Divine Impassibility: Delighting in Our Unchangeable God

Our God never changes. He never learns. He never grows. He never develops. Who he is today is the same as he was yesterday, the same as he was before he made the world, and the same that he will be a thousand years from now and into all eternity. Our God never changes.

On the surface, this can seem like a simple idea, but when we press into it, we quickly discover that, as creatures who change all of the time, it’s incredibly difficult to conceive of a completely and utterly unchanging God. We all change every day. We get hungry. We become tired. We get older. Our hair turns gray. Our personalities change as we develop as individuals. I’m not the same person my wife married five years ago, and I think she’d testify that she’s thankful for that.

But God, God never changes.

In describing God as unchanging, theologians have used the word “Immutable” to say that God is incapable of change. And I think that most of us are familiar with this idea. We sing in church:

“Everything changes, but You stay the same

Your word and kingdom endure.”

We’re familiar with verses like, “Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” and descriptions of God in the Bible as having “no variation or shadow due to change.”

But it’s when we press deeper, and think harder than we begin to realize how difficult this doctrine of the immutability of God can be. Because if God is unchangeable, then he’s unchangeable in all of his attributes, and in all that he is.

“Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

And while it would be beneficial for us to spend all of our time this morning talking about God’s unchangeableness broadly, I want us to look at one specific dimension of this that theologians throughout church history have called divine impassibility.

Mental Challengers

And I have to say, of all points of theology I’ve studied, this one is the hardest for me. Steve wisely had me agree to teach Sunday School today before he told me that I would be teaching on impassibility. In all seriousness, in studying theology, only one doctrine has ever made my head physically hurt while I’m thinking about it and reading about it: it’s impassibility. It feels like when I’m using my laptop and I open one program after another after another and all of a sudden my fan starts spinning violently and it feels like my computer is going to take off from my lap.

This is difficult. If you walk away with questions, that’s OK. If you walk away feeling like you only understand 10%-15% of this, that’s OK. In studying the impassibility of God, we become keenly aware, that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and his ways are not our ways. Or, as Paul says in , “who has known the mind of the Lord?” We are immediately met with mystery. And how we respond to mystery is incredibly important. God would not want us to be discouraged, or intimidated by who he is. He wants us to worship. He wants us to love him more.

Emotional Challenges

But beyond those mental challenges, there are also emotional challenges. In my experience and in the experience of many of those I’ve spoken to, understanding impassability and then believing in impassibility is a lot like a journey towards believing that God is sovereign. There’s just something inside of us that naturally kicks against believing that this is true. But after we’ve gotten through that, and after we’ve come to rest that this truly is who our God reveals himself to be, it results in deeper gratefulness towards God and truer worship of God. Also like once we come to understand that God is sovereign, once we understand what is meant that God is impassible, it becomes hard to pick up Scripture and not see this everywhere and rejoice because of it.

Cultural Challengers

Cultural Challenges: Impassibility is unpopular with many, both inside and outside the church.

Finally, there are also cultural challenges. Again, much like divine sovereignty, impassibility is a doctrine that has been challenged and misunderstood even by evangelical Christians, even by Reformed, Evangelical Christians. But if you read Spurgon, Edwards, Calvin, Luther, Aquinas, Anselm, or Augustine, you’ll find that all of these church fathers, and many more, all held to divine impassibility. Both the Westminster and London Baptist Confessions describe and defend impassibility. In fact, John Owen in describing impassibility even says “it is agreed upon by all the orthodox.” Until the 19th century, almost all Christian theologians believed that God is impassible. It’s only been recently that this has been challenged, often by well intentioned people who do truly desire to be faithful to Scripture and loving towards others.

But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s take a step back and define impassibility, seek to understand it in the Scriptures, and then spend time meditating together on how this doctrine can help us love God more fully and worship him more truly.

It’s only been recently that this has been challenged by well intentioned people who do truly desire to be faithful to Scripture.

I have a definition of impassibility on your outline, the definition I’d like for us to consider today.

I’d like to give us a simple definition of impassibility today. And this definition doesn’t encompass everything impassibility is and involves, but it’s enough for us to cover and think about today.

Definition: God does not experience emotional changes, either by his own divine will, or in response to his creation.

Challenges:

Mental Challengers: Impassibility is difficult to understand.

Westminster describes the doctrine like this, God is without body, parts, or passions. God is without passions.

Definition: God does not experience emotional changes, either by his own divine will, or in response to his creation.

Now because I know that you all are people who love your Bibles and know your Bibles, I assume at this moment red lights are blinking in your head. Doesn’t the Bible describe a God who is full of passions and emotions? Full of love and mercy and wrath and compassion? And you’d be right in that observation.

So how should we understand this doctrine? What have faithful readers of the Bible throughout the centuries meant by this doctrine? And how can it change us into delighting in and worshiping God more fully?

1) Impassibility and Us

First, before we start talking about what we mean by emotions and passions in relationship to God, we need to spend a little bit of time defining our terms. This is a conversations that the church has been having for hundreds of years, and it’s best if we understand the conversation that beign had before we enter into it and voice our own opinions.

When we say that God is without passions, what do we mean by that?

Well, theologians in the past have been careful to differentiate between passions and affections. While today we might use “passion” to mean that we feel something strongly, “I’m passionate about xyz,” that’s not how it’s been traditionally thought of.

In fact, both Augustine and Aquinas differentiated between passions, which as passive feelings, involuntary emotions that just come upon you, and affections which are active, voluntary, and reasonable.

Kevin DeYoung put it like this,

Throughout Christian thought, passions have not referee to passionate feelings. They refer to the sorts of emotions that sweep over you and threaten to control you.”

A) What are passions?

First, before we start talking about what we mean by emotions and passions in relationship to God, we need to spend a little bit of time defining our terms. This is a conversation that the church has been having for hundreds of years, and it’s best if we understand that conversation before we enter into it and voice our own opinions.

When we say that God is without passions, what do we mean by that?

In fact, both Augustine and Aquinas differentiated between passions, which are passive feelings, involuntary emotions that just come upon you, and affections which are active, voluntary, and reasonable. When we speak of passions, it’s in reference to our human susceptibility to be swayed by outside forces or influences.

Kevin DeYoung put it like this,

Throughout Christian thought, passions have not refered to passionate feelings. They refer to the sorts of emotions that sweep over you and threaten to control you.”

One day as my family was taking a long car trip, I had been driving for quite a while and I was feeling tired so Sabrina offered to take over and let me sleep. I fell asleep in the passenger’s seat and Sabrina took the steering wheel. While I was in the middle of an incredibly deep sleep, all of a sudden, I was awakened by the sound of Lily crying in the back seat. I sat up and asked Sabrina what the matter was. She let me know that we had just passed a playground and poor Lily, who had been sitting in the back seat for several hours wanted desperately to get out and play. Sabrina assured Lily that we would be home soon, but for now, we had to keep going. It was getting late and we didn’t have time to make a stop. Lily was overcome with passion, with sorrow and, reasonably, expressed her sorrow by crying.

Now, while Sabrina and I both agree on what happened next in the story, we disagree greatly on how much time had passed between telling Lily we had to keep going and what was just about to happen. From my perspective it was only a few seconds while Sabrina swears that it was at least a little longer than that. We were driving down the road, Lily was crying, I was reaching back trying to comfort her, when all of a sudden I hear Sabrina say “oh! Starbucks!” She then swerved out of her lane and quickly entered the drive through of the coffee shop. I thought, “oh, I guess we are stopping before we get back home.” Sabrina too was overcome with passion, a desire for coffee. But unlike Lily, Sabrina had a distinct advantage: she had the steering wheel.

And lest you think I’m leaving myself out here, I experience the same when I see the snack cart at work or the soft serve machine at an all-you-can-eat buffet. What kind of person, anyway, goes for the salad at a buffet when there’s literally as much fried chicken and dessert you could ever want?

As creatures, we’re often swayed and moved by things outside of ourselves. Ebenezer Scrooge, when he was denying seeing the ghost of his former partner Marley admitted as much when he said,

“You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!” Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, 24-25

Or I think we’re all familiar with this one:

“You’re not you when you’re hungry.”

From experience, we understand what it’s like to be influenced by the outside, to be moved by emotions that come over us and almost feel like they force us to act. And this is how Scripture describes us as well.

B) Scriptural Support

After Paul and Barnabas healed a man at Lystra, the crowds sang together “the gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!” And what was Paul’s response to that? He said

“Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, being of like passions (homoiopathēs ὁμοιοπαθής) with you.”

Do you see what his argument was? We aren’t gods; we have passions just like you all do.

This is how James describes Elijah,

“Elijah was a man with passions like ours (homoiopathēs ὁμοιοπαθής).”

Elijah was the prophet who experienced great courage and victory on Mount Carmel followed by great depression and discouragement in just the next chapter on Mount Horab. He was a man with passions just like us.

The book of Proverbs has a lot to say about our desires and passions. It observes generally that when we experience desire and then the fulfillment of that desire, it feels good, it feels satisfying.

“A desire fulfilled is sweet to the soul.”

Paul in describing our former lives before we became Christians described us as carrying out the “passions of our flesh” and “the desires of the body and the mind” We did what our hearts desired, and they desired sin. But later in Ephesians, Paul will say that the Holy Spirit is renewing our minds, our desires so that we desire things that are good and right. The Holy Spirit changes us so that now our passions evoke acts that honor God and obey God.

“We all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind….be renewed in the spirit of your minds” ;

The same is true when Paul describes the desire of men who sense an internal calling towards pastoral ministry,

“If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.”

We experience passions and desires. And I want to be careful here, that’s not a bad thing. It’s not necessarily wrong to have passions, to want a playground or Starbucks, or ice cream so much that you feel overcome with desire for those things.

But even though it’s not wrong, should we describe to God in this way? Does God have passions? To say it another way, can God be affected by something outside of himself so that he feels something and responds accordingly? Or, to hark back to the illustration from earlier, is the difference between us and God the difference simply between whose in the driver's seat and whose in the car seat? Who has access to the steering wheel? Or is there something more basic, something in us, in our being, in our nature that is more fundamentally different?

You see, passions are not wrong, but they are creaturely.

And that brings us to our second point,

2) Impassibility and God

Again, back to our definition,

Definition: God does not experience emotional changes, either by his own divine will, or in response to his creation.

God is not a passive receiver. He’s not acted upon. He doesn’t experience emotions that come upon as surprises forced upon him from the outside.

JI Packer said it like this in his book Knowing God,

The first and fundamental difference between the Creator and His creatures is that they are mutable and their natures subject to change, whereas God is immutable and can never cease to be what He is.”

But let’s not just take Packer’s word for it, let’s look to the Scriptures for the answers. How does the Bible describe God’s relationship to emotions and passions?

A) Scriptural Support

The Bible, I believe, is clear. One of the primary ways God is different from his creation is that he is unfailingly consistent, never changing. Samuel ascribes this to God when he says,

A) Scriptural Support

“The Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.”

“I AM WHO I AM.”

“I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.”

“God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind.”

“The Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.”

“God is love.”

B) Theological Arguments

Aseity: God self-existing. Everything necessary for God to be God comes from himself and not from his creatures. THEREFORE….

Simplicity: Everything that is in God is necessary for God to be God. God’s essence cannot be divided into categories of essential and non-essentials properties. THEREFORE…

Eternity: God exists outside of time. He doesn’t have unfolding experiences over time like we do. THEREFORE…

C) But doesn’t God regret his decisions sometimes?

“The word of the Lord came to Samuel: ‘I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.’ “

God, against man, can’t experience having a plan, the plan not working out like he had hoped, and feeling bad or sorry about that. He can’t experience remorse or sorrow. This is something completely outside of his experience as God.

Compare to:

“The Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.”

“Even though we speak of God changing His mind, of His becoming angry, for example, after being kind to certain people, it is, in reality, these people, not God, who change. They find God changed because they have undergone a change” Augustine, The City of God, 22.2

“God’s unchanging holiness requires him to treat the wicked differently from the righteous. When the righteous become wicked, his treatment of them must change. The sun is not fickle or partial because it melts the wax but hardens the clay,—the change is not in the sun but in the objects it shines upon.” Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology 258.

God says just as much in his self-description to Moses at the burning bush. Moses asks God what he can tell the Israelites when they ask who sent him and God responds,

D) But what about Jesus?

“I AM WHO I AM.”

“[The Word] took up man into Himself, the invisible becoming visible, the incomprehensible being made comprehensible, the impassible becoming capable of passions, and the Word was made man, thus summing up all things in Himself.” Irenaeus, Against Heresies. 3.16

Central to the identity of God is being, not becoming. He says “I am who I am,” not “I will be what I am becoming.” or “I am what I was.” But “I am what I am.” There is no becoming in God, no growing, no realizing, no learning, no changing. Only being.

“[God the Son] assumed flesh capable of passions.” Clement, Patchwork, 7.2.

And if this is true of God in his nature it is also true of God in all of his attributes as well. God is unchanging in his faithfulness, his justice, his holiness, his goodness, and also his love, also his anger, also his mercy. He experiences no change in his emotions. When we describe God as unchanging, or absolute being, we can’t limit that to only some of his attributes to the neglect of others. God is and always will be, an unchangeable God, even in his emotions.

Malachi the prophet as he was likely reflecting upon saw this, not as a negative thing, but the source of his confidence in God when he wrote wrote,

“I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.”

“Jesus wept.”

“And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”

Moses, like in , reflects upon the differences between God and men and draws our attention primarily to God’s unchangeableness.

The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

“God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind.”

“And Jesus said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer”

Even in which we looked at earlier, what is it that Paul looks to to prove to his audience that he’s not a god, it’s that he experiences passions just like they do. God does not change his mind, he does not have regret, and there is not even a hint of change in God.

Now, lest I be misunderstood, does this mean that God has no love? No anger? No emotions? Does a God who is unchangeable in his emotions leave us with a stoic, cold, indifferent God? Not at all. This is not to say that god doesn’t interact with his creatures or to try to distance God from us, its to say that all of God’s interactions with his creatures is governed by unchanging love, unchanging goodness, unchanging mercy, unchanging justice. The God of the Bible certainly is impassible, but he is not dispassionate.

Love

John the apostle says it like this:

“God is love.”

AND YET……

God’s love doesn’t increase or decrease in his experience. He simply is love. Love isn’t something outside of God that comes upon God like it does to us. God doesn’t experience chemicals in his brain or flutters in his heart. He isn’t overcome by passions which then cause him to act towards us in a loving way. God’s love is not an emotional state in which he happens to find himself one day and not on another day; rather, love is an essential part of who he is. It’s essential to God himself. To say it another way, God doesn’t fall in love, God is love.

To say it another way, God cannot experience emotional change because he experiences his affections to the greatest possible degree. He is so perfectly loving that any change in his love would be to decrease in his love because he is utterly perfect in love. It’s who he is.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

To say it another way, God cannot discover to a greater degree what love is 20 years from now. He cannot become more loving in his relationship towards his children. He simply is love.

Mercy

And this is not only true of God’s love but also his mercy. Have you ever seen one of those commercials asking you to donate money towards animals finding a good home? They have this emotional music playing in the background while giving us these shots of crying or wounded puppies. And these things aren’t short either, they aren’t 15 second commercials. These are long and drawn out. They really give you a chance to get worked up and before you know it, you just want to help these dogs out so badly. I don’t even like animals; I don’t know why anyone would willingly let an animal into their home, but I watch these commercials and I think, “I’ve got to do something about this. I need to help these poor dogs.”

I mean, I’ve experienced greater compassion and mercy while watching these commercials than I have when I hear some stories of human suffering and pain and I just think, “why is that?” We’re so easily manipulated in our emotions, that’s just part of who we are as people.

But God isn’t like that. God’s mercy isn’t caused by anything outside of himself. No, our God is “merciful and gracious, “abounding in faithfulness and steadfast love.” His mercy can’t be manipulated by things outside of himself in any way. He isn’t moved to mercy because of emotional music or because of pictures of suffering. He is merciful towards others simply out of the fullness of his mercy which is himself. God isn’t like Baal whose the prophets, on top of Mount Carmel, felt the need to cut themselves so that they could move their false god to mercy, to see them and to answer them. No, God is infinitely, perfectly merciful without being prompted towards mercy by his creatures. And this unchangeableness of God’s mercy doesn’t diminish God’s mercy, it maximizes it. It elevates it to a divine perfection, not a passing, fleeting emotion. From the fullness of who God is, he has mercy upon his creatures. God has the perfection of mercy, not the passion of mercy.

"It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not" ().

Justice

This is also true of God’s justice. We often experience feelings of and desires for justice. One of the things I love about my wife is how passionately she feels about about injustice, right and wrong. I don’t know if I’ve ever known somebody who experiences as deeply as she does the weight of injustices done to others as her. If there’s anything similar to righteous anger that I’ve seen on this earth, it’s her when she hears of unjust accusations or treatment of others.

But as wonderful and admirable as this is, our God isn’t like that. He doesn’t experience increase or decrease in his anger towards the wicked or his compassion towards the oppressed. He doesn’t “get angry” once he observes sin and is overcome with emotions; rather, God is “a righteous judge, and a God who is angry with the wicked every day.” . God cannot be “a little more” or “a little less” angry with sin. It’s in his nature to detest it.

And we can have great confidence in the face of injustice because we know, as says, “an evil person will not go unpunished and the offspring of the righteous will be delivered.”

God is not lax in his justice, waiting for something terrible to happen in his world so that he can be reminded of his desire for truth, justice, and righteousness. And this is good news. Because this means that God’s anger is not flippant, he doesn’t have temper tantrums. Rather, justice, like love and mercy, are essential to who God is, to his being.

Origen in the second century said it like this,

“When we speak of God’s wrath, we do not hold that it is an emotional reaction on His part, but something which He uses in order to correct by stern methods those who have committed many terrible sins.” Origen, New Advent, 4.72c

Tertullian, also in the second century, said this,

“He can be angry without (being shaken), can be annoyed without coming into peril, can be moved without being overthrown.”Tertullian, Against Marcion, 2.17.

God, in all dealing with us, is not overcome by emotions as an external force, but he, in all of his actions, acts in a way that is consistent with the perfection of who he is. Far from impassibility teaching that God is disconnected and aloof from his creation, it comforts us that God, in all of his dealing with his creation, is consistent, stable, without mood-swings. And this brings great comfort.

And time fails us to speak of God’s impassible goodness, compassion, long-suffering, and joy. How glorious it is to worship and serve an impassible God.

And time is flying.....and I want to save adequate time to talk about Jesus at the end.

To cover sub-point B briefly, let it be said that impassibility is essential to our theology, not only because we find it in Scripture, but because it is the logical conclusion of many other aspects of our theology. And if we begin to deny the doctrine of impassibility, it’s only logical that we deny other doctrines of God as well.

B) Theological Arguments

3) Impassibility and Real Life

This is true of God’s Asceity, that Gabby taught us about last week. God self-existing. Everything necessary for God to be God comes from himself and not from his creatures. Therefore, God cannot experience mercy or love because he is affected by his creatures. If that were the case, then would not be true; God would not be love, but he would become loving thanks to us.

This also touches on divine Simplicity: Everything that is in God is necessary for God to be God. God’s essence cannot be divided into categories of essential and non-essentials properties. Therefore, God cannot experience passions because of us upon his creation of us. He didn’t experience anger towards sin for the first time in . He’s not in development or becoming. Everything necessary in his nature to be God in in himself because he is God.

Moving on, then to sub-point C. Because I know you all are faithful readers of your Bibles, I am sure that certain passages of Scripture are coming to your minds right now and there are some question marks in your head. “But what about when God regrets or changes his mind?” “Doesn’t he get angry sometimes in the Bible?” Those are great questions, and they are questions we should be asking. Because we, first and foremost, want to be faithful to Scripture and what it says.

Simplicity: Everything that is in God is necessary for God to be God. God’s essence cannot be divided into categories of essential and non-essentials properties. THEREFORE…

To think about it from another angle, this must be true because God is eternal. God exists outside of time. He doesn’t have unfolding experiences over time like we do. Therefore, he can’t be surprised by anything. We don’t do things that catch him off guard and move him to love or anger. He doesn’t experience time like us and, therefore, can’t be moved by passions like us.

C) But doesn’t God regret his decisions sometimes?

While we could cover each of these texts individually, I’d like for us to look at as a case study. After Saul had continually disobeyed God or half-obeyed God again and again and again, Samuel records,

A) We can have great confidence in God’s unchanging love.

“The word of the Lord came to Samuel: ‘I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.’ “

So, God regretted his decision, right? He felt remorse. He became sorrowful. He felt that, if only he could go back in time, he would have done things differently. Right? Isn’t that what this text is saying? But wait, let’s keep reading the chapter and look down in verse 28:

Compare to:

And Samuel said to him, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.”

How can this be? Well, there is a very complicated principle of biblical interpretation that we have to keep in mind, “the biblical writers are not stupid.” The author here clearly didn’t write one thing and then 18 verses later, he forgot what he wrote and decided to say the exact opposite. That would be a pretty bad goof.

So how can we make sense of this? Can God feel regret because, like us, sometimes his plans don’t turn out like he had hoped? No. The author is saying here that, in one sense, God can be described as regretting, while also saying that, in another sense, God should never be said to regret anything. The author is clear, God regretted, but this is, by no means, like human regret. How can we understand this?

Kevin DeYoung, again, is helpful here. He says

God is sorry in this passage because Saul has changed, but this does not mean that God has changed. In fact, God’s “change” is a manifestation of his unchanging character. God’s passion for the glory of his name, his passion for righteousness and justice never change. But when the external world changes God’s relationship to that world also changes. SO when Saul’s behavior changed, God, immutable in nature and purpose, chose to respond to Saul in a different way in order to be true to himself.

Any perceived emotional change in God observed by us or by the biblical writers must be understood as God relating to his people in time, and relating to his people who experience temporal changes. God did not change towards Saul because he changes, but because he never changes. He is always grieved when his people turn away from him and there is always joy in heaven when a sinner repents. So God’s interactions with his changing world always reflect his immutable and impassible character.

Augustine said it well,

Augustus Strong gives us this illustration in his systematic theology:

B) We can be confident that God will not be swayed in executing justice against wickedness on the final day.

The sun never changes, but the objects upon which it shines are different. And in our world, wax sometimes becomes clay, and clay sometimes becomes wax — the wicked can become righteous and the righteous can become wicked. And in these changes, we experience God’s interactions with them differently, not because God has changed, but because we have. Remember the text I quoted earlier, that “God is angry with the wicked all day long?” Yes, this is true. And when Saul became one of the wicked, he placed himself among those with whom God is angry.

So, the biblical author uses the word “regret” here, not to describe what God experiences in his inner being, but to explain that the actions God takes in this specific passage are the same kind of actions a person takes when they feel regret — just as, when we regret a decision we made, we try to undo it and replace it with another action, so God in this text is undoing his work of making Saul king and starting over again with David.

There’s more that could be said here, but we must continue on.

Another thought I know you all are likely having is “but what about Jesus?” Isn’t Jesus God? And didn’t he suffer? Didn’t he cry? Didn’t he become angry? How can impassibility be true if Jesus underwent emotional changes?

D) But what about Jesus?

This, this is where impassibility becomes even more beautiful.

Irenaeus, an early church Father, said it like this:

Clement, another early church father also said:

“[God the Son] assumed flesh capable of passions.” Clement, Patchwork, 7.2.

This is the very point the writer to the Hebrews makes with he writes,

C) We can feel love and thankfulness for Jesus to an even greater degree.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.

One of the greatest purposes for the incarnation is that Jesus is passible, that he be able to sympathize with us. Because if God can’t experience passions or changes in his emotions, can he really sympathize with us in a true and meaningful way? Can he weep with those who weep? Sure, he is compassionate, but he’s not the “man of sorrows” he’s not “acquainted with grief.”

However, of Jesus, it is said at the funeral of Lazarus,

“Jesus wept.”

How amazing is this? The God man, entering time, experienced a moment where he was overcome with grief, and he wept.

Or how about Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane,

“And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.”

The Son of God, incapable of suffering, incapable of passions, was so overcome with griefs and sorrows and heartache that he sweat drops of blood in thinking about the crucifixion.

The same is true of Jesus when he saw the moneychangers in the temple and he drove them out. His disciples remember what was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

Or perhaps one of the most precious verses describing Jesus’ relationship to passions:

“And Jesus said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer”

The night before he suffers and dies, Jesus experiences passion, earnest desire to be with his friends, and to eat with them.

The doctrine of divine impassibility helps us, then, appreciate to a greater degree the incarnation. If it were not for the incarnation, Jesus would not qualify to be our sympathetic high priest. And without the doctrine of impassibility, the incarnation is robbed a bit of some of its glory as the Son condescends and takes upon himself a human nature capable of passion, capable of sympathy, capable of tears, capable of empathy.

And looking at our time, we simply can’t go into the depths and mysteries of as I had hoped. Suffice it to say that Jesus, in that he is God, is the same yesterday, today, and forever, unchanging I AM. But in that he is man, he is fully capable of passions, fully capable of weeping with us. Where comforts us is that these emotions in Christ are consistently holy, consistently righteous. He is always our empathetic High Priest and will never cease to be that for us.

AND YET……

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

We then come to the question, how might this apply directly to my life? While I’ve hinted at that throughout, with the time we have left, I hope to quickly and specifically make it clear how divine impassibility, rather than being distent from our everyday life, actually connects quite well to our daily experience as believers.

3) Impassibility and Real Life

A) We can have great confidence in God’s unchanging love.

Christian, only an impassible God can say the words of , “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, I have continued my faithfulness to you.”

, “The steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him.”

God’s love towards you is not for a moment. It’s for eternity. It’s deep, unmoving, and unchangeable.

Conclusions

This week, I had a moment where the Holy Spirit was convicting me of sin. I was overwhelmed by sorrow over what I had done and how I had been thinking. I confessed my sin to God. And the Holy Spirit brought to mind , the great psalm celebrating the impassible love of God towards his people,

Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;

for his steadfast love endures forever!

Let Israel say,

“His steadfast love endures forever.”

Let the house of Aaron say,

“His steadfast love endures forever.”

Let those who fear the Lord say,

“His steadfast love endures forever.”

Brothers and sisters, God’s eternal, never-ending, unchanging, impassible love towards you and me, rather than making God feel impersonal, is actually the greatest comfort we can have when we’re faced with doubts, fears, or discouragements. He who is love has freely and willingly set his affections upon us and that can never change because “the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.”

When faced with doubts of God’s love for us, let us pray with David in , “Let your steadfast love comfort me according to the promise to your servant.”

And let us hear God say in response, “Great is my steadfast love towards you, and my faithfulness endures forever.” Psalm 116:2.

B) We can be confident that God will not be swayed in executing justice against wickedness on the final day.

This also is good news. I wanted to say more here, but because of time, suffice it to say that God will not fail to make every wrong right on the last day. It can only be said of a God impassible in his justice that “The judge of all the earth will do right.” . We will not come to the final day only to find that God has changed his mind. The God of Scripture will be the same God we meet when we enter paradise and this is a great comfort to us.

Finally,

C) We can feel love and thankfulness for Jesus to an even greater degree.

We can love Jesus to an even greater degree, knowing that he is uniquely able to empathize with us. He weeps with those who weeps. He’s a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. None of us will arrive in heaven and be met with eyes that don’t understand our hurts, nor will any of us ever hear Jesus say “I don’t know what that’s like.” He will wipe away our tears with rough, nailed pierced hands, and through eyes that have known tears themselves.

This Jesus, he is the one who says “behold, I am making all things new.” And he is the one who is bringing us to a place where,

English Standard Version Chapter 21

death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

“death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:4.

Conclusions

So let’s run to this man of sorrows.

Let’s find comfort in the God of unchanging love. Only a God who is unchanging in his love for his creatures will never disappoint us, never fail us, and will always remain steadfast in his love towards us.

Related Media

Related Sermons

Divine Impassibility: Delighting in Our Unchangeable God

Introduction

Mental Challengers

Emotional Challenges

Cultural Challengers

Cultural Challenges: Impassibility is unpopular with many, both inside and outside the church.

Challenges:

Mental Challengers: Impassibility is difficult to understand.

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1) Impassibility and Us

A) What are passions?

B) Scriptural Support

2) Impassibility and God

A) Scriptural Support

A) Scriptural Support

B) Theological Arguments

C) But doesn’t God regret his decisions sometimes?

D) But what about Jesus?

Love

Mercy

Justice

B) Theological Arguments

3) Impassibility and Real Life

C) But doesn’t God regret his decisions sometimes?

A) We can have great confidence in God’s unchanging love.

B) We can be confident that God will not be swayed in executing justice against wickedness on the final day.

D) But what about Jesus?

C) We can feel love and thankfulness for Jesus to an even greater degree.

3) Impassibility and Real Life

A) We can have great confidence in God’s unchanging love.

Conclusions

B) We can be confident that God will not be swayed in executing justice against wickedness on the final day.

C) We can feel love and thankfulness for Jesus to an even greater degree.

Conclusions