Kevin DeYoung on Christ’s Empathy and Victory

Kevin DeYoung wrote an article in 2006 titled, “Divine Impassibility and the Person of Christ in the Book of Hebrews.”  I recommend the article.  I’ve included a summary below, followed by my response.

DeYoung, Kevin.  “Divine Impassibility and the Passion of Christ in the Book of Hebrews.”  Westminster Theological Journal 68 (2006): 41-50.

The doctrine of divine impassibility has lost favor within Christianity today.  Most believe that God suffers.  There are four main theological reasons why God’s impassibility is being rejected: 1) A suffering God is the only possible theodicy.  2) God is love, and if God is love He must enter into the pain of His creatures—anything less would be diabolical.  3) The biblical description of God in His passions must be taken at full face value and not diminished as anthropopathic language.  4) When Jesus Christ—the fullness of the Godhead in bodily form—suffered, He showed the true suffering nature of God Himself.  The concern of this paper is with this fourth reason.  According to those who argue for God’s passibility, the suffering of Christ must entail the suffering of God.  I disagree.  By looking at Hebrews, especially 2:5-18, I hope to demonstrate that God remains impassible even though the Impassible suffered in Christ.

This passage directs us towards two points crucial in our understanding of how Jesus Christ can suffer while God does not: 1) The incarnation involved some sort of change.  Christ the exact representation of God was made a little lower than the angels.  Not every thing Jesus did or felt revealed the character of God since He is fully human.  Jesus ate, slept, drank, etc.    Continue at Jared Moore

What Does It Mean for the Father to Forsake the Son? (Part 1)

Someone has described the four Gospels as “passion narratives with extended introductions.”  Indeed.  All the action and teaching prior to the passion of Christ serves as harbinger to the suffering to come.  The scenes grow more affecting from Gethsemane.  The intensity swells until the heart nearly bursts. 

 Consider Matthew 27:

³² As they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene, named Simon, and they forced him to carry the cross. ³³ They came to a place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull). ³⁴ There they offered Jesus wine to drink, mixed with gall; but after tasting it, he refused to drink it. ³⁵ When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots. ³⁶ And sitting down, they kept watch over him there. ³⁷ Above his head they placed the written charge against him: THIS IS JESUS, THE KING OF THE JEWS. ³⁸ Two robbers were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. ³⁹ Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads ⁴⁰ and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!”

 ⁴¹ In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. ⁴² ”He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! He’s the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. ⁴³ He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” ⁴⁴ In the same way the robbers who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.
⁴⁵ From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. ⁴⁶ About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”   Continue at Thabiti Anyabwile

 What Does It Mean for the Father to Forsake the Son? (Part 2)