOF CHRISTINTHE BOOK OFHEBREWSKEVIN DEYOLFNG

I.IntroductionIt wouldbe anunderstatementtosaythat,atpresent,divineimpassibilityasadogma is not very fashionable (almost as out of fashion as the word dogtna

itself).ThedoctrinethatsaysGoddoesnot sufferhasahnostcompletely lostitshegemonicstatus, while the belief that God can, indeed must, suffer has nowtaken itsplace. From lectern to pulpit to hospitalbed itis now commonplacetoassumethat God feels ourpain, weepswith those whoweep, and in mostways hurts as much as wehurt. H.M .Relton's statement in 1917that thereare many indicationsthatthe doctrineofthesuffering of Godis going to playaveryprominent part in the theology of the age in which welive looks excep-tionallyprescient. The nature of God has been reevaluated so that what wasonce axiomatichasnowbeenaxed.AsGoetzputs it, Theage-olddogma thatGod is impassibleandimm utable,incapableof suffering,isformanyno longertenable. *In aphrase,impassibilityhas become passe.

Whysuch a stark turnaround? Why has the ancient theopjischite heresythat God suffers . . . , in fact, become the new orthodoxy? ^ Many reasonsKevin DeToungis thesenior pastorof University Reformed Churchin astLansing Mich.

' For the purposes of this article, the terms passibility and impassibility strictly refer to whetheror not God suffers. According toODCC impassibility rejects external passibility (that God can beacted upon from without), internal passibility (that God cjui change within), and sensational passi-bility (that God can have feelings of pleasure or pjun caused by another). This is in its entirety areasonable definition, although I will be focusing mainly on God's sensational impassibility as itpertains to suffering See Thomas Weinandy,Does God Suffer? (Notre Dame, Ind,: University ofNotre Dame Press, 2000), 38-39.

^E.g., in an interview withModem Refirmadon Nicholas Wolterstorff was asked, What wouldyou say to a parent who has just lost her daughter in an apparently meaningless tragedy and believesthat the only thing she can hold onto is the conviction that God is not a victim along with her? Heresponded, I would say to her that though God is as much grieved by the death of her daughter assheis,Godisnot a victim. I thinkwehave to have the Christian courage to say forthrightly that things

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4 2 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

could be given: culturally, the renewed emphasis on feelings; intellectually, thepreference for the dy na m ic over the sta dc ; historically, the (just now real-ized?) pejoradve infiuence Hellenism is supposed to have had on early Chris-danity; or experiendally, the intensity of the problem of pain and evil in thiscentury. But theologically, four m ain reasons are usually pu t forward. T he firstargument holds that a suffering God is the only possible theodicy, not as anexplanadon of suffering, mind you, but as a protest against it. The second rea-son is closely related to the fu-st. God is love, and if God is love he must enterinto the pain of his creaturesanything less would be diabolical.^ Third, thebiblical descripdon of God in his passions must be taken at full face value andnot diminished as anthropopathic language.' All of the arguments in favor ofpassibility deserve fuU and h onest explorad on, b ut my con cern is only with thefourth reason. According to reason n um ber four, when Jesus C hristthe full-ness of the G od head in bodily form suffered, he showed the true sufferingnature of G odhimself. In otherwords,the suffering Christ manifested our suf-fering God.

I I . S u f f e r i n g ofC hr i s t,S u f f e r i n g of G o d ?Jurge n M oltmann asks the quesdon, W ha t does the cross of Jesus mean for

God himself ? s A t its most basic level, reason nu m be r four for divine passibilitysays that what the cross meant for esusit means for G od, because he w ho hasseen Jesus has seen Go d.' W hen C hrist is called the image of the invisible God(Col1:15 ,die implicadon isthat t h i sb .God, and God islike

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argue for passibility, the suffering of Christ must entail the suffering of God,M oltm ann answers his own question when he rhetorically asks: How canChristian faith understand Christ's passion as being the revelation of God, ifthe deity cannot suffer? '* For Moltmann and most modern theologians theansweris,it cannot, God does in fact suffer,

III, T h e Incarnat ion: T he Impass i b l eSu f fers^^Aswe turn m ore fully to the question of impassibility, let me exp lain where Iam com ing from and where I am going. I do no t believe God suffers. While theclassic view m ay need some tweaking at certainpoints,the passibility position is

fraught w ith too many theological problem s and does not adequately satisfy thebiblical data, I realize this statement requ ires no small amount of justification,but I mention it not in order to convince anyone, only to be honest about mytheological convictions. That's where I am coming from. Where I am goingrelates to the Christological a rgum ent for d ivine passibility given above (reasonno, 4), By looking at Hebrews, especially 2:5-18, I hope to show that whileChrist clearly suffered, God did not. In other words, I mean to demonstratefrom Hebrews that God remains impassible even though the Impassible suf-fered in Christ,1, J e s u sChrist OurExa l t e d M a n o fSorrows {Heb 2:5-9

Having proclaimed the superiority cind finality of Jesus Christ in ch, 1, thewriter to the H ebrews, in ch, 2, turns our attention to the hum iliation and exal-tation of Jesus in the incarnation. The writer gives a Christological reading ofPs 8 (LXX),'6 so that the glory the Psalmist gives to man (w, 6-7) is reinter-preted and reapplied to Jesus (w, 8-9), He nce, though not yet fully realized,everythingisalready in subjection to the Son, who as man , though made lowertha n the angels for atime,has now been exalted by God because of his sufferingand sorrow (w. 8-9),

' * M o l t m a n n , T r i n i t y a n dtheK i n g do m , 2 1 ,'^ This oft-quoted phrase ( the impassible suffers ) comes originally from Cyril of Alexandria,

T he whole title comes from the chapter of the same nam e in Weinandy,Does GodS u f f e r ?, 172-213.'^ Som e scholars object to the writer's use of Ps 8 which app ears m ore theological tha n exegeti-

cal, but his use is quite a ppro priate. Ps 8 at least in some sense harkens back to the first m an Ad amand his dominion over the earth (Gen1:26 .For the writer to cormect this psalm w ith the last Adam ,who is so often called the Son of M an (cf Ps 8:4), is perfectly re asonable, especially in light of theoverall teachin g of the N T (e.g., Phil2:6-11;Mark1:11 ,w hich frequently applies the psalm to Jesusin conjunction w ith Ps 110:1 (Ma tt 21:16; Co r 15:27; Eph 1:22 ,See E F. Bruce, T h e E p i s t kto the

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4 4 WESTNflNSTER THEOLOGICAL JOURNALThis theologically rich passage'^ directs us toward two points crucial in our

understanding of how Jesus Ch rist can suffer while Go d does no t. First, we seethat the incarnation involved some sort of ch an ge . Christ, the exact represen-tation of Go d, was mad e for a little while lower'^ th an the angels. T he Son ofG od underw ent, a t the very least, a change of status, descending fromthehighestheavens to the ea rth as a ma n lower than the angels. So for Lee to hold that theincarnation is notthetransformation ofdivineinto hum an, hut the perfect parti-cipation of divine path os in hu m an existence to form a un ity is misleading.2Granted,theincarnationisnot a transformation p erse,hu t what Leehas inmindis that the work of Christ manifested in time what had been going on in GodeternaJly.2' Th ose who holdtopassihility then conclude alongthese linesthat thehum iliation, suffering, and death we see in Jesus can he included in the divineidentity.22 But Heh 2:9 argues against this interpretation. The point isnotthatbecause Christ is the image of God and Christ felt suffering and humiliation,Go d inherently experiences the sam e,but thatthe Son whoisthe exact radianceof G od's glory amazinglywasmad e for a little while lower th an the angels (Heh1:3; 2:9). H ere and inPhil2the forceisnot one of inclusion hut contrast, not tha tG od suffers as Jesus did, hut that Jesus, though Go d, was doing all these u n-Godlike things as a m an.N ot every thing Jesus did or felt revealed the character of Go d. For a dme,the Son of God did all sorts of things he had never done hefore (like eat andsleep) which did not hear witness to the eternal nature of God. Christ sufferednot to reveal suffering in God ; rather, Go d had to he ma de a little lower than theangels so that he could suffer. M uch is m ad e of the fact tha t Christ is crowned

' It is also a passage rich with textual problems in w . 7, 8, and 9. Th e variant reading inv.9 isthe only one of the three that is really potentially im por tant . Thankfully, the textual evidence is notstrong in quantity or quality (no early papyri or uncials) for x

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with glory and honor because he suffered,^^ but the reason his suffering is sohighly exaltedisbecause he was doing what God as God had not and could notdo,namely, suffer.Second , we see tha t Jesus truly suffered an d died (v, 9), Som etimes it is sug-gested thattoholdtoimpassibility one must assert that Ch rist did no t really suffer.This,as Sarot points out, smacks of docetism, I gladly acknowledge, Ch rist wasa real ma n an d had a real hum an body, capab le of feeling and suffering, ^* But,it may be asked, how can one then argue that he w ho is impassible as God wastruly passible as man ?^^ Does n't the problem of C hrist's sufferings necessitatedivine passibility?^^ Christ suffered, Christ was God, Therefore God suffered.Or, to refine it a bit, if in the incarnation Christ's two naturesthe one divinean d of the sam e substance with the Father, the o ther human^were join ed inhypostatic union in the Person of God's Son, how could the divine nature no texperience suffering?T he answerliesin Cyril'scommunicationof idioms.'^''Accordingtothe communi-cation of idioms (properties) what is predicated to the divine nature or to thehum an nature canbepredicated to the Son of G od, but whatispredicatedtotheSon c annot b e automatically predicatedtothe hum an or divine nature, and what

ispredicated to one nature cannot be predicated to theother 28This means thatifJesus'humem nature took a n ap, we cannot say the divine nature took a nap,bu t we can say the Person of the Son took a nap. When Jesus wept, Jesus trulywep t, but this weeping cannot be predicated of the divine nature as a matter ofcourse,2^ Otherwise, you have nonsensical statements about G od asGod dying^(which even Moltm ann wants to avoid^') and m an as a m an creating the cosmos

^^ E ,g . , Bauckham, GodCruafied 56ff. (us ing Phi l 2 :6-11) ; David Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection:An Examination of theGonceptof Perfection intheEpistleto theHebrews( G a m b r i d g e : G a m b r i d g e U n i v e r -sity Press, 1982), 54.

'* Sarot, Suffering of Ghrist, Suffering of God ?, 117.Th ou gh I disagree with his conclusionin this matter.

^^ Th om as Weinandy, Does Go d Suffer?, inFirst Things 117 (2001): 40 .^'^T h u s R i c h a r d B a u c k h a m , I n D e f e n c e o f Th e rucifiedGod in ThePowerandWeaknessofGod

(ed. Nigel M. de S. Gam eron; Edinbu rgh: Rutherford House, 1990), 110-11. Gf, Weinandy,Does GodSuffer?, 174ff.;M oltmann, rucifiedGod 232-35; Sarot, Suffering of

Ghrist, Suffering of G od ?, 114-15.^^ Galvin gives this definition: Th us , also, the S criptures speak of G hrist: they sometimes

attribute to h im w hat must be solely referred to his humanity, sometimes wh at belongs uniquely tohis divinity; and sometimes what embraces both na tures butfitsneither alone. And theysoearnestlyexpress this union of the two natu res that is in Ghrist as sometimes to interchang e the m. Th is figureof speech is called by the ancient writers 'the commu nicating of pro pe rties ' {Instituteso ftheChris-tian Religion[ed.JohnT.McN eil; trans. Ford Lewis Battles; 2vols.;LGG ; Philadelphia: WestminsterPress, 1960],1:482 83[2.14.1]),

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before he was bo rn. As W einandy notes, Itisthis unresolved tension tha t gavebirth to modern kenoticism, ^^T he key to Cyril's commun ication of idioms is that Jesus is one being, andisthat one being Jesus is the Son existing as a mzin,^^ Weinandy deserves to bequoted in full:Positively, yrUgrasped and explicitlystated,forthefirstime, thatthe attributes werepredicated not ofthenatures, but oftheperson,fortheIncarnationisnotthecompo-sitional union of natures but the person of the Son taking on anewmanner or modeofexistence.Because the incarnational becoming iskathhypostasin,according totheperson, it can actuallybesaid then that the person of the Son of Godistruly born,grieves, suffers and dies, not as God, but as man for that is now the new manner inwhich the Son of God actually exists. *

In o ther w ords, whatever Jesus did or felt he did as a man,^^ Wha tever can bepredicated to the Son of God must be predicated to him as a man,^^ How canJesus, the union of a divine and human nature, be tempted in every way (Heb4:15 when G od canno t be tempted (Jas1:13 ?Itisthe sam e way the Impassiblecan sufferas a m an . Thisiswhatweneed to hear, not tha t G od suffers with usas God, but that God as a ma n knew hum an p ain and anguish first hand and inthe same human mcuiner that we experience it,^'2, JesusChrist:Our Perfect rother {Heb2:10-17)

Having outlined the surprising path of suffering and death Jesus took, thewriter now delves into the matter more fully The ljtpejt;ev yap points to thewriter's purpose, namely, to describe why it was fitting that Christ should bem ade for a little while lower than the angels. Thu s, w , 10-17 are an elucidationof w, 5-9(esp,w,8-9 , 8trying to answer the question, W hy the incarn ation ?M ost broadly, we can say that the incarn ation was necessary to make Christperfect. B ut we needtobe careful tha t we do not understa ndthis asmoral perfec-tion or any other sort of perfection tha t wotold imply tha t the Son of Godwasinwant. Rathe r, being m ade perfect refers to C hrist's vocation, Peterson aptly sug-gests tha t xeXeimoai in 2:10 be rendered to qualify or to make completelyadequate, ^^ Accordingly, the incarnation was necessary so that Christ couldfully identify with his brothers (w, 11-12), partaking of their flesh and blood(v, 14), so that he might be vocationally qualified to serve before God as their' ^ V^cinandcy DoesGodSuffer?,1 8 5 .' ' Ibid., 191.

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merciful and faithful high priest (v.17).Likewise, Chris t's sufferings as a man inthe incarnation qualified him to sympathize with human suffering (v. 18).

Imp ortantly, then , for the writer of H ebrew s, the significance of C hrist's suf-ferings has noth ing to do with the suffering in the etern al he art of God * andeverything to do with perfecting Christ spa rt of the completion of the pro-cess of redemption. *' Christ endured this process of sanctification so that his bro the rs could be sanctified in him(v.11).As Kasem ann putit, Ch rist couldachieve com pletion only by way of suffering, for only in this way did he beco methe holy one of his own, and only in this way did the sanctified ones receive ashare in his completion. *2 O r to pu t it a different way,Chris t's sufferings werenot revelational but eschatological. The perfecting of Christ achieved, in timeand space, whatw snecessary for G od 's historical redemptiveplan,thatis,thatthe Son would become a full sharer in the sufferings and aU the limitations ofhumanity and so be qualified to lead m any sons to glory (v. 10).

Clearly then , as an eschatological fulfillment and not a show of divine passi-bility, the sufferings of Christ were unique insofar as their purposeto qualifyCh rist vocationally shigh priest^was unique. T herefo re, the Son of God knewno suffering prior to the incarnation, because prior to being made a little lowerthan the angels he was not completely adequate to serve as high priest. Andbecause the purpose ofhissufferings has now been realized (5:7-9),weknow tha tthe Son of Go d does not continue to suffer. Yet the logic tha t says if Jesus Christwas pcissible, God must be passible seems to demand (1) that if God has beensuffering throughout ill history, Christ was suffering throughout history, and(2) tha t if G od continues to be passible, Christ continues to be passible. Butneither statement can b e true, for (besides wha t has been said above) Heb rewsevidences that Christ has not been suffering repeatedly since the foundation ofthe world (9:26) and his experience of suffering an d deathw sa one-time, once-for-all occurrence (9:23-28; 10:12-14).There was a driving purpose in the suffering and death of Christ strongerthan just a show of solidarity with a suffering an d dying world.*^ Suffering itselfavails nothing for a fellow sufferer.** After all, it is not really the suffering weadm ire, but the degree of love which the suffering manifests. We are comforted

Bauckham, On ly the Suffering Go d, 11,*' Barnabas Lindars,TheTheologyo fthe Letter to the ebrews(Gam bridge: Cambridg e U niversity

Press, 1991), 40, E r n s t K a s e m a n n , Th e Wandering Peopleo f God An Investigation of theLettertothe Hebrews( t rans ,Roy A, Harrisville and Irving L, Sand berg; M inneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), 144.

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by lovean und erstandin g love an d a con quering love. We look to Christ forbo th. As we see inv.18, Christ is our sympathetic high priest who truly un der-stands hu m an suffering. A nd as we see in w . 14-15, the end of the suffering isthat Christ might not merely know human pain, but that in victorious love hemight destroy the devil an d deliver those who had been he ld in fearful bonda ge.Ultimately, Christ w as ma de like his brothers (including experiencing suffer-ing) so that he might make propitiation*^ for the sins of the people (2:16-17).Those whomissthis,miss the whole point of the inca rnation, n ot to mention thecross. Although M oltmanniscareful to state that the crossdealswith hum an suf-feringandhumaxiguilt, hisoverall emphasisisthat the universal experience ofthe crucified C hrist on Golgothaisonly really com prehe nded through the theod-icy question. *' As he puts it, T he history of Chr ist's sufferings belongs to thehistory of the sufferings of mankind, by virtue of the passionate love whichChrist manifests and reveals. *^ But Moltmann has failed to take seriously thesoteriological aspect of Jesu s' suffering. T he p roblem vnthM oltmann 's theologyof the cross is that it does not really dea l with the w hole point of the cross, theproblem of sin.*^ It is not enough that God simply identifies with human suf-fering in C hrist if he does not free us from h um an sinfulness as well. Peterson'ssiunm ary is apt: T h e suffering of C hrist in our writer's presentation [inHebrew s] is primarily rega rded in itsredemptiverole, Christ achieving for o thersthe salvation that they could not achieve for themselves(1:3;2:9,14-15, 17;5:9;9:12, 14, 15, 26, 28; 10:10, 12, 14, 19-20; 12:24; 13:12). 53 . JesusChrist:OurSympatheticHighPriest {Heb2:18

T h e Epistle to the H ebrews was written to a people in times of trial. No t onlywere they apparently on the verge of apostasy, they were also facing externalpressure and possible persecution.^' They were fleeing for refuge, looking forencou ragem ent and hope (6:18). The ir ha rd struggle with suffering involvedpublic reproa ch, affliction, im prisonment, an d the plunde ring of their pro perty(10:32-34). Th e writer even w arned that atsomepoint their struggle might com eto the point of shedding blood (12:4). W ha tismore, their Christian com mitmentonly marked them out forafreshexperience of suffering. ^ S while theprecisesetting of the epistle is unknow n, this muchisclear: the C hristian co mmu nity towho m Heb rews was w ritten was filled with confusion, struggle, and pain . Th e ESV has brough t back prop itiation, a fortuitous decision in my opinion. Gr ante d, the

deb ate over the e xact m ean ing of UAoKEofloi is endlessly d eba ted. But thankfully, the lowest com -mon denominator of understanding, that Jesus took care of the sins of his people, is all that is

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DIVINE IMP SSIBILITY 4 9

Amidst their suffering, the vmter holds out for them their consolation andexample. Is their hope th at God too suffers along with them ? For M oltma nn,if God does no t suffer in our torm en t, he is a de m on eind an annihilatingnothingness. ^^ But the biblical consolation for those who suffer isnot that Godsuffers right along with us, but that Jesus Christ ou rfaithful high priest sufferedas one of us.T he Person an d work of Jesus Christisthe answertoM oltmann 's charge that aGodwho isincapable of suffering isan indifferent, insensitive, uninvolved, andlovelessbeing.^* In o the rwords,the Biblelooksnot atsomesort of p resent divinepassibility for comfort, but goes instead to the past, to Christ's sufferings, thataccord ing to his ongoing sympathy we might have ho pe for the future (4:15).

According to Hebrews, the help we so desperately want comes from JesusChrist who alone is truly able to iid us in ou r suffering (2:18), because only theSon of God who was made like his brothers in every way is qualified to be ourhigh p riest (2:17-18). As Peterson argues, Ch rist did not suffer by tem ptations,but rather his sufferings were the source of temptation. Thus, it is because hehas had this experience of suffering which exerted tem ptation tha t he is able tounderstand our own suffering and temptation.*^ This is better than having afellow sufferer in God . Christ, because he suffered as a man , can now he lp us asthe exeJted O ne . T hu s perfected or qualified, he not only provides his broth erswith the promise of sharing in his glory, but also continues to provide them withthe necessary help to persevere in their calling and reach their heavenly destina-tion. 5s To claim, as most do , tha t the Son suffered as God mitigates the effectof his participa tion with us in truly hu m an suffering. Ironically, Weinandypoin ts out, those who advocate a suffering God, having locked suffering withinGod 's divine na ture , have actucdly locked God ou t of hum an suffering. ^'

W hile recognizing tha t Ch rist suffered so tha t he could sym pathetically relateto his followers, itiscrucial tha tweund erstand tha t believers are perfect by theperfecting of Ch rist and not the other way around. ^ T ha t is,we need to lookat our sufferings through Christ instead of looking at God through our suf-ferings.*^ For those in Christ, the experience of suffering h as been transformed. sC arl H enry wisely remarks, itisinto thewhyof Calvary th at we can now focusevery o the r forsjikenmeof hu m an existence. Soaswe share in the sufferings of

^^ Moltmann, rucifiedGod 274,^ Ibid., 222.' ^ P e te r s on ,Hebrews and Perfection, 6 5 ,^ Ibid., 73. Weinandy, D oes Go d Suffer?, 40,^ P e te r s on ,Hebrews and Perfectim,73 ,

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50 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL JOURNALChrist (Phil 3:10), we look to him no t as the revelation of divine passibility, bu tas the sympathetic one who shared in our hum anity a nd as the example of thesteadfastness we ought to exhibit in the midst of our own suffering (Heb 5:9;12:2ff).6'

I V onclusionThose who argue that God suffers make many strong points in their favor.O n the face of it, one of the most persuasive argu me nts is the one based on thesufferings of Christ. If Jesus Christ, very God of very God, suffered, how canwe avoid the conclusion that God suffers? I have Jirgued that in light ofHebrews, especially Heb 2:5-18, this argument does not hold.T h e passibility of Go d can no t be assumed from the passibility of C hrist, firstof all, because the natu re of the incarn ation implied some sort of cha ng e inthis case a temp orary change of status (being mad e for a little while lower tha nthe angels)^whatwesee in JesuswiUnot equal to whatwesee in Go d. Th e Sonof G od took on hum an flesh and blood to do that which he could not do as Go d,namely, suffer.Second, according to Cyril's communication of idioms, the suffering thatJesus experienced cannot be predicated to his divine nature. Instead, we must

understand that the Son of Go d in the incarnation was born , lived, and died asa man.Third, Christ's sufferings were not revelational but eschatalogical. His suf-ferings tell us nothing about the eternal suffering heart of God and everythingabout the completion of the plan of salvation. The Son of God needed to beperfected through sufferings so that he migh t be qualified as our b roth er to beou r faithful high priest. In this role, his conquering love destroys the devil, setsthe captives free, and makes atonem ent for sin.Fourth, as one ac qua inted w ith hum an suffering, Jesus Christ can sympathizewithusin our own suffering.AsChristianswelook notinthesky toa passible G odfor comfort, but in history to the suffering servant. God is not distant, aloof orinsensitive to our suffering. H e loved us enough to send his Son to be like one of

us,and he loves us enough to come n ear to us in the person of Jesus Christ, theauthor and perfecter of our faith.

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