WIJ6S (2006): 41-50 DIVINE IMPASSIBILITY AND THE PASSION OF CHRIST IN THE BOOK OF HEBREWS KEVIN DEYOUNG I. Introduction It would be an understatement to say that, at present, divine impassibility as a dogma is not very fashionable (almost as out of fashion as the word dogma itself). The doctrine that says God does not suffer has almost completely lost its hegemonic status, while the belief that God can, indeed must, suffer has now taken its place.l From lectern to pulpit to hospital bed it is now commonplace to assume that "God feels our pain," "weeps with those who weep," and in most ways "hurts as much as we hurt."2 H. M. Relton's statement in 1917 that "there are many indications that the doctrine of the suffering of God is going to play a very prominent part in the theology of the age in which we live" looks excep­ tionally prescient.3 The nature of God has been reevaluated so that what was once axiomatic has now been axed. As Goetz puts it, "The age-old dogma that God is impassible and immutable, incapable of suffering, is for many no longer tenable."4 In a phrase, impassibility has become passé. Why such a stark turnaround? Why has "the ancient theopaschite heresy that God suffers ..., in fact, become the new orthodoxy?"5 Many reasons Kevin DeYoung is the senior pastor of University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Mich. 1 For the purposes of this article, the terms passibility and impassibility strictly refer to whether or not God suffers. According to ODCC, impassibility rejects external passibility (that God can be acted upon from without), internal passibility (that God can change within), and sensational passi­ bility (that God can have feelings of pleasure or pain caused by another). This is in its entirety a reasonable definition, although I will be focusing mainly on God's sensational impassibility as it pertains to suffering. See Thomas Weinandy, Does God Suffer? (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000), 38-39. 2 E.g:, in an interview with Modern Reformation, Nicholas Wolterstorff was asked, "What would you say to a parent who has just lost her daughter in an apparently meaningless tragedy and believes that the only thing she can hold onto is the conviction that God is not a victim along with her?" He responded, "I would say to her that though God is as much grieved by the death of her daughter as she is, God is not a victim. I think we have to have the Christian courage to say forthrightly that things have gone awry in the world; things are not as God wants them to be." After the death of his son, Eric, Wolterstorff, who had already been questioning impassibility theoretically, found the doctrine "impossible to accept" and "grotesque." Modern Reformation 8, no. 5 (1999): 45-47. 3 Quoted in Richard Bauckham, " Only the Suffering God Can Help': Divine Passibility in Modern Theology," Them 9 (1984): 6. 4 Ronald Goetz, "The Suffering God: The Rise of a New Orthodoxy," ChrCent 103 (1986): 385. 5 Ibid. 41 42 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL could be given: culturally, the renewed emphasis on feelings; intellectually, the preference for the "dynamic" over the "static"; historically, the (just now real­ ized?) pejorative influence Hellenism is supposed to have had on early Chris­ tianity; or experientially, the intensity of the problem of pain and evil in this century. But theologically, four main reasons are usually put forward. The first argument holds that a suffering God is the only possible theodicy, not as an explanation of suffering, mind you, but as a protest against it. The second rea­ son is closely related to the first. God is love, and if God is love he must enter into the pain of his creatures—anything less would be diabolical.6 Third, the biblical description of God in his passions must be taken at full face value and not diminished as anthropopathic language.7 All of the arguments in favor of passibility deserve full and honest exploration, but my concern is only with the fourth reason. According to reason number four, when Jesus Christ—the full­ ness of the Godhead in bodily form—suffered, he showed the true suffering nature of God himself.8 In other words, the suffering Christ manifested our suf­ fering God. II. Suffering of Christy Suffering of God? Jürgen Moltmann asks the question, "What does the cross of Jesus mean for God himself?"9 At its most basic level, reason number four for divine passibility says that what the cross meant for Jesus it means for God, because he who has seen Jesus has seen God.10 When Christ is called the image of the invisible God (Col 1:15), the implication is that "this is God, and God is like ¿Aw."11 So, "identi­ fying God with Jesus leads ultimately to the conclusion that what Jesus experi­ enced in the depths of his anguish was experienced by God himself.... The cross is nothing less than the suffering of God himself."12 Lee speaks for many when he says: "What the true God in Christ wills, thinks, and feels is also what the true man in Christ wills, thinks, and feels. 'Whatever Jesus was or did, in His life, in His teaching, in His Cross and passion, in His resurrection and ascension and exaltation, it is really God that did it in Jesus.5 "13 According to those who 6 See, e. g., Jung Young Lee, God Suffers for Us: A Systematic Inquiry into a Concept ofDvmne Pasnbility (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974); Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God (1974; repr., Minneapo­ lis: Fortress Press, 1993); and Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981). 7 See Abraham Heschel's seminal work The Prophets (New York: Harper & Row, 1962). For a fresh understanding of Heschel see Weinandy, Does God Suffer?, 64-68. 8 With the exception of argument no. 3, these reasons are found in Marcel Sarot's helpful article "Suffering of Christ, Suffering of God?," Theology 95 (1992): 113-19. 9 Moltmann, CruafiedGod, 201. 10 Charles Ohlrich, The Suffering God: Hope and Comfort for Those Who Hurt (Downers Grove: Inter- Varsity Press, 1982), 68. 11 Moltmann, CruafiedGod, 205. 12 Richard Rice, "Biblical Support for a New Perspective," in The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God (ed. Clark Pinnock et al.; Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 46. 13 Lee, God Suffers fir Us, 54. The second sentence in the quotation Lee quotes from Donald M. Baillie, God Was m Christ (New York: Scribner's, 1948), 67. DIVINE IMPASSIBILITY 43 argue for passibility, the suffering of Christ must entail the suffering of God. Moltmann answers his own question when he rhetorically asks: "How can Christian faith understand Christ's passion as being the revelation of God, if the deity cannot suffer?"14 For Moltmann and most modern theologians the answer is, it cannot. God does in fact suffer. III. The Incarnation: The Impassible Suffers15 As we turn more fully to the question of impassibility, let me explain where I am coming from and where I am going. I do not believe God suffers. While the classic view may need some tweaking at certain points, the passibility position is fraught with too many theological problems and does not adequately satisfy the biblical data. I realize this statement requires no small amount of justification, but I mention it not in order to convince anyone, only to be honest about my theological convictions. That's where I am coming from. Where I am going relates to the Christological argument for divine passibility given above (reason no. 4). By looking at Hebrews, especially 2:5-18, I hope to show that while Christ clearly suffered, God did not. In other words, I mean to demonstrate from Hebrews that God remains impassible even though the Impassible suf­ fered in Christ. 1. Jesus Christ: Our Exalted Man of Sorrows {Heb 2:5-9) Having proclaimed the superiority and finality of Jesus Christ in ch. 1, the writer to the Hebrews, in ch. 2, turns our attention to the humiliation and exal­ tation of Jesus in the incarnation. The writer gives a Christological reading of Ps 8 (LXX),16 so that the glory the Psalmist gives to man (w. 6-7) is reinter­ preted and reapplied to Jesus (w. 8-9).17 Hence, though not yet fully realized, everything is already in subjection to the Son, who as man, though made lower than the angels for a time, has now been exalted by God because of his suffering and sorrow (w. 8-9). 14 Moltmann, Trinity and the Kingdom, 21. 15 This oft-quoted phrase ("the impassible suffers") comes originally from Cyril of Alexandria. The whole title comes from the chapter of the same name in Weinandy, Does God Suffer?, 172-213. 16 Some scholars object to the writer's use of Ps 8 which appears more theological than exegeti- cal, but his use is quite appropriate. Ps 8 at least in some sense harkens back to the first man Adam and his dominion over the earth (Gen 1:26). For the writer to connect this psalm with the last Adam, who is so often called the Son of Man (cf. Ps 8:4), is perfectly reasonable, especially in light of the overall teaching of the NT (e.g:, Phil 2:6-11 ; Mark 1:11), which frequently applies the psalm to Jesus in conjunction with Ps 110:1 (Matt 21:16; 1 Cor 15:27; Eph 1:22).