WT768 (2006): 41-50

DIVINE IMPASSIBILITY AND THE PASSION OF CHRIST IN THE BOOK OF HEBREWS

KEVIN DEYOLFNG

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 dogtna itself). The doctrine that says God does not suffer has ahnost completely lost its hegemonic status, while the belief that God can, indeed must, suffer has now taken its place. 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."^ 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 exceptionally prescient.^ 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."* In a phrase, impassibility has become passe. Why such a stark turnaround? Why has "the ancient theopjischite heresy that God suffers . . . , in fact, become the new orthodoxy?"^ Many reasons
Kevin DeToung is the senior pastor of University Reformed Church in East Lansing, Mich.

' 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 cjui change within), and sensational passibility (that God can have feelings of pleasure or pjun 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. ^ E.g., in an interview with Modem Refirmadon, 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." Afler the death of his son, Eric, Wolterstorff, who had already been questioning impassibility theoretically, fotmd the doctrine "impossible to accept" and "grotesque," Modern Reformation 8, no, 5 (1999): 45-47, ' Quoted in Richard Bauckham, " 'Only the Suffering God Can Help': Divine Passibility in Modem Theology," Them 9 (1984): 6. * Ronald Goetz, "The Suffering God: The Rise of a New Orthodoxy," ChrCent 103 (1986): 385. ^ Ibid,

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could be given: culturally, the renewed emphasis on feelings; intellectually, the preference for the "dynamic" over the "stadc"; historically, the (just now realized?) pejoradve infiuence Hellenism is supposed to have had on early Chrisdanity; or experiendally, 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 explanadon of suffering, mind you, but as a protest against it. The second reason is closely related to the fu-st. God is love, and if God is love he must enter into the pain of his creaturesanything less would be diabolical.^ Third, the biblical descripdon of God in his passions must be taken at full face value and not diminished as anthropopathic language.' All of the arguments in favor of passibility deserve fuU and honest exploradon, but my concern is only with the fourth reason. According to reason number four, when Jesus Christthe fullness of the Godhead in bodily formsuffered, he showed the true suffering nature of God himself.^ In other words, the suffering Christ manifested our suffering God.

II. Suffering of Christ, Suffering of God?

Jurgen Moltmann asks the quesdon, "What does the cross of Jesus mean for God himself ?"s 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.'" When Christ is called the image of the invisible God (Col 1:15), die implicadon is that "thisb. God, and God is like <fc."" So, "idendfying God with Jesus leads ultimately to the conclusion that what Jesus experienced in the depths of his anguish was experienced by God himself . . . The cross is nothing less than the suffering of God himself "'2 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 resurrecdon and ascension and exaltadon, it is really God that did it in Jesus.' "'^ According to those who
6

' See, e. g., Jung Young Lee, God Suffers for Us: A Systematic Inquiry into a Concept of Divine Passibility

(The Hague: Mardnus NijhofF, 1974); Jurgen Moltmann, The Crucified God (l^li; repr, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993); and Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981). ' See Abraham Heschel's seminal work TTie Prophets (New York: Harper & Row, 1962). For a fresh understanding of Heschel see Weinandy, Does God Suffer?, 64-68. With the excepdon 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. ^ Moltmann, Crucified God, 201. ' Charles OhlHch, The Suffering God: Hope and Comfortfor Those Who Hurt (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1982), 68. '' Moltmann, Crucified God, 205. '^ Richard Rice, "Biblical Support for a New Perspecdve," in The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Tradi&nal Understanding of God (ed. Clark Pinnock et al.; Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 46. '^ Lee, God Suffersfor Us, 54. The second sentence in the quotation Lee quotes from Donald M. BaiUie, God Was in Christ (New York: Scribner's, 1948), 67.

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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?"'* For Moltmann and most modern theologians the answer is, it cannot, God does in fact suffer,

III, The Incarnation: The Impassible Suffers^^

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 suffered in Christ,
1, Jesus Christ: Our Exalted Man of Sorrows {Heb 2:5-9)

Having proclaimed the superiority cind finality of Jesus Christ in ch, 1, the writer to the Hebrews, in ch, 2, turns our attention to the humiliation and exaltation of Jesus in the incarnation. The writer gives a Christological reading of Ps 8 (LXX),'6 so that the glory the Psalmist gives to man (w, 6-7) is reinterpreted and reapplied to Jesus (w, 8-9)," 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),
'* Moltmann, Trinity and the Kingdom, 2 1 ,

'^ 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. '^ Some scholars object to the writer's use of Ps 8 which appears more theological than exegetical, 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 cormect 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), See E F. Bruce, TheEpistk to the Hebrews (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 72-74; Philip E. Hughes, A CommaUary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 84-85, " Exegetically, the meaning of amb\ (thrice repeated) is not entirely clear (8b). Does "him" refer to mankind or Christ? If it is "mankind," then v. 9 is an application of the passage to Christ. If it is "Christ," then v, 9 is the realized Christological already following the eschatological not yet. But I side with Kogel who refuses to choose. In both instances Christ would still be the "man" par excellence, making the theological point in v. 9 more or less the same. Cf. Paul Ellingworth, Commentary on Hebrews (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 150-52.

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This theologically rich passage'^ directs us toward two points crucial in our understanding of how Jesus Christ can suffer while God does not. First, we see that the incarnation involved some sort of "change." Christ, the exact representation of God, was made for a little while lower'^ than the angels. The Son of God underwent, at the very least, a change of status, descending from the highest heavens to the earth as a man lower than the angels. So for Lee to hold that the incarnation is not the transformation of divine into human, hut the "perfect participation of divine pathos in human existence to form a unity" is misleading.2" Granted, the incarnation is not a transformation per se, hut what Lee has in mind is that the work of Christ manifested in time what had been going on in God eternaJly.2' Those who hold to passihility then conclude along these lines that the humiliation, suffering, and death we see in Jesus can he included in the divine identity.22 But Heh 2:9 argues against this interpretation. The point is not that because Christ is the image of God and Christ felt suffering and humiliation, God inherently experiences the same, but that the Son who is the exact radiance of God's glory amazingly was made for a little while lower than the angels (Heh 1:3; 2:9). Here and in Phil 2 the force is not one of inclusion hut contrast, not that God suffers as Jesus did, hut that Jesus, though God, was doing all these unGodlike things as a man. Not every thing Jesus did or felt revealed the character of God. For a dme, the Son of God did all sorts of things he had never done hefore (like eat and sleep) which did not hear witness to the eternal nature of God. Christ suffered not to reveal suffering in God; rather, God had to he made a little lower than the angels so that he could suffer. Much is made of the fact that Christ is crowned
' It is also a passage rich with textual problems in w. 7, 8, and 9. The variant reading in v. 9 is the only one of the three that is really potentially important. Thankfully, the textual evidence is not strong in quantity or quality (no early papyri or uncials) for x<opl? BEOB, SO xapixi BeoO is Jin easy choice. Interestingly, though, both Weinandy and Moltmann opt for the variant with different theological purposes in mind. For Weinandy xtopi? 8eo6 suggests that Christ suffered but God did not {Does CodSiffer?, 217 n. 6), and for Moltmann Xfopk BeoO indicates that the Son's suffering is to be found in his Godfonakeness {Trinity and the Kingdom, 78), '^ The writer gives the more ambiguous LXX rendering ppaxu -n, which, given the temporal nature of the passage (vOv 5fe oiSitco; 8c), is accurately translated "a little while," Ellingworth, Hebrews, 154.
^^ Lee, God Suffers for Us, 52-53.

^' Ibid., 59.

^^ Richard Bauckham, God Crucified: Monotheism and Christologji in theMw Testament (Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1998), 79, Sarot too argues that "an impassibilist interpretation of the revelational content of the death of Christ has the appearance of being far-fetched" ("Suffering of Christ, Suffering of God?," 117). But all he has successfully argued is for the real death and suffering of Christ. He doesn't demonstrate its revelational content. And even if Christ's death is revelational, we still have to ask, what does it reveal about God? The revelational nature of the incarnation is not a one-to-one correspondence with God; otherwise we have to say God gets drowsy, hungry, and thirsty. Just as creation reveals God (Rom 1:19-20), but not as a one-to-one correspondence (it only reveals God's eternal power and divine nature), so Jesus reveals God but not as a one-to-one correspondence. Likewise, we are God's image bearers but not in a one-to-one correspondence. So it does not follow that if Jesus reveals God and Jesus suffered, Jesus reveals that God suffers.

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with glory and honor because he suffered,^^ but the reason his suffering is so highly exalted is because he was doing what God as God had not and could not do, namely, suffer. Second, we see that Jesus truly suffered and died (v, 9), Sometimes it is suggested that to hold to impassibility one must assert that Christ did not really suffer. This, as Sarot points out, smacks of docetism, I gladly acknowledge, "Christ was a real man and had a real human body, capable of feeling and suffering,"^* But, it may be asked, how can one then argue that "he who is impassible as God was truly passible as man"?^^ Doesn't the problem of Christ's sufferings necessitate divine passibility?^^ Christ suffered, Christ was God, Therefore God suffered. Or, to refine it a bit, if in the incarnation Christ's two naturesthe one divine and of the same substance with the Father, the other human^were joined in hypostatic union in the Person of God's Son, how could the divine nature not experience suffering? The answer lies in Cyril's communication of idioms.'^'' According to the communication of idioms (properties) what is predicated to the divine nature or to the human nature can be predicated to the Son of God, but what is predicated to the Son cannot be automatically predicated to the human or divine nature, and what is predicated to one nature cannot be predicated to the other,28 This means that if Jesus' humem nature took a nap, we cannot say the divine nature took a nap, but we can say the Person of the Son took a nap. When Jesus wept, Jesus truly wept, but this weeping cannot be predicated of the divine nature as a matter of course,2^ Otherwise, you have nonsensical statements about God as God dying^" (which even Moltmann wants to avoid^') and man as a man creating the cosmos
^^ E,g., Bauckham, God Cruafied, 56ff. (using Phil 2:6-11); David Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection: An Examination of the Goncept of Perfection in the Epistle to the Hebrews (Gambridge: Gambridge Univer-

sity Press, 1982), 54. '* Sarot, "Suffering of Ghrist, Suffering of God?," 117. Though I disagree with his conclusion in this matter. ^^ Thomas Weinandy, "Does God Suffer?," in First Things 117 (2001): 40.
^'^ Thus Richard Bauckham, "In Defence of The Crucified God" in The Power and Weakness of God

(ed. Nigel M. de S. Gameron; Edinburgh: Rutherford House, 1990), 110-11. " Gf, Weinandy, Does God Suffer?, 174ff.; Moltmann, Crucified God, 232-35; Sarot, "Suffering of Ghrist, Suffering of God?," 114-15. ^^ Galvin gives this definition: "Thus, also, the Scriptures speak of Ghrist: they sometimes attribute to him what must be solely referred to his humanity, sometimes what belongs uniquely to his divinity; and sometimes what embraces both natures butfitsneither alone. And they so earnestly express this union of the two natures that is in Ghrist as sometimes to interchange them. This figure of speech is called by the ancient writers 'the communicating of properties'" {Institutes of the Christian Religion [ed. John T. McNeil; trans. Ford Lewis Battles; 2 vols.; LGG; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960], 1:482-83 [2.14.1]), ^ Gf. Galvin, Institutes, 1:483 (2.14.2).
^ Ohhich, The Suffering God, 75.

^' Moltmann is more careful than other passibilitists. He avoids theopaschitism, Jesus' death was not the death of God, but death in God [Crucified God, 207). Likewise, Moltmarm rejects patripassianism (sort of). The Father suffered in a different way frtjm the Son, "The Son suffers dying, the Father suffers the death of the Son. The grief of the Father here is just as important as the death of the Son. The Fatherlessness of the Son is matched by the Sonlessness of the Father" [Crucified God, 243).

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before he was born. As Weinandy notes, "It is this unresolved tension that gave birth to modern kenoticism,"^^ The key to Cyril's communication of idioms is that Jesus is one being, and is that one being Jesus is the Son existing as a mzin,^^ Weinandy deserves to be quoted in full: Positively, CyrU grasped and explicitly stated, for thefirsttime, that the attributes were predicated not of the natures, but of the person, for the Incarnation is not the compositional union of natures but the person of the Son taking on a new manner or mode of existence. Because the incarnational "becoming" is kath hypostasin, according to the person, it can actually be said then that the person of the Son of God is truly born, grieves, suffers and dies, not as God, but as man for that is now the new manner in which the Son of God actually exists.^* In other words, whatever Jesus did or felt he did as a man,^^ Whatever can be predicated to the Son of God must be predicated to him as a man,^^ How can Jesus, the union of a divine and human nature, be tempted in every way (Heb 4:15) when God cannot be tempted (Jas 1:13)? It is the same way the Impassible can sufferas a man. This is what we need to hear, not that God suffers with us as God, but that God as a man knew human pain and anguish first hand and in the same human mcuiner that we experience it,^'
2, Jesus Christ: Our Perfect Brother {Heb 2:10-17)

Having outlined the surprising path of suffering and death Jesus took, the writer now delves into the matter more fully The ljtpejt;ev yap points to the writer's purpose, namely, to describe why it was fitting that Christ should be made for a little while lower than the angels. Thus, w, 10-17 are an elucidation of w, 5-9 (esp, w, 8-9),^8 trying to answer the question, "Why the incarnation?" Most broadly, we can say that the incarnation was necessary to make Christ perfect. But we need to be careful that we do not understand this as moral perfection or any other sort of perfection that wotold imply that the Son of God was in want. Rather, being made perfect refers to Christ's vocation, Peterson aptly suggests that xeXeimoai in 2:10 be rendered "to qualify" or to "make completely adequate,"^^ Accordingly, the incarnation was necessary so that Christ could fully 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, Does God Suffer?, 185.

' ' Ibid., 191. '* Ibid., 200. '^ In saying "as a man," I am making a statement about the Person of Jesus and not predicating his suffering to his human nature.
^ Weinandy, Does God Suffer?, 204-5,

" Ibid,, 206,

^ David A. DeSilva, Perseverance in Gratitude: A Soda-Rhetorical Commentary on the EpistU "to the

ix" (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 112-13.

n, Hebrews and Perfection, Ti.

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merciful and faithful high priest (v. 17). Likewise, Christ's sufferings as a man in the incarnation qualified him to sympathize with human suffering (v. 18). Importantly, then, for the writer of Hebrews, the significance of Christ's sufferings has nothing to do with "the suffering in the eternal heart of God"*" and everything to do with "perfecting" Christ as part of "the completion of the process of redemption."*' Christ endured this process of sanctification so that his "brothers" could be sanctified in him (v. 11). As Kasemann put it, "Christ could achieve completion only by way of suffering, for only in this way did he become the holy one of his own, and only in this way did the sanctified ones receive a share in his completion. "*2 Or to put it a different way, Christ's sufferings were not revelational but eschatological. The perfecting of Christ achieved, in time and space, what was necessary for God's historical redemptive plan, that is, that the Son would become a full sharer in the sufferings and aU the limitations of humanity and so be qualified to lead many sons to glory (v. 10). Clearly then, as an eschatological fulfillment and not a show of divine passibility, the sufferings of Christ were unique insofar as their purposeto qualify Christ vocationally as high priest^was unique. Therefore, the Son of God knew no suffering prior to the incarnation, because prior to being made a little lower than the angels he was not completely adequate to serve as high priest. And because the purpose of his sufferings has now been realized (5:7-9), we know that the Son of God does not continue to suffer. Yet the logic that says if Jesus Christ was pcissible, God must be passible seems to demand (1) that if God has been suffering throughout ill history, Christ was suffering throughout history, and (2) that if God continues to be passible, Christ continues to be passible. But neither statement can be true, for (besides what has been said above) Hebrews evidences that Christ has not been suffering repeatedly since the foundation of the world (9:26) and his experience of suffering and death was a one-time, oncefor-all occurrence (9:23-28; 10:12-14). There was a driving purpose in the suffering and death of Christ stronger than just a show of solidarity with a suffering and dying world.*^ Suffering itself avails nothing for a fellow sufferer.** After all, it is not really the suffering we admire, but the degree of love which the suffering manifests. We are comforted
" Bauckham, "Only the Suffering God," 11, *' Barnabas Lindars, The Theology of the Letter to the Hebrews (Gambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 40,
*^ Ernst Kasemann, The Wandering People of God: An Investigation of the Letter to the Hebrews (trans,

Roy A, Harrisville and Irving L, Sandberg; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), 144. " Cf, Goetz, "The Suffering God," 389: "The mere fact of Cod's suffering doesn't solve the question; it exacerbates it, , , , God, the fellow sufferer, is inexcusable if all that he can do is suffer." ** Weinandy argues that it is not the compassionate suffering itself that brings consolation. Otherwise, when a friend joined us in suffering, we would react with joy at his suffering while he reacted with sadness at ours. Rather, the truly compassionate person seeks to alleviate suffering. Hence, it is Cod's mercy and love coupled with his infinite power to overcome evil and suffering which comfort us in pain ("Does God Suffer?," 40), Cf Marcel Sarot, "Auschwitz, Morality and the Suffering of God," Modern Theology 7 (1991): 142ff

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by lovean understanding love and a conquering love. We look to Christ for both. As we see in v. 18, Christ is our sympathetic high priest who truly understands human suffering. And as we see in w. 14-15, the end of the suffering is that Christ might not merely know human pain, but that in victorious love he might destroy the devil and deliver those who had been held in fearful bondage. Ultimately, Christ was made like his brothers (including experiencing suffering) so that he might make propitiation*^ for the sins of the people (2:16-17). Those who miss this, miss the whole point of the incarnation, not to mention the cross. Although Moltmann is careful to state that the cross deals with human suffering andhumaxi guilt,** his overall emphasis is that "the universal experience of the crucified Christ on Golgotha is only really comprehended through the theodicy question."*' As he puts it, "The history of Christ's sufferings belongs to the history of the sufferings of mankind, by virtue of the passionate love which Christ manifests and reveals."*^ But Moltmann has failed to take seriously the soteriological aspect of Jesus' suffering. The problem vnth Moltmann's theology of the cross is that it does not really deal with the whole point of the cross, the problem of sin.*^ It is not enough that God simply identifies with human suffering in Christ if he does not free us from human sinfulness as well. Peterson's siunmary is apt: "The suffering of Christ in our writer's presentation [in Hebrews] is primarily regarded in its redemptive role, Christ achieving for others the 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)."5
3. Jesus Christ: Our Sympathetic High Priest {Heb 2:18)

The Epistle to the Hebrews was written to a people in times of trial. Not only were they apparently on the verge of apostasy, they were also facing external pressure and possible persecution.^' They were fleeing for refuge, looking for encouragement and hope (6:18). Their "hard struggle with suffering" involved public reproach, affliction, imprisonment, and the plundering of their property (10:32-34). The writer even warned that at some point their struggle might come to the point of shedding blood (12:4). What is more, their Christian commitment only marked them out "for afreshexperience of suffering. "^^ SQ while the precise setting of the epistle is unknown, this much is clear: the Christian community to whom Hebrews was written was filled with confusion, struggle, and pain.
" The ESV has brought back "propitiation," a fortuitous decision in my opinion. Granted, the debate over the exact meaning of UAoKEofloi is endlessly debated. But thankfully, the lowest common denominator of understanding, that Jesus took care of the sins of his people, is all that is required here. See Ellingworth, Hebrews, 188-90; Hughes, E^tte to the Hebrews, 121; Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross (3d rev. ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 144-213. ^ Moltmann, CrudJudGod, 134.
*' Moltmann, Trinity and the Kingdom, 52.

Cf. David Cook, "Weak Church, Weak God," in The Power and Weakness of God, 88. Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection, 175 (emphasis in the original). For a s%ht variation on this theme see DeSilva, Perseverance in Gratitiuk, 16-20. William Lane, "Hebrews: A Sermon in Search of a Setting," SwJT2S (1985): 16.

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Amidst their suffering, the vmter holds out for them their consolation and example. Is their hope that God too suffers along with them? For Moltmann, if God does not suffer in our torment, he is "a demon" eind "an annihilating nothingness."^^ But the biblical consolation for those who suffer is not that God
suffers right along with us, but that Jesus Christ, our faithful high priest, suffered as one of us.

The Person and work of Jesus Christ is the answer to Moltmann's charge that "a God who is incapable of suffering" is an indifferent, insensitive, uninvolved, and loveless being.^* In other words, the Bible looks not at some sort of present divine passibility for comfort, but goes instead to the past, to Christ's sufferings, that according to his ongoing sympathy we might have hope for the future (4:15). According to Hebrews, the help we so desperately want comes from Jesus Christ who alone is truly able to iid us in our suffering (2:18), because only the Son of God who was made like his brothers in every way is qualified to be our high priest (2:17-18). As Peterson argues, Christ did not suffer by temptations, but rather his sufferings were the source of temptation. Thus, it is because he has had this experience of suffering which exerted temptation that he is able to understand our own suffering and temptation.*^ This is better than having a fellow sufferer in God. Christ, because he suffered as a man, can now help us as the exeJted One. "Thus perfected or qualified, he not only provides his brothers with the promise of sharing in his glory, but also continues to provide them with the necessary help to persevere in their calling and reach their heavenly destination."5s To claim, as most do, that the Son suffered as God mitigates the effect of his participation with us in truly human suffering. "Ironically," Weinandy points out, "those who advocate a suffering God, having locked suffering within God's divine nature, have actucdly locked God out of human suffering."^' While recognizing that Christ suffered so that he could sympathetically relate to his followers, it is crucial that we understand that "believers are perfect by the perfecting of Christ" and not the other way around.^^ That is, we need to look at our sufferings through Christ instead of looking at God through our sufferings.*^ For those in Christ, the experience of suffering has been transformed. As Carl Henry wisely remarks, it is into the why of Calvary that we can now focus every other forsjiken me of human existence.^" So as we share in the sufferings of
^^ Moltmann, Crucified God, 274, ^* Ibid., 222.
'^ Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection, 65,

^ Ibid., 73. " Weinandy, "Does God Suffer?," 40,

^ Peterson, Hebrews and Perfectim, 73,

*^ Moltmarm, while discussing Migel de Unamuno approvingly (it seems to me), notes: "That is why we participate in God's pain. It is not only that we need God's compassion; God also needs ours" {God Crucified, 39), Cf Weinandy, "Does God Suffer?," 41: "As I have tried to show, the truth that God does not suffer is at the heart of the gospel, making it truly good news. This is especially in contrast to the bad news, which has become something like a 'new orthodoxy,' that has God in as much trouble as we are,"
^ Carl E H . Henry, God Who Stands and Stays, Part Two (vol. 6 of God, Revelation and Authority; 1983;

repr., Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1999), 299,

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Christ (Phil 3:10), we look to him not as the revelation of divine passibility, but as the sympathetic one who shared in our humanity and as the example of the steadfastness we ought to exhibit in the midst of our own suffering (Heb 5:9; 12:2ff).6' IV Conclusion Those who argue that God suffers make many strong points in their favor. On the face of it, one of the most persuasive arguments is the one based on the sufferings of Christ. If Jesus Christ, very God of very God, suffered, how can we avoid the conclusion that God suffers? I have Jirgued that in light of Hebrews, especially Heb 2:5-18, this argument does not hold. The passibility of God cannot be assumed from the passibility of Christ, first of all, because the nature of the incarnation implied some sort of "change"in this case a temporary change of status (being made for a little while lower than the angels)^what we see in Jesus wiU not equal to what we see in God. The Son of God took on human flesh and blood to do that which he could not do as God, namely, suffer. Second, according to Cyril's communication of idioms, the suffering that Jesus experienced cannot be predicated to his divine nature. Instead, we must understand that the Son of God in the incarnation was born, lived, and died as a man. Third, Christ's sufferings were not revelational but eschatalogical. His sufferings tell us nothing about the eternal suffering heart of God and everything about the completion of the plan of salvation. The Son of God needed to be perfected through sufferings so that he might be qualified as our brother to be our faithful high priest. In this role, his conquering love destroys the devil, sets the captives free, and makes atonement for sin. Fourth, as one acquainted with human suffering, Jesus Christ can sympathize with us in our own suffering. As Christians we look not in the sky to a passible God for comfort, but in history to the suffering servant. God is not distant, aloof, or insensitive to our suffering. He loved us enough to send his Son to be like one of us, and he loves us enough to come near to us in the person of Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith.

Peterson, Hebrews and Perfection, \76.