This message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. At the end, we will give information about how to contact us to receive a copy of this or other messages. Well, let's pray together. Father, we thank you for your astounding love for us. Father, we know that we have not earned it. We do not deserve it. but you love us. Father, there is just so much mystery in the reality that you, the holy God, would look at us, your fallen rebel creation, and yet still love us and love us in such a way that you would give your only begotten son. Father, we pray for your help this afternoon. We pray that as we Look at your word, you'd give us insight and understanding. We truly thank you for your word. We thank you it's forever settled in heaven. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God abides forever. We pray that you would feed us on your word and sanctify us in the truth. Thy word is truth. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, I don't have time to do any kind of thorough review from this morning, but let me just say, let me just say a few things briefly. One, the Tozer quote, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. I hope that you're absolutely convinced of that. We looked then at four preliminary biblical considerations for how we think about God. How we think about God is so crucial and of course why we're looking at this is because the Genesis text that tells us that God regretted that he made man and that he was grieved that he made man. And so the biblical Considerations were one, when the Bible speaks about God, it's always speaking about the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Number two, the God of the Bible is both transcendent and imminent. By transcendent, I mean wholly other than us. He is completely separate from his creation. That's what it means for him to be holy. Not just sinless and morally perfect, that's a given. The idea of him being holy is that he is transcendent above his creation. There is a fundamental creator-creation distinction. By the way, the erasing of that distinction is the source of all kinds of mischief in the world. But God's also imminent, that is, he's close to us, he's near us. The God who is wholly other than us is also the God who is near us, who walks with us, who answers prayer, who interacts with his creation. The Bible actually brings those truths together in many different passages. The third preliminary biblical consideration is that the God of the Bible is both, and we use this Latin expression, ase, the aseity of God, meaning God is completely independent from his creation. He exists from himself. This is what it means actually for God to be God. If he did not exist from himself, he would somehow exist from something else, be dependent on something else, therefore would no longer be God. So the God of the Bible is both assay or independent and also relational or covenantal. That is, not only is God self-sufficient and independent, thus sovereign, unchanging, immutable, so forth, but he is also profoundly Relational. Profoundly covenantal. He walks with Adam in the garden. He hears our prayers. He's near the brokenhearted. He is the God who really sees. And then the fourth consideration is this, that there is actually a priority in these things, transcendence, eminence, independence, relational, covenantal relationship, so forth. There is actually a priority in these things in how we interpret the Bible. So the priority is always, when we're interpreting the Bible, the priority is always on God as he is in himself, and then in light of that, secondarily, how God relates to his creation. In other words, when we come to texts that seem mysterious and difficult to us, we start from the top down, not from the bottom up. In other words, we consider who God is in his essence as he is in himself, not as how he relates to his creation first and foremost. We illustrated this with God asking Adam, where are you? God telling Abraham not to kill Isaac because now I know that you fear God. and yet then looking at the fact that God is perfect in knowledge, God knows all things, past, present, future, actual, possible. God actually is comprehensive in what he knows, and so if God's comprehensive in what he knows, and yet this text tells us, now I know that you fear God, how do we understand that? We start with God as he is, and then work to as he relates to his creation. Now, that brought us to the first question, does God change his mind? And, of course, that comes right from the Genesis 6 text. God regretted that he made man. God was sorry that he made man. There are other passages that we looked at. The Bible also says not only are there times where it says God changes his mind, but the Bible also repeatedly says that God does not change. In fact, a text that we didn't refer to, James chapter 1 and verse 17, it says actually that there's not even any variation or turning of shadow in God. In other words, the Bible teaches us that God is absolutely immutable. So how do we then take the idea that God apparently changes his mind, changes direction, can regret, can relent, and yet God does not change? And I suggested that we conclude that God's relenting is actually, first of all, it's always seen in relationship to prayer or repentance, and relenting is actually a divine attribute. Jonah 4.2, Joel 2.13 and 14, Jeremiah 18.5 through 10. And so what God does is God actually does not change his mind in his essence, but it looks like for us that he changes his direction, but that change in direction is nothing less than absolute consistency with his own fundamental character, right? So if that seemed like a blur to you, it did to me, you can listen to the sermon from this morning. That brings us to the second question, and that is, does God have emotions? Now, in the Genesis text, it says in chapter six, verse six, that God was, this is the language, was grieved in his heart. That's the language. God was grieved in his heart. And then it repeats this twice. It says God was sorry or regretted that he had made man and the expression grieved in his heart and sorry that he made man actually are emotional words. They're words that capture the affection, the affection of grief, sorrow, regret. Now sometimes this theological question of does God have emotion is put in terms of does God suffer? Now I don't wanna get into too much of this part right now, but you have to understand this whole issue of does God suffer has always been an issue that's been existent throughout the history of the church, but in the 20th century, especially in light of the Holocaust, this became a huge issue of does God actually suffer? Does God know what it is to suffer? The Westminster Confession of Faith, followed by our Baptist Confession of Faith, makes this comment, there is but only one living and true God who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions. Immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, holy, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable, most righteous will for his own glory, and so forth. And so the key part of the confessional statement is that God is without body, parts, or passions. Now, what this has looked like is that there are three very distinct views on this question of does God have emotions? And I'm sorry for the technical language, but this is the way that you communicate in systematic theology. I can't just like make up other words, all right? The first view would be the impassibilist. Now, I resent being called an impassibilist. although I've never been called one, so I don't know that I resent it that much, but the impassibilists, so think of the confession, without passions, okay? The impassibilists argue that God does not have emotions. Emotions in the Bible then, as they're attributed to God, would be called anthropopathisms. Now, an anthropomorphism is the idea of God's hand, God's eye, God's arm, God's heart, so forth. And so it's attributing a human form to God who does not have a body. It's a figure of speech. When we talk about the arm of God, we're talking about the power of God. When we talk about the hand of God, we're talking, let's say, about the activity of God. When we talk about the eye of God, we're not talking about God's actual optic organ. He doesn't have an optic organ, but he does see in the sense that he knows all things. And anthropomorphisms are absolutely true, but what this view of impassibility says is that all emotions are anthropopathisms. That is, human emotions that are attributed to God. In other words, there really are no divine emotions, this is just God condescending to us in language that we can understand. The rationale behind impassibility is this. God is eternal. God is absolutely above time. God exists outside of time. God is eternal. God is immutable. God does not change. God's eternal essence does not change. His character does not change. His will does not change. His dispositions do not change. God is transcendent. That is, God is actually so separate from his creation that he's not affected by his creation. This view goes back very, very long in church history. And is represented by all kinds of theologians that we would have deep respect for. The second view is the passibilist view. So impassibilist is without emotion. The passibilist view argues that God not only has emotions but he actually suffers with his creation. So for instance, Jurgen Moltmann has, relays this story that comes from a Holocaust survivor. And he paints this very dramatic picture. And there are three Jews in the concentration camp, two adults, one young person. The Nazis hang all three. The youngest, the boy, actually does not die right away, but actually struggles and suffers for at least 30 minutes before he finally dies. and somebody watching the execution cries, where was God? Where was God? Where was God? And Motman says that he realized that God was that boy suffering. Okay. So he's not detached. He actually is suffering with his creation. Now, I realize how utterly ridiculous this is to try to do this in an afternoon sermon, but let me just say that sometimes this view of passable-ism is linked with the ancient heresy of Patrapasianism, okay? Now, that happens to be related to the ancient heresy of modalism, which is sometimes called Sabellianism. Yeah, preach it. All right. Now, let me just say why this is important. This view, modalism or Sabellianism, by the way, still alive and well in like, for instance, the United Pentecostal Church, Jesus-only movements, it says that God actually exists in three modes. Okay? So in the Old Testament, he's the father. New Testament, he's the son. Now he's presently the spirit. So, of course, when Jesus is in the garden praying to the father, he's actually doing nothing more than praying to himself, right? So you've got these three successive modes. Well, the ancient heresy of patra, father, pasienism, suffering, passion, is the idea that it was actually the father who suffered on the cross. Now that was, in fact, an ancient heresy. Modalism is an ancient heresy that's still alive and well, but let me just say that this is fundamentally a Trinitarian error, and it is not the same as saying that God has emotions or affections. You might know that in my book, Feelings and Faith, I have an appendix, is God impassable? And in one of the reviews, I was accused of patrapossianism, which is just not true. That's a Trinitarian error. It's not the same as saying God has emotion, all right? The third view, this is the last one, so you know it's the right one. God is indeed impassable, but he is also impassioned. All right? God is in fact impassable, but he is also impassioned. He is impassable in the sense that he is not subject to suffering, nor is he subject to emotions like we are. But he does have in his essential character emotional capacities which are perfect and holy, and which are never involuntary or unexpected. You want me to say that again? Okay, so God is indeed impassable, but he is also impassioned. What we mean by that is God is not subject to suffering. When you and I suffer, we suffer because of things outside of us, outside of our control that impact us in a way where we have no choice but to suffer. God is impassable in that he is not subject to suffering. but he is impassioned in the sense that he does in fact have emotional capacity. And that emotional capacity, if you wanna call it divine emotivity, that's fine. That emotivity is perfect and holy and complete. And therefore it is never involuntary. Are your emotions sometimes involuntary? Oh yeah! Right? Involuntary, why? Something happens and boom, involuntarily you get a surge of anger or a surge of joy or maybe an overwhelming sense of melancholy or depression or whatever. That stuff happens to us in many ways involuntarily. Our emotions for us often unexpected. Yes, you don't put in your little iPhone, two o'clock, get happy. Unexpected. So here's what I'm saying. Although God has perfect, holy, just emotional capacity, his emotions are never involuntary or unexpected. In other words, he is always perfectly in control and when he exercises his emotions, he exercises them voluntarily, sovereignly, okay? Now, that's my position is the third one. I'm gonna show you why I think impassibility is wrong. Obviously, the idea of passability is has much more to do with process theology and open theism where God is more interdependent upon his creation. You cannot believe what we talked about this morning, God being transcendent and independent and believe that there is a sense in which God then ends up being interdependent upon his creation. So what's the scriptural data? Well, the scriptural data is overwhelming but in fairness to impassibilists, it may be overwhelming in the same way that anthropomorphisms are overwhelming. In other words, the use of God's hand, God's eye, God's arm is used hundreds of times in the Bible and nobody's gonna say, because you have so many anthropopathisms, obviously God does have an eye, God does have five digits, God does have a bicep, a tricep and so forth. Okay? But the sheer fact that we have literally hundreds and hundreds of examples of God's emotion should actually cause us to pause. The data is absolutely vast. I'm not gonna rehearse all of it. It's a foundational part of feelings and faith. but we know, for instance, God grieves. Not just Genesis 6-6, but we have God grieving, God experiencing pain throughout the scriptures. And in fact, even think about the way Paul puts this in Ephesians 4-30, do not grieve, the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. God rejoices, God delights, okay? To rejoice and to delight are emotive words, all right? They are words that capture and express affection. And of course, God delights in his son, Isaiah 42. God delights in his people. And then he uses an illustration, Isaiah 62, as a great groom rejoices over his bride, so I rejoice over my people. So there's a comparison, quite a zealous comparison. God rejoices over us with loud singing, Zephaniah 3, 17. God also is angry. God is angry with the wicked every day. Psalm 711, God actually has holy hatred. There are six things which the Lord hates, seven which are an abomination to him. God has wrath. I said to that generation, in my wrath, you will not enter into my rest. Psalm 9510, and the list could go on and on. God is also compassionate. So Jason just preached Psalm 103 not that long ago. How does God illustrate his compassion? He is compassionate towards us like what? Like a father is compassionate for his children. And so the idea of tenderness, the idea of emotion, the idea of having your heart moved. And in fact, in one of the most moving passages on God's, Compassion is when he can when he says to his people. I will not forget you a Mother may forget her child and a nursing mother may forget her infant But I will never forget you Oh Israel your name is inscribed upon my hand now I just simply ask, why does God communicate that way? It is because the God of the Bible is a God of great and perfect and holy emotion. And when he describes, he wants us to understand that his compassion towards us, how likely is it that a mother's going to forget her child? Be like Ashley just heading home and leaving Calvin in the utility closet. It's not gonna happen. What about a nursing mother? You think she's gonna forget that baby? She's not gonna forget that baby, especially when her milk comes in, right? She's not gonna forget that baby. God says, you know what, they might forget, but my love, my compassion, my feeling towards you surpasses that of even the most tenderest human bond. God is loving, I have loved you with an everlasting love, Jeremiah 31, three, and have drawn you with cords of kindness. One of the great new covenant passages, God actually says that I'm going to, Jeremiah 32, 39 to 41, I'm gonna do you good, and then this is the way God puts it, with all of my heart and all of my soul. So I don't think that God has a beating organ called a heart or an immaterial part called a soul, but he's capturing that he actually has a love for us which encompasses the totality of his divine nature. So I would say that the Bible actually teaches that God has emotions, God has feelings, God has affections. And in fact, I would say that all of those things are a part of God's essence. So that means that by necessity, His anger is always holy anger. His love is always holy love. His compassion is always holy compassion. And so it is a part of his divine essence, perfect, independent in themselves, and yet what God does is God willingly engages in voluntary reaction to his creation. So that's the key part, is what God does with his perfect emotion is he actually voluntarily reacts to his creation. Now that's one of the things that makes it hard for us to wrap our heads around because we don't just choose voluntarily to engage the emotions, right? Although at times we're called to do that, right? And so we need God's help. So when Paul says you're to rejoice with those who rejoice, God's commanding you how you need to feel, right? You need to rejoice, mourn with those who mourn, weep with those who weep, so forth. So, Does God, for instance, suffer grief as his son dies on the cross? And the answer is, of course. Does God experience delight as his son suffers on the cross? You better believe he does. Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 10 says that the Lord was pleased, the Lord took delight to crush If he would render his soul as a guilt offering. Now you begin to see, take for instance the death of Christ. When did God plan the death of Christ? In eternity past. the death of Christ was predetermined to happen, right? Acts 2.23, the death of Christ was predetermined according to the perfect foreknowledge of God. And yet, and yet, although perfectly decreed, although sovereignly planned, yet while it is happening, the God of heaven is not only taking delight in it as it happens, because of what he is accomplishing, but his heart is also grieving because he's pouring out his wrath, which is also emotional, on his only begotten son. And so, the God who has decreed that death would take place for our sins is not emotionally impervious to the suffering of that death. Now I am by no means saying that it was the Father who was suffering on the cross in a modalistic way. You know sometimes we actually make that mistake when we pray. I've talked to our elders and deacons many times about offering prayer at the Lord's Supper. It is not nitpicking to say you don't thank the Father for dying on the cross for us. Some of you are like, what's the big deal? It's a huge deal. It was the Son, it was the incarnate Son who died on the cross for us. We can certainly thank the Father for sending the Son to die for us, but we don't thank the Father for dying on the cross for us. It wasn't the Father who died on the cross for us, it was the Son, okay? But within the person of the Godhead, it is certainly appropriate and right to say that the Father was grieved and suffered as He watched His Son suffer, because if anybody knows what the wrath of God is like, it's God Himself. And in fact, God knew better than anybody else what was happening on the cross. You and I still don't have a clue. You and I still don't understand the depth of actually what was happening when Jesus cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You and I don't plumb the depths of how in the world the second person of the Godhead, the eternal son, can actually have a sense in which he is separated from the father. That's a mystery. But God the Father knew exactly what was happening at every moment of the suffering of Jesus on the cross and therefore it is safe to say that the Father who eternally, sovereignly, immutably decreed that the Son would die for our sins is also the God who actually grieves at his Son's death. I would say that the very same thing is true of the creation of man and of his sin and of the flood. Did God create, let's just ask it this way, did God create, first of all, with the full knowledge of Adam's rebellion? Yes. Did God create with the full knowledge of the rebellion of the human race? Absolutely. And does God create with the full knowledge that he's going to flood the earth? Yes. Back up, let's ask again. Does God in an eternal sense decree the fall of Adam? Yes. Does God decree the fall of the human race? Yes. Does God decree the flood? Yes. And what I'm saying to you is that the God who has eternally and immutably willed that these things be is also the God who so voluntarily interacts with his creation that he grieves over their sin. So, Let me just read a few things to you. J.I. Packer. He says, impassibility is not impassivity, unconcern, or impersonal detachment in the face of creation. It's not insensitivity and indifference to the distresses of a fallen world. not inability or unwillingness to empathize with human pain and grief, but simply that God's experiences do not come upon him as ours come upon us, for his are foreknown, willed, and chosen by himself, and are not involuntary surprises forced on him from the outside apart from his own decision in the way that ours regularly are. Packer goes on, and this is from Knowing God, he says, God has no passions. This does not mean that he is unfeeling, impassive, or that there is nothing in him that corresponds to emotions and affections in us, but that whereas human passions, especially the painful ones, fear, grief, regret, despair, are in a sense passive and involuntary, being called forth and constrained by circumstances not under our control, the corresponding attitudes in God have the nature of deliberate voluntary choices and therefore are not of the same order as human passions at all. The great Princetonian theologian Charles Hodge says this, Now, if there was anybody that would be an impassibilist, I would have expected it to be Charles Hodge, but it's not the case. He says the schoolman is talking about medieval scholastic scholars, and often the philosophical theologians tell us that there's no feeling in God. This, they say, would imply passivity or susceptibility of impression from without, which it is assumed is incomparable with the nature of God. Here again, we have to choose between a mere philosophical speculation and the clear teaching of the Bible and of our own moral and religious nature. Love of necessity involves feeling, and if there's no feeling in God, there can be no love in God. Don Carson, speaking of reducing God's emotions to anthropopathism says, we cannot do this. The price is too heavy. You may then rest in God's sovereignty, but no, you can no longer rejoice in his love. You may rejoice in a linguistic expression that is accommodating some reality of which we cannot conceive. Couched in an anthropopathism in love, but come on, give me a break. Little different than Hodge, but I love that. What you can rejoice in is a linguistic expression that's an accommodation of some reality of which we cannot conceive couched in the anthropopathism called love. So when we consider God, God is a God of perfect and holy emotion. He is the God who is both transcendent and imminent. He is immutable in his nature, his attributes, his plan, his will, his truth, and yet he interacts with his changing creation in time and space. In one sense, he never changes his mind as his mind is the revelation of his essential self. but he does relent as a part of his unchanging nature as he responds to prayer and repentance and disobedience. He is not susceptible or vulnerable to emotions like us, but is perfect and holy in his emotions and voluntarily enters into our world and engages his emotions with his creation. Now, why am I convinced? of this vision of God. Why am I convinced that the flood, that the God who decreed man's sin and the flood grieves that he made man? Why am I convinced of that vision of God? I'm convinced of that vision of God primarily because of the Incarnation. What do we have in the Incarnation? You have the Eternal Son who becomes a human being And on the one hand is the human being that we all ought to be. Perfect humanity. But what else is the incarnate son? The incarnate son is also the perfect reflection of the father. So that Jesus Christ could say to his disciples in John 14, nine, when you've seen me, you've seen the father. Paul could call him the image of the invisible God. The writer to the Hebrews could call him the outshining, the effulgence of his glory, the exact representation of his nature. The Bible teaches us that Jesus Christ is the most perfect reflection of who God is. And so ultimately, you cannot know who God is and what he is like apart from the preeminent revelation of Jesus Christ in the incarnation. And as we look at Christ in In the incarnation, what do you have? You have the full panorama of emotion that is displaying not only perfect humanity, but it is also displaying the very heart of God. And so if this seems too big, if this seems too mysterious, if it seems too complex, then I say, good. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Because whenever we can neatly compartmentalize God and everything falls into its nice categories without our brains being stretched, then we can bet our bottom dollar that what we've just done is we've made God into a manageable deity and lost him as he is. He is always the God who is incomprehensible. The God who is beyond us. The God, as we try, Calvin put it like this, the finite, that's us, cannot comprehend the infinite. There is a chasm, there is a gap in which as we try to think about God, there will always be mystery, there will always be paradox, there will always be antinomy, and that is because we are not God. And so, blessed be God. who is the transcendent holy God, but yet the God who is near you every single day. Blessed be God who actually loves us. That's why we sang the songs we sang. How deep the Father's love for us. Not just some anthropopathism that's trying to conceptualize something that's inconceivable. Actually expressing the depth of the Father's love for you. the depth of the Father's mercy for you, the depth of the Father's heartfelt compassion for you. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you for the fact that it reveals you to us. That's why we have it. We pray We would accurately handle our Bibles and accurately understand you. But Father, we pray that you would prevent this from ever being a purely academic and theological exercise. Help us to realize that the great end of theology is not knowing theology, it's knowing you. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.