Loud Crying He Makes
One’s view of God correlates with one’s emotional disposition. I have listened to emotive preachers and teachers who can turn the emotion at work in a biblical text into the emotion of the sermon. If the text is angry, the sermon gets testy; if the text is dark and depressing, like some chps in Job, the sermon mimics those emotions. Beware the person who consumes the text into his or her own emotional preferences. Not all texts are happy, not all texts are sad. But the always-happy preacher or the always-rational preacher fail the texts, the sermon, and the congregation. If the text is joyful, the preacher doesn’t take the place of God but expresses God’s joy over the whole congregation, including the preacher.
God is emotional. David Lamb, in his new, thoughtful must-read, The Emotions of God: Making Sense of a God Who Hates, Weeps, and Loves, expounds on the emotions of God in the Bible.
Many don’t like the idea that our God is emotional or has feelings. So, we have a Christmas song in need of editing: “The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes” because the cows are noisy, and Mary and Joseph are not too happy. “But the little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.” That’s silly. Worse, it imposes on Jesus because it has already imposed on God, that our God is not emotional so Jesus has got to be living above such feelings and emotions. So, David suggests “Loud crying he makes.” With “lungs worthy of a future preacher.” It would be closer to the truth and it would more like God. “Big Lord Jesus cried on at least two occasions” (Luke 19:41; John 11:35), and every time one reads that Jesus was “compassionate” we could infer the disciples saw tears on Jesus’ cheeks.
For many, emotions are unworthy of God because they are viewed negatively and because they’re perceived as “irrational, uncontrollable, and confusing.” But the Bible says the opposite: God is emotional and that must mean emotions are perfectly fine and not irrational. God is not pure rational, as some dispassionate, disinterested preachers or teachers have given the impression.
The theory in theology is the “impassibility” of God, God without passion. It is argued by such persons that passions and emotions imply an altered state, a change in God, and therefore since God is unchanging, God is impassible. Read the Bible again, I say to such persons. It just won’t work. It has been customary, as David Lamb makes clear in a story, that many conservatives have said (I heard it) “liberals feel; we think.” Thinking without emotion blunts thinking. It surely distorts the Bible.
Noticeably, the least read portions of the Bible for many professors and preachers are the poetry sections – like Psalms and Job and the poetic lines of the prophets. The emotions at work in poetry are the high points of our emotional God. Read Psalm 69. Mark the emotions. (See at the bottom.) John Goldingay observes that not only is this psalm often cited in the NT and it is the emotional lines that are the ones cited! That is, the very lines that some think are unworthy of the NT’s moral visions.
Emotions, Lamb explains in his sketch, involve actions, can be rational, can be controlled, and can be understood. God tells us to feel somethings and not to feel other things – especially if “joy” is an emotion.
David Lamb examines seven of God’s own emotions in this book:
(1) Hate
(2) Anger
(3) Jealousy
(4) Sorrow
(5) Joy
(6) Compassion
(7) Love
Do you notice that some of these are fruits of the Spirit and one or two are manifestations of the flesh in Galatians 5?
Psa. 69:0 For the director of music. To the tune of “Lilies.” Of David.
Psa. 69:1 Save me, O God,
for the waters have come up to my neck.
2 I sink in the miry depths,
where there is no foothold.
I have come into the deep waters;
the floods engulf me.
3 I am worn out calling for help;
my throat is parched.
My eyes fail,
looking for my God.
4 Those who hate me without reason
outnumber the hairs of my head;
many are my enemies without cause,
those who seek to destroy me.
I am forced to restore
what I did not steal.
5 You, God, know my folly;
my guilt is not hidden from you.
6 Lord, the LORD Almighty,
may those who hope in you
not be disgraced because of me;
God of Israel,
may those who seek you
not be put to shame because of me.
7 For I endure scorn for your sake,
and shame covers my face.
8 I am a foreigner to my own family,
a stranger to my own mother’s children;
9 for zeal for your house consumes me,
and the insults of those who insult you fall on me.
10 When I weep and fast,
I must endure scorn;
11 when I put on sackcloth,
people make sport of me.
12 Those who sit at the gate mock me,
and I am the song of the drunkards.
13 But I pray to you, LORD,
in the time of your favor;
in your great love, O God,
answer me with your sure salvation.
14 Rescue me from the mire,
do not let me sink;
deliver me from those who hate me,
from the deep waters.
15 Do not let the floodwaters engulf me
or the depths swallow me up
or the pit close its mouth over me.
16 Answer me, LORD, out of the goodness of your love;
in your great mercy turn to me.
17 Do not hide your face from your servant;
answer me quickly, for I am in trouble.
18 Come near and rescue me;
deliver me because of my foes.
19 You know how I am scorned, disgraced and shamed;
all my enemies are before you.
20 Scorn has broken my heart
and has left me helpless;
I looked for sympathy, but there was none,
for comforters, but I found none.
21 They put gall in my food
and gave me vinegar for my thirst.
22 May the table set before them become a snare;
may it become retribution and a trap.
23 May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see,
and their backs be bent forever.
24 Pour out your wrath on them;
let your fierce anger overtake them.
25 May their place be deserted;
let there be no one to dwell in their tents.
26 For they persecute those you wound
and talk about the pain of those you hurt.
27 Charge them with crime upon crime;
do not let them share in your salvation.
28 May they be blotted out of the book of life
and not be listed with the righteous.
29 But as for me, afflicted and in pain—
may your salvation, God, protect me.
30 I will praise God’s name in song
and glorify him with thanksgiving.
31 This will please the LORD more than an ox,
more than a bull with its horns and hooves.
32 The poor will see and be glad—
you who seek God, may your hearts live!
33 The LORD hears the needy
and does not despise his captive people.
34 Let heaven and earth praise him,
the seas and all that move in them,
35 for God will save Zion
and rebuild the cities of Judah.
Then people will settle there and possess it;
36 the children of his servants will inherit it,
and those who love his name will dwell there.
Perhaps the lack of emphasis, or recognition, of God's emotions is why there is so much emphasis on God as judge, and other legal jargon (not to mention His sovereignty). Lacking seems to be an emphasis on God's love (I can't help but think back to your review years ago of the book Calvin vs. Wesley), and often when it is discussed, the emotional aspect of love is left out, or even ruled out.
Interesting discussion, Scot. Is regretting something an emotion? Obviously yes. Early on "The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth and his heart was deeply troubled" (Gen 6:6). Is "concern" an emotion? If so, God was emotional when he saw the enslaved Israelites in Egypt, saying, "I am concerned about their suffering, so I have come down to rescue them" (Ex 3:7-8). But then hear God speaking to Moses at Mount Sinai: "I have seen these people...and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them" (Exodus 32:9-10). And on and on through the First Testament. Do we have the count the moments of anger God experienced before we acknowledge that God has emotions? "Impassiible?" PLEASE!