Divine Emotion

By George E. Meisinger

Chafer Theological Seminary

George E. Meisinger is dean of Chafer Theological Seminary, as well as teaching in the Old and New Testament departments. He received his B.A. from Biola University, a Th.M. in Old Testament Literature and Exegesis from Dallas Theological Seminary, and a D.Min. in Biblical Studies from Western Seminary, and presently pursues a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology. He also pastors Grace Church in Orange, California.

What does Scripture teach about God’s feelings, or emotions? The question is: “Does God have feeling as we humans experience emotion?” Some theologians teach the impassibility of God, which if true means that God does not have emotion, or passion. [1]

A Figure of Speech: Anthropomorphism

Let us back up a moment. It will help us understand what goes on here to recall the notion of anthropomorphism. An anthropomorphism holds that the Bible ascribes to God human, physical characteristics, which God does not in fact have.” [2] Anthropomorphisms seek to “humanize” God so that we may better understand what the Lord is like. For example, Scripture says God has:

• A finger (Deuteronomy 9:10);
• A hand (Exodus 3:20; Isaiah 66:2);
• An arm (Exodus 6:6; Deuteronomy 4:34; 5:15);
• An ear (Isaiah 37:17; Psalm 11:4).

Scripture also says that God comes and goes, though He is omnipresent, being everywhere at once. “Coming” and “going” are anthropomorphisms to communicate something of God’s activity (Genesis 11:5; Isaiah 64:1–2).

Such anthropomorphisms as these are unnumbered in the Bible. We should note that where Scripture ascribes physical members to God, it is not an assertion that God possesses these members, or a corporal body with its parts. Instead, these indications of physical members show that God is able to do precisely those things that are the functions of man’s physical parts. He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see (Psalm 94:9)? [3]

Theologians rightly conclude these are figures of speech (anthropomorphisms) because the Bible states that God’s nature is “Spirit.” He is without material substance. For example:

• God is Spirit (John 4:24),
• Moreover a spirit does not have flesh and bone (Luke 24:39).
• Paul mentions His invisible attributes (Romans 1:20).
• Or simply that God is invisible (Colossians 1:15; 1 Timothy 1:17).
• Thus, no one has seen God at any time (John 1:18; cp. Exodus 33:18–20).

Now hands, arms, fingers, and moving from place to place ascribe physical qualities to God, though He does not literally have physical characteristics, being Spirit. Thus, it is proper to call these things anthropomorphisms. By their use “God condescends to us, in order that we may rise to Him.” [4]

Anthropopathism: Another Figure of Speech?

So, what about those places that ascribe emotional qualities to God? When the Bible talks about God’s emotions, some call it an anthropopathism, which is to ascribe emotion to God. They say, though, that in fact He does not have feeling. [5]

Anthropo	+	Morphism
Man	+	Physical form
—and—
Anthropo	+	Pathism
Man	+	Passion (emotion)

There are often four reasons some theologians use to devise the notion of anthropopathism:

Reason #1: Some people reason that since God is not physical, He cannot have human feeling, or emotion. Yet, we must ask why say that Spirit cannot have emotion? Apart from clear revelation that says so (and none does), such a conclusion is a non sequitur, that is, it does not follow from the fact God is Spirit. In fact, in Job 7:11 we read of the distress of my spirit, which suggests that if spirit has emotion then it is reasonable to infer that Spirit has emotion. Yet, some theologians conclude as follows:

When we hear that God is angry, we ought not to imagine that there is any emotion in him, but ought rather to consider the mode of speech accommodated to our sense, God appearing to us like one inflamed and irritated whenever he exercises judgement. [6]

Reason #2: Others say that since so much of what we see emotionally in humans is negative, God could not be like that by having emotion. They suppose, therefore, that terminology speaking of divine emotion does not reflect real feeling in God, but only non-emotional attitudes, or disposition. However, although man distorts emotion into something less than perfect, this does not mean that God would or does.

Reason #3: The Westminster Confession of Faith uses a proof text (Acts 14:15) to establish the impassibility of God. [7] The text proves nothing of the kind. Paul compares himself with the men of Lystra saying that he is of “the same nature” (“same passion,” ὁμοιοπαθής) as they. By so doing he implies that all men are not of the same nature/passion as God. Contextually, Paul’s point is that God alone should be worshiped, not man. The passage says nothing either for or against the notion of divine emotion.

Reason #4: Others seek to draw a parallel between anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms. That is, since anthropomorphisms talk about physical characteristics in God that are not actually true of Him, so anthropopathisms talk about emotional characteristics in God that are not actually true of Him.

One popular preacher says this:

In planning the creation of mankind, God said, “Let us make mankind in our shadow-image according to our likeness,” Gen 1:26. When God said that, He could not have possibly been talking about emotion, since there is no evidence for emotion in the essence of God. [8]

Without validation regarding the absence of divine emotion, the statement cannot stand. Moreover, there is no analogy, or parallel, with anthropomorphisms except where one invents it. We have clear biblical justification for the notion of an anthropomorphism because the Bible says, God is Spirit, or invisible (references above). There is zero exegetical or theological justification for assigning God’s emotions to the status of a figure of speech, that is, anthropopathism. Thus, without such justification, we should take the statements of divine emotion at face value.

The following statement does not line up with what the Bible in fact says, but rather with what one speculates is the case, thus should not stand:

Why do theologians have such a predilection for assigning emotion to God? Because of failure to understand anthropopathic revelation of God in the word of God. [9]

We may conclude the four reasons above by saying that none holds water; none offers ground upon which to base a doctrine of impassibility: an emotionless God.

We may add that, if there is not emotion in God, then God’s appeals based on divine emotion are deceptive. For example, in Isaiah 1:2–4 God presents Himself as being in pain like a father who has rebellious sons. In Jeremiah 2 and 3 (as well as other passages like Ezekiel 16 and 23), He presents Himself as an emotionally wounded husband of an unfaithful wife. If He has no emotion about this, His appeal seems like a sham. [10]

Reasons for Seeing Genuine Emotion in God

Reason #1: The Lord’s experience with Israel in Old Testament times

His soul could no longer endure the misery of Israel (Judges 10:16; cp. Jeremiah 5:9, 29 [“Myself” =נַפְשֹׁו (napesu)]; 6:8; 15:1 [“My mind” = נַפְשִׁי (napeshi)]; Isaiah 42:1).

We could render Judges 10:16 with the personal pronoun: I could no longer endure the misery of Israel. However, the expression “His soul” is pregnant adding that the Lord was emotionally involved with Israel, something that we cannot explain away with the notion of an anthropopathism. The verse may stand as is: God experienced the emotion of grief at the suffering of His people, although they deserved it.

Nor, by the way, should one explain away this verse as an anthropomorphism. Why?—To understand the Lord’s “soul” as an anthropomorphism would be to use this figure of speech in a peculiar way. Anthropomorphism speaks of ascribing material characteristics to God, not immaterial. What is “soul” other than those capacities we usually define as mentality, volition, emotion, and perhaps conscience. There does not seem to be anything incongruous about saying God has a soul, especially when we consider that the Lord created man (who has an immaterial soul) in the image and likeness of God.

Isaiah says that God was afflicted, meaning emotionally distressed (in all their affliction He was afflicted, Isaiah 63:9). We find the same term in Job 7:11, where Job mentions the distress of my spirit. Emotional, not physical, distress is in view because God is not subject to whatever is physical in nature. In other words, when Israel hurt, the Lord hurt. When Israel suffered emotional distress, there was a corresponding emotional distress in God.

Here is another consideration. As regards God’s anger, it is not an eternal emotion. God is a happy God, which is His eternal disposition (1 Timothy 1:11). Before creation, He was only happy. After creation and before the fall (of Satan), He was only happy. After the devil’s fall, He became angry—angry at sin and rebellion. We may support real divine anger with passages like Isaiah 28:21 where the prophet refers to massive destruction as God’s unusual act. Judgment is unusual because it is not an eternal expression of His nature. Accordingly, He is susceptible to impression from without—sin makes Him angry (note also the present tense of is revealed in Romans 1:18). [11]

Reason #2: The Incarnation

Jesus Christ is the preeminent reference point for what God is like. John says:

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him (John 1:18).

The preceding verse is an overview of the Incarnation, of Jesus Christ’s time on earth. On an occasion during the Lord’s earthly ministry, during which He was declaring the Father, Philip made a request:

Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us (John 14:8).

Jesus’ answer is revealing:

He who has seen Me has seen the Father (John 14:9).

Note, additionally, what the author of Hebrews says:

God has in these last days spoken to us by His Son … who [is] the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person (Hebrews 1:1–3).

These passages say that as we observe Jesus Christ in the Gospels, we see something of what God is like. Jesus’ humanity is a perfect (though not infinite) reflector of God. What we observe in the humanity of Jesus reveals God Himself—except, of course, where Jesus manifests the normal and sinless limitations of humanity such as hunger and fatigue. However, Scripture does not exclude emotion from God. To the contrary, many passages ascribe emotion to God. Therefore, where we see emotion in Jesus Christ, it reflects divine emotion.

Some disagree.

Emotion related to the person of Jesus Christ is confined to His human nature in hypostatic union. There is no emotion in His divine nature, only in His human nature. When Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus, that was good emotion from His human nature. Because of the impeccability of Jesus Christ, He experienced only good emotion. While there is no emotion in the deity of Christ, there is perfect emotion in the humanity of Christ. [12]

One may contend that “there is no emotion in the deity of Christ”; to prove it one needs sound biblical evidence. An appeal to the hypostatic union (which is a true doctrine) and to the impeccability of Christ (which is also a true doctrine) does not prove anything either for or against divine emotion. To conclude that there is perfect emotion in the humanity of Christ is a true statement, but it says nothing for or against perfect emotion in the deity of Christ.

Specific examples of emotion in Jesus Christ:

• “Anger” when He drove the money changers out of the temple (Matthew 21:12),
• “Sorrow/tears” at Lazarus’ tomb and over the city of Jerusalem (John 11:35; Luke 19:41; cp. Matthew 23:37),
• “Comfort” that is resident in the Lord and which He shares with His people (2 Corinthians 1:3–4),
• “Joy,” which the Spirit specifically locates within the deity of Christ, and that sustained His humanity on the Cross (Hebrews 1:9; 12:2).

Remember that no man has seen God at any time, but Jesus Christ reveals Him and Jesus exhibits emotion. A 20th Century theologian points out that the notion God does not have emotion (impassibility) is not a biblical notion at all, but derives from the rags of Greek philosophy. [13]

Reason #3: God Suffered on the Cross

It was the righteousness of God that required Jesus Christ’s death for our sin. God’s love provided Jesus’ sacrifice. Now while Christ endured crucifixion, He gave us one of the clearest examples that God is capable of suffering, or emotion. We see this particularly in the Lord’s cry, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Note also He who did not spare (φείδομαι [pheidomai]) His own Son (Romans 8:32), which suggests that it was an emotionally painful sacrifice for the Father to deliver up His uniquely begotten Son for the sins of the world. Also see Genesis 22:16 where Abraham did not withhold (φείδομαι [pheidomai]) his son, Isaac. If we put ourselves in Abraham’s sandals for a moment, we can sense the emotional distress he endured at that moment.

Reason #4: God’s sympathy toward believers in the present Church Dispensation

We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:15).

“Sympathize” (συμπαθέω [sumpatheo]) means to share in someone’s feeling. In addition, the noun form (συμπαθής [sumpathes]) means to feel sympathy for someone (1 Peter 3.8). [14]

Other Manifestations of Divine Emotion

• “Anger” (Isaiah 1:14; Nahum 1:2),
• “Compassion” (Psalm 103:13),
• “Comfort” (Isaiah 57:6; Ezekiel 5:13),
• “Delight” (Deuteronomy 10:15),
• “Displeased” (Zechariah 1:15),
• “Grief” (Genesis 6:6; Psalm 78:40; cp. Ephesians 4:30),
• “Jealousy” (Exodus 20:5; Zechariah 1:14; James 4:5),
• “Laugh” of derision (Psalm 2:4; 37:13),
• “Love” (Deuteronomy 10:15),
• “Rejoicing” (Psalm 104:31; Isaiah 62:5).

Now let us note several penetrating insights from theologians of the last two centuries.

Insights from Notable Theologians

Insight from Charles Hodge

We are the children of God, and, therefore, we are like Him. We are, therefore, authorized to ascribe to Him all the attributes of our own nature as rational creatures, without limitation, and to an infinite degree. If we are like God, God is like us. This is the fundamental principle of all religion. This is the principle which Paul assumed in his address to the Athenians (Acts 17:29): “forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.” … If we are His children, He is our Father, whose image we bear, and of whose nature we partake. [15]

Accordingly, because we are in the “image of God” (Genesis 1:26; 1 Corinthians 11:7), we cannot dismiss the statements that ascribe emotion to God as anthropopathisms. The many statements about divine emotion have real correspondence in God Himself. [16] For example, God’s love includes genuine affection, but it is perfect—as He is perfect—and not subject to vacillation, extremes, or other human defects. No need exists to dispose of divine emotion because of human faults.

God’s love, along with all other manifestations of divine emotion, is subordinate to His righteousness, unchangeableness, and truthfulness. Thus, the Lord commands us to let our love abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment (Philippians 1:9).

Insight from Oliver Buswell

The schoolmen and often the philosophical theologians tell us that there is not feeling in God. This, they say, would imply passivity or susceptibility of impression from without, which, it is assumed, is incompatible with the nature of God … [But] such a view is in real contradiction to the representations of God in the Old Testament and … the New Testament…. here again we have to choose between a mere philosophical speculation and the clear testimony of the Bible, and of our own moral and religious nature. Love, of necessity, involves feeling, and if there be no feeling in God, there can be no love. 

If the word for love, agape, has been reduced by some to innocuous frigidity, frozen nothingness, what will they do with the word “compassionate feeling, oiktirmoi”? … “Blessed be the God and Father of all consolation, who hath consoled us upon every occasion of trouble so that we should be able to console those in every trouble through the consolation with which we consoled ourselves by God” (2 Cor. 1:3–4). Here God’s compassionate feelings are alleged as the grounds of His comforting us, as our compassionate feelings are to be the grounds of our comforting others in trouble. To this end we are exhorted, “As elect of God, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with the affections of compassionate feelings, splagchna oiktirmoi …” (Col. 3:12). As if to make double sure that we understand God’s attitude toward us as one of literal and not merely symbolical compassion and sympathy, the Scripture distinguishes between God’s act of mercy, implied in the verb eleeo, and God’s compassionate feelings, implied in the verb oikteiro. “I will show acts of mercy toward him whom I show acts of mercy, and I will have compassionate feelings toward him whom I have compassionate feelings” (Romans 9:15)…. 

Unless we wish to reduce the love of God to the frozen wastes of pure speculative abstraction, we should shake off the static ideology which has come into Christian theology from non-Biblical sources, and insist upon preaching the living God of intimate actual relationship with His people. God’s immutability is the absolutely perfect consistency of His character in His actual relationships, throughout history, with His finite creation. Does ever a sinner repent, there is always joy in the presence of the angels (Luke 15:7, 10). Does ever a child of God, “sealed” by the Spirit, fall into sin, the Holy Spirit is “grieved” (Ephesians 4:30). [17]

Insight from Henry Thiessen

Philosophers frequently deny feeling to God, saying that feeling implies passivity and susceptibility of impression from without, and that such a possibility is incompatible with the idea of the immutability of God. But immutability does not mean immobility. True love necessarily involves feeling, and if there be no feeling in God, then there is no love of God. [18]

Insight from the Westminster Theological Journal

Man is made as God’s image, created to imitate his Creator and Lord. The Bible clearly reveals a passionate God. I do not mean to deny the “impassibility” of God in its classic sense, namely, that God is never passive, never acted upon. Yet Scripture teaches that God is angry with the wicked every day, that he loves his people with an eternal love, dancing over them as a warrior over his bride, that he delights in the ways of the righteous. The incarnate Son cursed hypocritical Pharisees, overturned money-changers in the temple, shed tears at Bethany, sweat blood in Gethsemane, cried out in agony from the cross of Calvary—all for the joy that was set before him. Our God is no Stoic sage…. Christians should strive not for moderate passions, but for strong God-directed passions. [19]

Verses for Personal Application

• Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love (Romans 12:10).
• If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it (1 Corinthians 12:26).
• Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ also forgave you (Ephesians 4:32).

Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous (1 Peter 3:8).

As the sons of God by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, let us not assign these challenges to “innocuous frigidity, frozen nothingness,” or the “frozen wastes of speculative abstraction,” as Buswell puts it. As God is a God of perfect emotion and passion, so we should walk with godly affection and emotion in our relationships.

Notes

1. The Westminster Confession of Faith, for example, promotes this belief (see Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology [Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1994], 165).
2. See E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1968), 871–97, where he discusses anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms under the title “Anthropopatheia; or, Condescension.”
3. Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology (Dallas: Dallas Seminary Press, 1962), 1:181–82.
4. Chafer, 1:183.
5. “Human affections and feelings are attributed to God: Not that He has such feelings; but, in infinite condescension, He is thus spoken of in order to enable us to comprehend Him” (Bullinger, 882).
6. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 1, Chapter 17 (Logos Library System 2.1b, CD-ROM).
7. Grudem, 165–66.
8. R. B. Thieme, Jr., Bible Ministries, “Bible Doctrines on Computer Diskette.”
9. Thieme, Computer Diskette.
10. Suggested by Cliff Rapp, professor at CTS.
11. Ibid.
12. Thieme, Computer Diskette.
13. Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1985), 737.
14. Louw, Johannes P. and Nida, Eugene A., Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic Domains, (Logos Library System 2:1b, CD-ROM) (New York: United Bible Societies) 1988, 1989.
15. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. Reprint edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 1:339.
16. J. I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1973), 109, says that “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—specially 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.”
17. Oliver Buswell, A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971), 55–57.
18. Henry Thiessen, Lectures in Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 130–131.
19. Peter J. Leithart, “Stoic Elements in Calvin's Doctrine of the Christian Life: Part III: Christian Moderation” (WTJ, vol. 56, #1, Spring 1994) (Logos Library System 2.1b, CD-ROM).