The Suffering of God

Nothing about God contradicts anything else about Him. Who He is harmonizes with everything else about Him. We know anything about Him because He revealed it to us. Some of what we know we get through His creation, but almost all of it comes from His Word.

In the history of Christian theology, professing Christian leaders conflicted and debated the suffering of God. Does God suffer? They saw suffering as against the immutability and the impassibility of God. The problem they thought was that if God suffers, then He is subject to others, changing in adaptation to those others. God is perfect, so He doesn’t and can’t change. This was the problem for them. But the Bible does say that God suffers, God says He does. This was also a problem for the Jews of Jesus’ day. The cross of Christ offended them. It was even foolishness to them.

Whatever the Bible says about God, which is what God says about Himself, can’t contradict something else the Bible, God Himself, says about Himself. How does it harmonize though, because it seems like the critics might have a point?

The suffering of God is according to the attributes of God that do not contradict one another. His suffering fulfills all of His attributes. It isn’t a situation where God changed. This is Who He is. He is not suffering in reaction to us. God already knew what we would do, so it is part of His original plan to suffer. We could and should also say that God’s suffering helps us to understand and accept our own suffering. People are not alone in suffering. God suffers to. In so doing, He sympathizes with us. Even though God is transcendent and holy, He also is immanent and condescending.