Okay, tonight we're continuing our mini-series on the doctrine of divine impassibility. Last week I commented that this was likely going to be a two or three week series. I actually think we can wrap this up tonight. just by filling in some gaps from our last study, namely by answering the question, if God is impassable, why does scripture routinely speak of him as if he does in fact display emotions similar to those displayed by humans? And before we answer that question, let's take just a minute to remember a couple of things from our last study. First of all, what do we mean when we argue that God is impassable? Well, as we discussed at length, impassibility means that God is not, as we are, subject to the ebb and flow of emotions or passions. This, of course, stems from the fact that he's immutable. It's based upon God's immutability that we also understand him to be impassible. Passages like 1 Samuel 15, 29, Malachi 3, 6, James 1, 17, all of those passages make it abundantly clear that God cannot change. And in addition to those scriptural passages, we really need not even appeal to scripture at all to understand this about God, because if we understand God's perfection, then we understand very well that to change for the worse means that he would not be perfect, to change for the better means that he was not perfect to begin with. And so anytime we're faced with a situation where we understand God as being perfect, we can say in the same breath, then he must be immutable. And if he's immutable, he must be impassable as well. Now, let me also remind you of what the doctrine of impassability does not teach. By saying that God has no emotions or passions, we're not implying that God is nothing more than a miserable, unfeeling, uncaring, apathetic despot. God does love. In fact, he loves perfectly. God does hate. He hates perfectly. He's very much involved with his creation in terms of caring for us providentially and meeting our needs all along the road, but he does none of those things in the same way that we do them. That's the only thing we're really trying to bring out in this study. We share some of God's communicable attributes, and we talked about those things. We know what it means to love. We don't know what it means to love the way God loves because we have finite minds. His mind is infinite. We have attributes, communicable attributes that we share with him as those made in the image of God, but those attributes have been horribly marred by sin. So where we understand the concept of love, we don't understand it as God displays it. We love conditionally. God loves unconditionally. We hate conditionally. God hates without any conditions at all. So our love, our hate, our justice, our righteousness, our morality is at best simply a reflection of our fallen nature, right? Now understand, we are still encased in this body of flesh. And so all of those attributes that we share that God communicates to us are marred by that fallen condition. Even though we are saved, even though we are heaven bound, even though positionally we have already been declared righteous, and in God's mind we've already been glorified positionally, That doesn't remove the fact that as we have to eke out our existence along this linear timeline, we still carry with us this tremendous weight of the flesh. We still sin, don't we? We've been talking about that during Sunday school on the Lord's Day. We still sin, and that's just something, I think, to remind us that we've not arrived yet. The Apostle Paul says, I've not yet arrived. In fact, in Romans 7, he laments the fact very strongly that he had not yet arrived. He says, oh, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? He's longing for that day when this corruption shall put on incorruption, right? So again, we need to understand those things in comparison to how God himself behaves in accordance with those same perfections. Remember, we call them perfections, not attributes. They're perfections because in God and in God alone, these things are part of his essential being. And if they're part of his being, they have to be perfect because he himself is perfect in every way. Well, before we move on to talk about a few scriptural examples, of what theologians refer to as anthropopathisms. Let me first give you another historical reason for the necessity of understanding this doctrine of impassibility. Last week, you'll recall I alluded to a group called the Sassinians. The Sassinians were a group of individuals who, among other things, advocated the idea that God was actually very much like us. They misunderstood how we are made in the image of God. And there are many today who still misunderstand this from time to time. They insist that if we are like God, that means God is like us. That's not at all what is meant by our being made in his image. And so the Socinians kind of took that ball and ran with it and ran right into heresy. This was a heresy that was actually coming to fore during the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. And this is why the Puritans wrote so extensively on the doctrine of divine impassibility. They were actually combating this idea that God was like us. Now, what I had intended to bring out in last week's study but forgot to mention was that even as early as the fourth century, the church was faced with dealing with a similar error. Now, just to set this up, you'll recall that last time we discussed the fact that Jesus came to this earth as 100% God and 100% man. And you'll recall that that is the doctrine of the hypostatic union, right? And based upon our understanding of that concept, we safely concluded that when Jesus hungered, when he thirsted, when he grew weary, when he was forced to sleep, when he wept, we concluded that it must be Jesus, the man who was undergoing all of those changes. And how do we conclude that? Well, it's very simple. God the Father is never hungry. God the Father never thirsts. He never grows weary or tired. He never sleeps. He never weeps. God the Father doesn't cry. As a matter of fact, he couldn't cry. Why would he cry? That would indicate a change, right? He's either crying all the time or he's happy all the time. Which is it? Neither, he is, right? Historically, this has been the predominant belief among theologians. In fact, it was this belief that led to the formulation of the doctrine of the hypostatic union. They had to find some way to say, okay, if Jesus was divine, if Jesus was God in the flesh, how do we explain all of these qualities and all of these things that he's exhibiting that aren't characteristic of God, of a perfect God? Well, we have to conclude that he was 100% God and 100% man. That's the only way you can get around that, really. And it makes perfect sense, at least from a scriptural perspective, right? Jesus claims to be God, and yet he admits all through his ministry that he has self-imposed limitations, right? And we've talked about those, so I'm not going to belabor that point any further. Now, the Thessalonians of the 16th century had actually picked up on that which had been happening in the church since the end of the first century. Ever since the day of Pentecost, Error was being introduced into the church in gradual measure, right? We can see that. I mean, it happens all the time, even in the church today. Why do we suspect that it wouldn't happen early on then? They started combating various heresies right from the start. And so the Sassanians of the 16th century were actually just kind of following the course of church history up to that point. Error had been being introduced into the church and would continue to do so. They were simply falling into the same error that those before them had fallen into. As I was preparing for this study, I came across a reference from a document that was written during the Council of Rome in 382. That's fairly early. We don't have much by way of original manuscript evidence for really anything in the church extending much further back than the fourth century. Right? We do have some things, but by and large, most of them appear about the 3rd or 4th century. So this is a fairly early writing. But listen to what a portion of this read. And I read this to you because this illustrates that even then, in 382, they were facing the same problem that the Sassanians would later resurrect in the 16th century, this portion of this document said, if anyone says that in the passion of the cross it is God himself who felt the pain and not the flesh and soul which Christ the Son of God had taken to himself, he is mistaken. Now why would they write something like that? They wrote something like that because Someone had begun introducing into church doctrine this idea that God the Father suffered on the cross. See where the ripple effect gets you? If you don't understand the doctrine of the hypostatic union, then God the Father suffered as well. They failed to understand the true nature of Christ as the God-man, and they'd begun to teach that when Christ suffered on the cross, since he was God, incarnate God, the Father himself also suffered. This is known as, if you're taking notes, it's known as Theopascatism. That's a mouthful, right? Theo, P-A-S-C-H-I-T-I-S-M. Comes from two words, you can tell that, right? Theo is God, thea is God, and pasco, suffering. So theopascitism is the belief that God the Father himself suffered. Now there was a subsequent slightly enhanced teaching known as patrapassianism, P-A-T-R-I, meaning specifically the father, right? Passionism, the passion of the father. And this taught that God the father specifically suffered alongside Jesus the son on the cross. Both of these teachings were branded as heretical in the sixth century, sometime in the sixth century. The first one was labeled a Christological heresy because it denied Christ's dual nature as being both 100% God and 100% man. If Christ had only one nature as they claim, then the divine nature must have suffered during the crucifixion. The latter heresy was labeled a Trinitarian heresy because it was actually modalistic. If you're unfamiliar with that term, the modalist believes that there's only one God who actually portrays himself in three different personages. So God, in some cases, behaves as the Father, portrays himself as the Father. In other cases, in other modes, he's the Son. In other modes, the one true God is the Holy Spirit. That's modalism. T.D. Jakes, you might have heard that name, is a well-known modalist, right? Modalism is heretical. Why? Because it denies Trinitarian doctrine. We believe that God is one in three persons. One true God in three persons, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is where you arrive at when you start to deny the impassibility of God, right? Now we come to that question that I think is probably on most of your minds. What about those passages in scripture which do seem to teach that God does in fact change with regard to both his feelings and actions? What do we do with those? One of the most oft-cited of these examples is from Genesis 6. You probably are familiar with that. Prior to God's destruction of the earth and the global flood of Noah's day, what do we read concerning God's decision to act? In other words, what do we read about how God responded to that which necessitated the global flood of Noah's day? In verses five and six of Genesis 6, we read this. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart. That's problematic on a couple of levels. Now let's just approach this passage from a purely logical and literal perspective and see what we come up with. First things first. Do you remember what happened when God created everything that exists? What did he declare it? Very good. He said, it is very good. Genesis 1 31, God saw all that he had made and behold, it was very good. And then what happened? Well, in the span of six chapters, if you read this literally, and you discount any anthropopathic language, in the span of six chapters, everything went from very good to, oops, I made a mistake. Anybody here okay with that? I'm not, right? According to Moses, if you take this literally, Writing under divine inspiration, Moses says, God regretted that he made man and he went from being happy with what he had created to being grieved in his heart. That's what the text says. God made a mistake and man's wickedness caused him tremendous grief. Now jump over to 1 Samuel 15. 1 Samuel 15, a minute ago, We establish that this passage actually teaches the doctrine of God's immutability. That he in fact does not and cannot change. Right? Verse 29, the glory of Israel will not lie or change his mind. For he's not a man that he should change his mind. And that's all well and good. But back up to verse 10. What do we read there? Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel saying, I regret that I've made Saul king for he has turned back from following me and has not carried out my commands. Again, taken at face value, what's God saying here? He's saying I made a mistake in making Saul king. I goofed. In verse 35, we're told the same thing. The Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel. over in Ephesians 4, verse 30. Paul tells us quite clearly that believers are capable of grieving the Holy Spirit, which by the way is also mentioned in Isaiah 63.10. And by this Paul seems to be saying that we can actually cause a change in the Holy Spirit's disposition. Speaking of Isaiah in Isaiah 1.14, God implies that he does in fact grow weary. Your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts, my soul hates. They have become a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them, God says. And there are tons of other examples from the scriptures that we could cite, but let's just stop and pass these things through the grid or the filter of scripture, bearing in mind that as the perfect God, He is necessarily immutable and impassable. The first question we need to ask and answer is this, did God really admit to making a mistake in Genesis 6 and 1 Samuel 15? No. How do we know? Because He doesn't make mistakes. And not only does He not make mistakes, He cannot make mistakes. because for him to make a mistake would be to render him mutable. So what's actually going on here? Well, we talk very often about anthropomorphisms, don't we? You read all throughout the scriptures where God the Father is said to have hands, right? Even Jesus said that God the Father has hands, that's where we are. We're safely deposited in the Father's hands. No one can snatch them from his hand, right? The wings of the Almighty overshadow us, right? These anthropomorphisms, as you can tell, are physical characteristics that are ascribed to God. In the Genesis 6 passage we just read, Moses says that God was grieved in his heart. Does God have a heart? No. No, God does not have a heart. He's what theologians refer to as incorporeal, which means He doesn't even have a body. If God had a heart, He wouldn't have anywhere to put it. Because God the Father is spirit. It's not sacrilege. That's biblical truth. Right? John 4.24, He is spirit. Luke 24.39, a spirit has no flesh and bones. God has no flesh and bones. God the Father is spirit, God the Holy Spirit is spirit. We read in other places about words coming from the mouth of God. Does God have a mouth? No. We're told that, again, we're overshadowed by his wings, we're in his hands, he's got feet, you know, he walks in heaven, and he walked with Adam and Eve in the Kulig garden. Of course, that's probably Christ himself, right, in a pre-incarnate appearance. But we're also told, and this is really not an anthropomorphism per se, but it's similar, we're also told that God is our rock. Is God made of stone? No, no. It just means that he's solid, he's dependable, he's trustworthy. He's also said to be our fortress. Is God a fortress in the literal sense? No. So what do we make of all these things? This is descriptive language. This is language to help us understand something about God that we would not otherwise be able to understand. Remember, throughout scripture, God is attempting to reveal himself to finite beings. As an infinite being, he's trying to communicate himself to finite minds. He's got to find some ways to condescend to us and to speak to us in language that we can relate to and understand. Well, in addition to using anthropomorphic and other figurative speech, the Bible often also employs anthropopathic language. Whereas anthropomorphisms relate things to our finite minds by ascribing physical characteristics to God, anthropopathisms relate things to us by ascribing to God certain emotional qualities. So how are we to make sense of these passages which imply that God does grieve? Are we to suggest that he does change his mind? That he does have regrets? Well, first of all, we always want to align ourselves with the position that best supports the true nature of God in his perfections. And once again, that's the position of immutability and impassibility. Whenever you're faced with having to understand something, you must land where the pendulum swings to that position which most glorifies and honors him in his essential being. And that is immutability and impassibility every time. Otherwise, again, you're on a slippery slope. You've got a God who does in fact change both emotionally and physically, right? Now secondly, I think we would do well to understand that it's we who change and not God. I think that's the key. to understanding this whole thing. Let me warn you, what I'm about to say is about to get kind of weird, right? But I'm simply trying to use language that we all might understand to help us understand exactly what's going on here. When we change, as we are prone to do, rather than God changing, it's actually our perspective changing in relation to what particular perfection of God we see at the time. One of the most helpful illustrations that I've heard on this, and if you want to take exception to this you can take it up with Kevin DeYoung because I was out reading one of his studies on this, but he gave one of the best illustrations I believe I've ever heard. How many of you have ever seen a prism? It's a little triangular shaped piece of glass and you pass white light through it and what happens? Yes, the rainbow. It breaks up into those colors of the rainbow. Anybody know what those are? Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Right? ROYGBIV. Right. Okay, good. So you shine this light through a prism and the light itself breaks up into its independent visible spectrum. It's called the visible spectrum because on one end you have ultraviolet, right? And on the other end you have infrared. There are things in the spectrum, and oh, by the way, does anybody know the only animal on planet Earth that can see infrared light? No. Yeah, they see it in Chick-fil-A. He'll be here all week. That's a good one. The reindeer. I knew it. I said deer. I said deer. I knew it. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, maybe Rudolph's nose was an infrared light. But Rudolph the infrared nose reindeer doesn't sound as good, right? But anyway, we've got this thing called the visible spectrum. How many lights go into the prism? One. But it's manifesting itself in all these different colors. These different colors, right? Now, think about this, if you dare. Imagine you're standing in front of a huge prism, right? And you happen to be standing, the light's coming through, That's God, right? And you're standing in front of this prism and you happen to be standing in the red band. Everything's red, right? The other colors still exist, don't they? What are you experiencing at that time? The red light, okay? Now how do you experience the other colors? You move. You change. You change your location. Again, it's not the light that's changing. The light is perfectly, immutably, and impassibly the same. But when you change, illustrated by your movement, it appears as though the light itself is changing. God's perfections operate in much the same way. When they appear to change, or vary, it's actually us who are doing the changing. We've occasionally used this same illustration with regard to prayer. Prayer doesn't change God, does it? No. What happens? Prayer changes us. And so when we're experiencing one aspect of God's perfection, we go to Him in prayer, and that changes. Who has changed? God? We've changed. We've changed. Now let's just go with this analogy and see if we can better understand that Genesis passage that poses so many problems for us. Let's label the colors from our prism with God's different perfections. Let's say the color red represents God's righteous anger and indignation, or in this case, his holy resentment. And let's say the color orange corresponds to his common grace or his omnibenevolence. People get nervous when you say common grace because they think it's a cheapening of grace. His omnibenevolence, his goodness, right? What happened in Genesis 6? Did God change from being tolerant of man to being angry with him? In other words, did the light in which man was standing at the time change? No. What changed? Man changed. Man changed. in fulfillment of his sinful desires, man moved from the orange to the red. And that's what happens in our own disobedience. When you're disobedient, God's not changing at all. You are simply moving yourself from God's blessing into God's chastisement. He hasn't gone anywhere. I think that's a really good illustration. Now, all illustrations are woefully inadequate to describe God. I'm not describing the triune God with something as trivial as a prism. You guys understand that. But I think it helps us understand that whenever we do experience what looks like God changing, it's actually us who are changing. And when you think about it that way, I think it helps make these passages a little better to understand. You read all the time, for example, here's another one. God says, if my people will do this, then I will do this, right? But if we understand the prism to be God's eternal decree that never changes, if a man is currently doing this and stops doing that and does this, who's changed? The man. The man will then find himself enjoying the sovereign decree of God all along. It's not that God changed his mind. So how does God best express that? Does God give us a science lesson in the scriptures talking about prisms and visible light spectrums and all? No, how does he do that? He says, I was sorry I made man. That's the only way that can be conveyed without going through all these convoluted different ways of understanding that. It's the only way you can reconcile a God who never changes, a God who cannot change, over and against the passages that suggest He does. Who changes? Again, it's not Him, it's us. Every time. The same thing's true of Saul. Had God actually made a mistake in appointing him as king of Israel? No. It was Saul's sin that moved him from a place of God's temporal favor to a place of God's displeasure. Who moved? Saul moved. Saul's sin propelled him from experiencing God from one perspective to experiencing Him from another perspective. God never changed. So remember that, if you move from red to orange, you'll experience a different aspect of God. Right? When you change your circumstances. And guess what? Here's the tricky part. It's all been foreordained by God. I mean, He's unchanging. His decree is unchanging. But He ordained that you would change. And when you would change? How does that work? I don't know. I don't know. Now, as I said, I realize that all analogies are prone to error and none of them can adequately explain the unexplainable. But that was particularly helpful for me. I think it's pretty simplistic, actually. I think God was acting with impeccable wisdom when he inspired the writers of scripture to use the vehicles of anthropomorphism and anthropopathism to convey certain truths about himself, you know, as opposed to using what would otherwise be very confusing means. Well, in the final analysis, like the intersection of God's sovereignty and human responsibility, we'll never understand that either, will we? Just like that, There are some things we have to leave in the category of mystery. And I think Charles Wesley hit the nail on the head. You remember his hymn, And Can It Be? He says one thing in that hymn that really explains this problem we have. Remember this line? Tis mystery all, the immortal dies. Who can explore his strange design? We can't. What does it mean the immortal dies? That's a contradiction in terms. And yet the immortal died and was raised again. How can we reconcile such a deep truth with what we know and believe about divine immortality? We can't. But while we can't reconcile such things, we can accept them. And the doctrine of God's impassibility is just one of those things we have to accept on the basis of everything else we know about God. Once again, I don't want a God, and I don't believe this is the God of the scripture, I don't want a God who changes. Because if he's the God of the Arminian and their flowers, again, the daisy, he loves me, he loves me not. I don't want a God who plays that kind of game with my immortal soul. Right? So I want a God who is not subject to the ebb and flow of emotions and passions. But let me tell you what I also do want. I do want a God who loves perfectly. I do want a God who loves without ceasing. I do want a God who has promised me that I will find myself secure where He is for all eternity. And I can trust that only because He's impassable. That's what makes the doctrine so wonderful. We're not trying to take anything away from God. We're just trying to give God His due. And that should compel us to worship Him all the more and say, God, thank you so much that you're not like us. that you'll never be like us. But by the same token, we're told in scripture that one day we will be like the sun. Tis mystery all. Right? Yep. Who can explore his strange design? Well, that's about all I've got.