The God Subject to His Subjects
You and I
“Cause I move You. That's right, I move You. Tell the world, tell those around you, yeah that's right. I move You. I move the King of the universe, that's right... We thank You that in the middle of COVID, in the middle of life, we move You.”
This song of prayer to God was chanted by Dave Ward, a leader at Bethel Church in Redding California. Ward, the worship team, and the audience sang about how God is moved by them, and, although this event is not my main focus for this article, it will serve as a jumping off point for us. Do we move God? Maybe we should phrase it like this: Do we actually cause God to love us, or cause Him to feel disappointed? Do we make God angry, or sad, or happy, or regretful? Or, on the other hand, is God stoic, or apathetic, or uncaring? When we suffer does God suffer with us? Can He suffer at all? What does all this have to do with you and I?
Divine Impassibility
Let me introduce you to an idea that used to be much more present in the Church, but lately has been forgotten. This is the attribute of God called ‘divine impassibility.’ To borrow a definition from Dr. Samuel Renihan, author of ‘God without Passions,’ impassibility is the idea that, “God does not experience emotional changes either from within— in other words He doesn’t change His emotions— or effected by His relationship to creation— things outside of Him don’t change God.” Passibility includes a number of ideas; the ability to experience emotional change, pain, regret. The word ‘passable’ comes from the Latin ‘pati’ which means ‘to undergo, to suffer, to experience.’ In this context, when I say ‘suffering’ I don’t only mean pain, though that’s included. Basically what I mean by ‘suffer’ is ‘the ability to be affected.’ Impassibility is the idea that God can’t be affected by anything, His emotions can’t be induced or provoked, He can’t be made to feel anything whether it’s because of something outside of Him or because He Himself decides to change His own emotions.
Is it Biblical?
Is this true though? Doesn’t the Bible talk about God as being affected by people, and having emotional changes? He regretted, or as some versions say, repented (Genesis 6:6, 1 Samuel 15:11), Israel ‘provoked Yahweh to wrath,’ (Deuteronomy 9:7–8), and, after seeing Nineveh’s repentance, God relented from His judgment (Jonah 3:10). However, the Bible also speaks of God as not being affected by creation and not changing His emotions. He does not repent, relent, or regret (Numbers 23:19–20, 1 Samuel 15:29); He does not have wrath (Isaiah 27:4), or simply, He does not change at all (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17). How do we reconcile these?
Let’s add in another set of verses. The Bible also describes God in a way that makes it impossible for Him to suffer or have emotional changes. He is described as utterly distinct from His creation (Genesis 1:1, Psalm 50:21) and independently self-existent as He is (Exodus 3:14). In Acts 14, Paul and Barnabas preach the Gospel and heal a lame man in Lystra. Those in Lystra saw this and proclaimed that Barnabas was the Olympian god Zeus and Paul was Hermès. In verse 15, the apostles respond, saying, as it reads in the King James (and similarly in Young’s Literal Translation), ‘Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you…’ Dr. James Dolezal, in his 2021 sermon ‘God Without Passions,’ cites this verse in defense of divine impassibility.
“What they’re saying is, ‘Men, we are men like you, subject to— and this is what I think the ‘passions’ thing means— subject to the actions of others upon us…’ I don’t think that Paul and Barnabas are saying, ‘ Oh, oh you’re confused, we’re not the gods of mount Olympus… Don’t worship us, we’re not Zeus and Hermès,’ because, here’s the whole thing, that would leave the impression that it would be okay to worship Zeus and Hermès, [but that] it’s just not okay to worship, you know, mere mortals. But of course Paul and Barnabas don’t think that they should worship the gods of mount Olympus. Let’s just get to this really quick, the gods of mount Olympus, just briefly: Passionate or impassible? A little bit passionate? There’s a lot of drama up there on Mount Olympus.“
Reconciliation
When the Bible speaks in confusing ways it can leave us in a tailspin. However, we reconcile these passages the same way that the Biblical authors did, which is to say that the statements about God’s nature take priority over statements about His works. The verses about God’s attributes modify the verses describing His actions. We know this because that’s what the author of 1 Samuel does in chapter 15. In verse 11, the author presents God’s actions, saying God ‘repented,’ or ‘relented.’ However, in verse 29 the author modifies, or rather clarifies, their original statement about God’s actions with a statement on God’s attributes. “Also the Eternal One of Israel will not lie or have regret; for He is not a man that He should have regret.” God is impassible. Therefore we know that statements about God repenting, relenting, or being provoked to wrath are not actually comments on His nature, but are really analogies about His actions. What the biblical authors are pointing out is not a similarity with God’s internal state, but His external actions. For example, in 1 Samuel, God did something similar to what men do when they repent or regret, that being, just as a regretful man undoes his actions, God, who had made Saul King (1 Samuel 10:1), then removed him from the kingship (1 Samuel 15:28).
So, is He Just a Rock Then?
But wait, if we say God is impassible then how does that not make Him apathetic? It’s a common misunderstanding to think that impassibility means that God is stoic or uncaring, but the truth is actually the exact opposite. I’m not saying that God doesn’t care, or that He isn’t loving, but that He can’t possibly love more because His love is an infinite love; it cannot be added to or diminished. If His love is aroused by the loveliness of an act, a personality, or even because He Himself decided to make it increase, then God’s love would be finite and imperfect (incomplete). God is love, and so to change His love is to fundamentally change His essence (1 John 4:8). God’s wrath, love, mercy, righteousness, holiness, and all His other attributes are stationary, fixed at the highest of heights (Exodus 3:14, Psalm 145:3).
Simplicity and God's Attributes
There are a number of reasons within God that tell us He is impassible. Look at His attributes— and here I’ll leave it up to the reader to explore each of these in-depth. If He is independently self-existent (aseity, Exodus 3:14), if He is outside of time (eternal, Psalm 90:2, 4; 2 Peter 3:8), if He is infinite (Psalm 145:3), if He is unchangeable (immutable, James 1:17), then He must be impassible. But especially if He is simple, then He must also be impassible. Divine simplicity doesn’t mean that God is not confusing, or that explaining Him is really pretty simple. Simplicity is about how God isn’t made of parts; arm and leg, past and present, changeable characteristics and essence, etc. What this means is that whatever God has, He is. God doesn’t have His attributes, He is His attributes. Indeed He is one, He is I AM (Exodus 3:14, Deuteronomy 6:4). If God is His attributes, then He must be impassible. For if we were to make Him more loving, or more angry, or more grieved, we would be fundamentally changing God, which would make Him, at least in some way, a created Being; made to be as He is by us.
Impassibility and the Us
What a comfort this is! This is a God Who we don’t have to motivate into loving us. This is the basis for our hope in Christ! Malachi 3:6 says, “For I, Yahweh, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.” Scripture is very clear: We don’t motivate God’s love out of Him (1 John 4:10), and if we could motivate God to do something, it would not be to love us, but to destroy us. But it’s because we don’t induce God’s emotions that we can trust Him. If we cause God’s love for us, then what happens when we act differently? What happens when we sin? God’s impassibility means we can never out sin His love. On the flip side, if we could cause God’s emotions to change— or even if He could change His own mind— then how do we know He won’t simply overlook the sins of the world on the last day? How could we trust that He won’t simply change from wrath to mercy because eternal Hell can seem rather tasteless?
Impassibility and the Gospel
To deny impassibility is to fundamentally pit God’s attributes against each other, and say that if He is to be loving one minute, He must change to become wrathful. God is His attributes; they are identical to His essence (Exodus 3:14, Deuteronomy 6:4). It is for the very reason that His emotions don’t change that he both judges and forgives. In his 2015 Reformation21 article titled ‘Zwingli, divine impassibility, and the gospel,’ Scott Swain writes about how God’s impassibility impacts His other attributes, and the Gospel. Quoting Huldrych Zwingli, he says, “According to Zwingli, we cannot appreciate fully the motive for the incarnation and atonement of the Son of God apart from a proper understanding of God's impassible goodness. Here it is worth quoting Zwingli at length:
‘For inasmuch as his goodness, that is, his justice and mercy, is impassible, that is, steadfast and immutable, his justice required atonement, but his mercy forgiveness, and forgiveness newness of life. Clothed therefore with flesh, for according to his divine nature he cannot die, the Son of the Most High King offered up himself as a sacrifice to placate irrevocable justice and to reconcile it with those who because of their consciousness of sin dared not enter the presence of God on the ground of their own righteousness. He did this because he is kind and merciful, and these virtues can as little permit the rejection of his work as his justice can allow escape from punishment. Justice and mercy were conjoined, the one furnishing the sacrifice, the other accepting it as a sacrifice for sin.’”
What Swain and Zwingli are saying is that it’s only because of His impassibility that God can be both ‘just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus,’ (Romans 3:26). It’s only because God is unchangeably forgiving and unchangeably just that He will both perfectly judge the unbeliever and has justly forgiven the believer (Exodus 34:6–7). Without impassibility, how do we know that God will not simply relent on judgment day, and not punish the unbeliever? Without impassibility, how do we know that our salvation is secure, and God can’t become fed up with our sin and just throw us into Hell anyways? His impassibility means we can trust His promises."
What About Long-Suffering?
If God is impassible, if He can’t suffer, what about His long-suffering? A number of passages describe God as long-suffering (Exodus 34:6, Romans 2:4, 2 Peter 3:9) which, if taken literally, means not only that He can suffer, but also that He changes from suffering to not suffering— for indeed it is ‘long-suffering,’ not ‘eternal-suffering.’ The doctrine of impassibility refines our understanding of God’s long-suffering in that we understand long-suffering to be less of an attribute and more akin to a description of God’s sovereign will. It’s not like God can just take more abuse than any other being, but eventually He’ll reach His breaking point. God is outside of time, and therefore can’t have an attribute subject to time. God’s long-suffering is a description of His plan from our perspective, that is, there is a seeming grand distance from creation until judgment. Yet, even so, it is grand only to us, not Him (Psalm 90:2, 4; 2 Peter 3:8). Again, this is to our comfort! You will never be the first sinner to out sin God’s tolerance, it’s impossible, not because His tolerance is so high, but because He is unaffected in the first place (Job 35:6–7, Malachi 3:6).
Conclusion
If we’re being completely honest, some of us want a passible God, because then we can wield His power. If His long-suffering is truly an attribute, then all we need to do is fill it up. ‘If I just sow this seed, God will be so pleased with me He’ll just have to bless me,’ ‘If I keep myself sexually pure, then God will give me a spouse,’ ‘If I just spend enough time or enough effort doing this, then God will give me what I want,’ or, on the more morbid side, ‘If I just sin this way, God will finally smite me and end it all.’ Shane & Shane are right in their song ‘Future Version’ as they sing, “I am loved regardless of the things I’ve said and done. No mistake can change Your mind. Your love is mine.” But then, if God doesn’t feel because we affect Him, if He doesn’t love us because we’re so lovely, then why does He love us at all? What can I do but echo God Himself as He answered that question for Israel in Deuteronomy 7:7–8, “Yahweh did not set His affection on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because Yahweh loved you…” I AM WHO I AM loves you because He loves you.
