Part Two: How Jesus' View Of The Bible Ought To Inform Our View Of The Bible

Introduction:

       In our last post here http://www.growingchristianresources.com/2022/05/part-one-how-jesus-view-of-bible-ought.html, we began to considerJesus' view of Scripture and why His view of  Scripture ought to be our view of Scripture. We noted three expressions Jesus used when talking about the Old Testament. First we observed His use of the phrase "it is written". Then, we witnessed His use of the term "the scripture", and where He deems the words of the Old Testament as God's voice in written form. Put another way, to say the phrase "Scripture" is to equate the words of the Bible as being tantamount to talking to God face-to-face and hearing Him speak. We demonstrated how those phrases point the reader to conclude that Jesus viewed the words of the Bible as without error or totally true - i.e. "inerrant", as well as incapable of error - i.e. "infallible". 

       In today's post I want us to consider two more phrases used by Jesus in His descriptions of how He viewed Scripture as further testimony of what the view ought to be of everyone that professes to follow Him.  

a. "Truly, Truly, I say to you"

     In addition to the phrase I alluded to above ("it is written", "the scriptures"), the next set of phrases that Jesus used to teach about the Bible was where he would either say "but I say" or "truly truly". These particular statements refer to Jesus's own self understanding of his Divine Authority as delivering the very words of God. He would often contrast himself with the Jewish traditions as found in the teachings of the Pharisees and Scribes. Hence, Jesus used the phrase "truly truly" in John 1:51; 3:3, 5, 11; 5:19, 24, 25; 6:26, 32, 47, 53; 8:34, 51, 58; 10:1, 7; 12:24; 13:16, 20, 21, 38; 14:12; 16:20, 23 and 21:18. 

       We then find Jesus using the phrase "I say" with reference to his own Divine Authority in Matthew 5:18, 22, 22, 26, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44; 6:2, 5, 16, 25, 29, 8.10, 11; 10:15, 23, 29; 11:23, 24; 12:43; 13:30, 37: 14:9, 14, 18, 25, 30 / Luke 4:24 and Luke 5:24. In Luke 6:25, Jesus would use the phrase "but I say" to contrast himself to the Jewish traditions, as seen in Luke 7.9, 14, 26, 28, 47.10:12; 11:8, 9, 51; 12:5, 22, 27, 37, 44. 

       As Jesus proclaimed His own self understanding, He claimed the ability to forgive sins (Luke 7:47; 12:8) which is something the Old Testament taught that Yahweh, Jehovah God, could alone do (see Isaiah 43:10,11; Jonah 2:9-10). Jesus Christ came into this world with an unprecedented air of authority and self-awareness of He Himself being "God in the flesh". As only Jesus could achieve, His self-understanding as God-incarnate never came across as arrogant or out of place. Finally, we see this phrase "but I say" used in John 1:51 and in Matthew 5:22, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44 / Luke 6:27 / John 5:34, expressing everything I just noted about our Lord with respect to how He perceived Himself as the Eternal Son of God who came as the virgin-born, incarnate Savior - Jesus Christ (see Matthew 1:21-23, "God with us or Immanuel"; John 1:14, "The Word made flesh"; Colossians 2:9, "He being the fullness of the Godhead bodily"). 

b. "Word of God" 

         The final major term that Jesus used to describe the scriptures was the phrase "the Word of God". Whenever we use the phrase "Word of God" to describe either the writings of the Old and New Testament or Jesus Himself, we are describing something or someone who speaks in God's place. Thus, Jesus used this phrase "word of God" in places such as Matthew 4:4; 15:6 / Mark 7:13 / Luke 8:11, 21; 11:28 / John 3:34; 8:47 / John 10:35.  In John 10:35, Jesus uses the particular phrase: "the Word of God cannot be broken" to refer to scripture's infallibility (that is, it's incapability of ever being wrong or ever failing to be right).

Closing thoughts

    We have labored to show through an exhaustive survey of the four Gospels the view of the Bible held to by Jesus. We noted the major phrases He used when referencing the Old Testament: "it is written", "the Scripture", "I say to you", "truly, truly", and "the Word of God". We discovered that such descriptions revealed what Jesus thought about Himself as God in the flesh. We also noted how such phrases demonstrated Jesus' high-view of Scripture as being totally true or "inerrant" and totally trustworthy or "infallible". Jesus' use of the Greek and Aramaic translations of His day expressed that He saw the inerrancy and infalliblity of the original manuscripts still having relevance in how those translations still carry with them the words and meanings of those originals. Finally, we concluded that Jesus'view of Scripture came to represent what would be the uniform view of the Apostles. Consequently, this high view of Scripture ought to be the view of the church at large - since Jesus Himself taught it as so. My hope is that these posts reinforce a revival in proclaiming and defending the Bible as God's authoritative Word - infallible, inerrant, and the final authority on all subjects pertaining to this life and the one to come. 

That's A Good Question! How can an unchanging God change His mind? More on God's emotional life.

Introduction:

     In the last post we began to look at God's emotional life here: http://www.growingchristianresources.com/2020/04/thats-good-question-answering-recent.html. Recently, I had received a question about this topic in a Sunday night live Q&A service (in which we live streamed and received questions from viewers). I began to deal with how God's emotional-life differs from our emotional life. In this post, I continue on with the response I gave to this question, focusing on the seemingly perplexing issue of how an unchanging God is described as "changing His mind" or emotions. For those interested in watching the video segment to which this question is related, you can click on the link here to our church's You Tube channel that features the "Q&A service" from April 5, 2020 and forward to time segment 30:15-43:30 in which the question is addressed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbH84ZEGlR0&t=2607s

So what does the Bible mean when it says "God changed His mind", even though it elsewhere describes God as unchanging?

Answer:

1. Scripture does present God as unchanging in terms of His being while seemingly "changing His mind".

     "Scripture says that on several occasions (for instance in the book of Jonah), that Jonah is talking to God in chapter three of His prophecy. Jonah said something to the effect: "I knew that you were a God who would change your mind".  What had happened, Jonah had been told by God to proclaim throughout the city of Nineveh in three days God was going to judge them. Then, the King of Nineveh decreed a time of repentance where everyone was to dress in sackcloth and sit on ashes (a customary ancient form of mourning) and cry out to God for repentance. It says in the book of Jonah that "God changed his mind".  So, some people have asked: "well, how can that be the case?" We read, for instance, in Numbers 23:19 

"God is not a man that he should change his mind nor son of man that he should repent". 

      Yet, there in the book of Jonah, we see God changing his mind.  Although God is by nature unchanging (what theologians call "immutable"), we see instances in scripture where we see him described as changing his mind that is referring to God from the standpoint of the creatures. What is going on then? 

2. God, in Scripture, uses two different methods of expressing His nature and identity.

      Scripture talks of God in two ways. There are those verses that speaks of God as He is in and of Himself - namely, He's unchanging. Then, there are those verses in which God adapts the revelation of Himself in forms of figurative language to bridge understanding to His people (older writers liken this to a parent speaking baby-talk to their child).

      As to the first sort of way scripture refers to God, we turn to James 1:17, which says - 

"every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of heavenly lights with whom there is no variation nor shifting of shadow." 

      So, with respect to God from God's perspective, there is no change within Him. His emotions are constant. They are "always-on", so-to-speak. God's emotional life is unvarying. 

      To illustrate, whenever I was a child, my mom or dad would take me to do errands or go on a trip. They would tell me at the beginning of the trip - "we're going to the store" or "we're going to Grandma's house". As to their plan and point of view, there was nothing different to alter that plan. They told me what was happening. They were the same mom and dad to me. As a principle of perspective and truth - my mom and dad kept the same unvarying plan and course. 

              But with respect to our finite perspective, as we experience and interact with God from our point of view, it seems as if God does change his mind. Romans 2:4 says this: 

"do you think lightly of the riches of his kindness and tolerance and patience, knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance". 

      So, we understand that it is God's intention to change people and to change their lives. So whenever we read in scripture those places where God is described as "changing his mind", that is, figurative language used in scripture to ascribe changeable human-like emotions to God (called "anthropopathism", or "human-like emotions"). God does this in revealing Himself  by adapting the revelation of Himself to people so that they can relate to Him. 

       If we go back to my illustration of my parents and myself as a child on a trip, my parents could make several stops along the way to our intended destination. In my child-like understanding, I wondered why my parents "changed their minds" about our trip. Sometimes they would explain to me in words I could grasp why we were making this stop or that stop (and sometimes they would say "trust me"). 

       As a child, it was hard for me to grasp they're overall intentions, yet, they had never ultimately changed in their intentions nor as my parents in the illustration of the journey. If anything, such interactions demonstrated I was the one who was changing: learning to trust them or growing in contentment. As to my vantage point, my parents seemed to change their minds a lot, yet, from their vantage point - they had already had those plans in mind and still had the ultimate destination of our trip in mind. 

          In divine revelation, it's God's way of expressing himself in ways that are understandable to us. Scripture itself demonstrates this principle by which God adapted His communication to words in the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek written by the prophets and apostles (over 770,000 words an average English translation of Old and New Testaments). In other words, wherever we read in scripture where it says: "God changes his mind", that's actually Scripture's way of indicating a change in ourselves. 

       The author A.W. Tozer puts it this way, more-or-less:

"that whenever we read of God changing his mind that means there's been a change in the moral situation of the person. So, for example, a person who perhaps all their lives was in rebellion against God and opposition against God hears the Gospel. The Spirit of God does His work in them and now they're responding by faith to Jesus Christ. What has taken place? Has there been a change in God? No. God's always angry at sin and He hates it. God is always gracious and merciful towards those who repent. So what's changed? It's not God. Instead, its the person that's changed." 


              Sometimes we can illustrate it in this way. Say you have the sun and then you have maybe a block of wax and a block of clay. As you sit that block of wax and that block of clay out in the sunlight, the block of clay will harden but the block of wax will soften. Now what has changed? It's not the sun. The sun is shining. It's doing what it always does. 

     The sun does not change relative to the block of wax and the block of clay. Instead, it's the block of clay and the block of wax that has changed.  So, from the perspective and the vantage point of the blocks of clay and wax, there has indeed been a change (a change in the situation of each). In like manner, when we talk about people and how it is they experience what seems to be a change in God, it's actually those persons experiencing a change within themselves.

3. God has an emotional-life without the frailties and sin we typically have because of what kind of God He is by nature. 

        So, how is it that God can have an emotional life and yet we have emotions? Furthermore, so oftentimes our emotions come out as sinful and frail. How can we draw all of this to a conclusion? We've been made in the image of God.  We read in Genesis 1:26 where God says: "Let Us make man in our image in our likeness." And so when God made human beings, He included in His design of human beings that they were to have emotions. Moreover, they were to have a creaturely emotions that were expressive of their Creator.  Of course, when man fell into sin, that meant that the entire nature of man's being (emotionally, psychologically, intellectually) was affected by sin. 

Closing thoughts

        So, emotions in of themselves are not sinful.  Rather, they are expressed in connection with ,the nature of the one that expresses them. For God, God has emotions that are expressed without sin because He is God, that by nature, cannot sin (see Habakkuk 1:13; Titus 1:2; James 1:17; 1 John 1:5-7).  We express emotions and they are subject to change. We respond to the changes of circumstances.  Just because God has emotions it doesn't necessarily mean that they are sinful. As a final thought, Scripture certainly bears out that God has an emotional life, even though it is different from our own."

That's a good question! Answering a recent question on God's emotional life.

Introduction:

     Every so often, on Sunday nights, we do a live question and answer time that entails people submitting questions they have about the Bible. Recently I received one question that was a very good question about God's emotional life. I thought I would reproduce both the question and response given. For those interested in watching the video segment to which this question is related, you can click on the link here to our church's You Tube channel that features the "Q&A service" from April 5, 2020 and forward to time segment 30:15-43:30 in which the question is addressed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbH84ZEGlR0&t=2607s

The Question: How do we Biblically make sense of God's emotional life?

      We're going to begin tonight with a question that is addressed in this way. This is the question. 

      "Please address the emotions of our creator including the Trinity he is perfect and yet scripturally contains all the emotions of a frail and sinful man. It doesn't compute. Yet many of our emotions are sinful. So the question is: how can we account for the emotional life of God and how does that compare with our emotions and is it right to talk about God having an emotional life? We have emotions. We have an emotional life and yet, so often, we express our emotions in sinful ways. Is it right to talk about God having emotions?" 

Answer from the Bible about God's emotional life

1. Let's first realize, God has an 
    emotional life.     
     
    Well that's a good question! I begin at Exodus 34. Exodus 34, and  I'm going to pick up at verse 6. Here we see God. He's talking to Moses on top of Mount Sinai and God is revealing some things about Himself to Moses and so we read in verse six of Exodus 34 - 

     "Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed: 'the Lord the Lord God compassionate and gracious slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth who keeps loving kindness for thousands who forgives iniquity transgression and sin, yet, He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. Visiting the iniquity of father's on the children on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generation."'

      That is from Exodus 34:6-7. So we understand that God indeed does have an emotional life. Let me just give you some scriptures that speaks love the emotional life of the God of the Bible. 

      We see here in Exodus 34:6 how God is described as being "slow to anger, abounding in love and mercy." As matter of fact, throughout the Old Testament, we see several times where God is expressed in these words in terms of His emotional life. Nehemiah writes in Nehemiah 9:17 -  

"but you are a God of forgiveness gracious and compassionate slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and you did not forsake them." 

      Nehemiah is talking there about the people of God. We read in Psalm 108:4 of the emotional life of God -  

"for your loving kindness is great above the heavens and your truth reaches to the sky."

     So there in Psalm 108:4 we see reference there to God's loving kindness and how it is his truth reaches to the skies. So no doubt about it God, has an emotional life.

2. Let's compare God's emotional life to our own.
    
       Now we understand that in terms of the nature of God's emotions, His emotions are not subject to change. Sometimes theologians will use a term called "impassibility". When we describe God as "impassible", that doesn't mean that God is aloof or somehow separated from the plight of humanity. Also, impassibility doesn't mean that God is some sort of sterile being that has no emotions. 

     Instead, when we talk about Divine impassibility, this simply means that God's emotions are constant. In other words, God's emotions are not caused by anything outside of himself. Our human emotions are "passible", meaning that they react to whatever is coming to them "passively" from the outside. All human emotions, even ones which are expressed as a result of intentions on our part, are prompted. I can be happy one moment but then, if something goes wrong, I change to sadness, gloom or frustration. I am passible with respect to my emotional life. My emotions, we could say, are "reactionary." God's emotions, on the other hand, are regulated by his attributes. Numbers 23:19 for example says: 

"God is not a man that He should lie down or a son of man that He should repent. Has he said and will he not do it or has he spoken an will he not make it good."  

      So there we see God is not a man, rather, His emotions are constant. They're not affected by anything outside of Himself. God's emotions are always "on".  Then we read then in 1 Samuel 15:29 similar terms - 

"The Glory of Israel will not repentant he is not a like a man who changes his mind ." 

Malachi 3:6 reminds us - 

"Oh Lord you do not change so that Jacob would not be consumed." 

      God described himself in this way. He says: "I am the Lord who does not change so that Jacob is not consumed." So God by nature, with respect to his emotional life, expresses emotions that never change. They are constant. To cite further examples, we read in Zechariah 8:17 that God is constantly angry sin. God has always known that there would be sin in our world. God ever opposes anything that would get in the way between the creature and Himself (especially those things that will hurt us or cause us to harm others). God hates sin. 

    So, we understand that God hates sin. We understand that God is a constantly loving God. John 3:16 is a familiar verse in the Bible. There we see how God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life. Again, God by nature is unchanging in his emotional life, which is to say He's impassible. Impassibility tells us that  His emotions are not passive. He does not change his emotions due to outside circumstances. Rather his emotions are regulated by what is within himself.


In the next post we will continue answering this question by grasping how God is unchanging in His emotional life and yet is often described in the Bible as "changing His mind" or emotions.