A suffering God: Uncovering the meaning of suffering
Snapshot:
- Suffering is part of the world and all people experience deep suffering.
- God is outside of time and therefore experiences all time at once. Therefore the crucifixion was longer than 6 hours in the mind of God.
- God can identify with our suffering and even our deepest suffering is only a glimpse of the suffering God endures.
Introduction to suffering
How does one reconcile a good God with such great evil and sorrow in the world? This is a question that many wrestle with over the course of their life, including this author. How does one explain that four different children have been lost over the last few years by this author alone? Suffering is often a cause for a person to change their theology. This change can be beneficial or detrimental. Sometimes, the way God operates, and the way humans feel are incompatible, and one must bow the knee to God instead of try and create a God in their own image. What is the purpose of pain and what is the meaning suffering that humanity endures? Possibly, humanity is asking the wrong question when one asks God for the meaning of their own suffering. What if the real purpose of pain is found in the suffering and pain the Trinity endured as humanity has a God that has entered into humanities suffering?
A God outside of time
To understand the suffering the Trinity endures, one must first understand God’s relationship with time. Believers, according to classical Christianity, believe that God always is, God always has been and always will be. God is the “only existent and preexistent being.[1] He is not dependent on anything outside of himself; this would include time. The Hebrew name for God, Yahweh, means “I am” which seems to suggest that God simply “is.”[2] The implications of God being outside of time, means that God can view the whole of time as now.[3] If time was over God, then something outside of God would be over him and therefore make time God as it is greater than him. Some have argued that God has placed a limit upon himself by limiting himself to time. This is typically considered an unorthodox view in Christianity as it rejects classical attributes such as omniscience and immutability. God would have to “learn, adapt, take risks, and modify his plans in response to human actions.”[4] This view is commonly known as Open Theism which is an unorthodox view; it is best to continue with the presupposition that God is outside of time as time is something he created. With God being outside of time and experiencing all of time at once, is sufficient reason for Christians to start questioning pain, suffering, and loss. A question arises at this point, If God is outside of time, then how does the death of Jesus work? William Debski, in his book The End of Christianity develops a theodicy that addresses God being outside of time. A portion of the book is dedicated to addressing the crucifixion narrative in light of God being outside of time. God experienced suffering but the question then becomes, what does it mean to experience an event and how does God experience events considering he is outside of the confinements of time?
The Suffering God
The crucifixion of Jesus is thought to have only lasted around six hours. Yet, God is outside of time, so then how long did God experience the crucifixion of His own Son? God is all knowing, but there are different kinds of knowledge. As Dembski points out, there is a difference between “knowledge by description [and] knowledge by acquaintance.”[5] The difference between these two forms of knowledge is simple. Knowledge by description is the equivalent to knowing the details of Mount Everest and cognitively knowing it would be difficult to climb to the top. A person can know that Mount Everest is almost thirty thousand feet above sea level as well as treacherous, cold, and lack oxygen even if they have never personally climbed the mountain. On the other hand, knowledge by acquaintance would be an individual that has climbed Mount Everest and experienced the cold, treacherous path, and lack of oxygen at almost thirty thousand feet above sea level. Christians must recognize and keep in mind that the God of the universe knows suffering, not by description, but from acquaintance. When Jesus becomes man, and experiences death, God would have knowledge by acquaintance and not merely knowledge by description.
Considering God is outside of time, and his son experienced death and suffering, it would logically conclude that six short hours of human suffering is actually an eternity of suffering for God. Dembski recognizes that Scripture says one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day and he applies that to Christ. He claims that for God, one day is 365 million years and that is why six hours of Jesus on the cross means that God truly has experiential knowledge of suffering beyond that of all humanity.[6] Even in an evolutionary view of creation, the suffering of Christ experienced by God would outlast the millions of years of life and that would mean Christ has experienced the suffering of all mankind at the cross as he bore our sins. Sin leads to pain, death, and destruction and Jesus bore our transgressions in himself and he paid the penalty in our place.[7]
In Romans, Paul writes a significant portion of Scripture that has implications for viewing Jesus’s payment as being for all time and outside of time. In Romans 3:25- 26 Paul says, “For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time.”[8] People are made right by believing in Jesus and through his shedding of blood. The section that should pique curiosity is how God is “fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time.”[9] Why is it that God can hold back and not punish those who sinned in the past, but he now punishes those who sin? Why does God not continue to hold back if he did it in the past? It says that it is because he looked “ahead and included them in what he would do in the present time.” Notice that God does not ignore the sins of the past, if he did that then it would be difficult to reconcile his justice and mercy.[10] God did not ignore their sin but instead included it in the present time, meaning included it with Jesus’s sacrifice. This would mean that people in the past were saved by their sin being placed on Jesus even though it had not happened yet. This is easier to understand when one applies God’s time to this scenario. If Christ, in the mind of God is on the cross for much longer than six hours, then God views time differently and therefore can place past sins upon Jesus.
Some are hesitant to accept this view of the suffering messiah. How could a loving God function and feel anything other than sorrow if he was constantly experiencing the death of Christ? One must keep in mind that in the suffering of Christ, there is a plurality of emotions depending on the perspective one takes. God could focus on the pain for all eternity or maybe, just maybe, he focuses on the good that the suffering is bringing about. Not only that, but through the suffering, something good comes out of it. Everyone has a choice when they suffer. One can look at the loss of children, parents, or spouses and be sorrowful for what has occurred or, one can focus on how God is bringing about good amid that suffering. As Christians, we are called to join Christ in his life and death and everyone’s suffering helps them to more closely identify with the suffering of God.
Identify with God’s death, suffering, and resurrection
In Hebrews 4:15, It talks about how Christians have a high priest that can sympathize with our weaknesses. The church finds its identity in the cross of Christ as we are found in him.[11] Christ genuinely joins in our suffering which he can claim as he has experienced all suffering because he is outside of time. If God was not outside of time, then he could not identify with all suffering as some go through decades and years of intense suffering. Not only do Christians join Christ in his death but will also be raised to life with Christ.[12] Scripture says that Christians have joined him in his death.[13] This would seem to indicate that in some sense, Christians have joined in his suffering. This is astonishing! Notice that we are conformed to his death.[14] When a Christian suffers, they catch a glimpse into the divine suffering of Christ as God being outside of time endured far worse than any one human can endure. Yet suffering is not the end of the conversation. Christ suffering has meaning considering the resurrection. Christians should view suffering the same in that they look at it through the lens of the resurrection and the world to come.
Conclusion
Christians often focus on their own suffering and talk about how God can sympathize with them. Yet, suffering has another purpose in that it allows humans to catch a glimpse of the suffering God has endured as Jesus was not on the cross for merely six hours. The suffering humans endure is what leads us to partially comprehend the depths of the pain Christ endured on the cross. For Jesus, death led to life; incomprehensible pain let to incomprehensible life. It is time for Christians to view pain the same way as the pain endured will one day give way to glorious life. Christians must always go back to the cross during suffering as we have a high priest who can sympathize with our weakness. However, keep in mind that our suffering cannot compare to the suffering Christ endured on the cross as he endured it for far longer than a mere six hours. One does not fully understand the suffering they have endured but must hold on to the hope that God will lead that suffering to joy, victory, and goodness as God redeems the suffering of mankind crafting it into something beautiful.
So What Now?
- Reflect or start a journal of suffering you have endured and write how God was with you through it.
- Think through something that is currently bothering you, how can you give that thing to God?
- How can you have joy and focus on what God is doing even in the midst of suffering?
Want to learn how Aquinas answers the Theodicy problem? Check out the post to see how he reconciles evil in light of a good and powerful God.
One of the best sources that helped develop my theology of suffering was a book written by William A. Dembski, The End of Christianity. Click here to see it on amazon.
Sources:
[1] Eusebius of Caesarea. Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy: Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. (Edited by Joseph T Lienhard, & Ronnie J. Rombs. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2001) 20
[2] Thomas Oden, Classic Christianity: A Systematic Theology (New York: HarperOne, 1992) 39-40
[3] Oden, Classic Christianity, 43
[4] Douglas Mangum, The Lexham Glossary of Theology (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2014).
[5] William A. Dembski, The End of Christianity (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2009) 19
[6] Dembski, The End of Christianity 20-21
[7] Severus of Antioch. James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude: Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. (Edited by Gerald Bray. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 96
[8] Tyndale House Publishers, Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2015), Ro 3:25–26. All References to Scripture are from the NLT
[9] Ibid.,
[10] Derek R. Brown and Tod E Twist, Romans: Lexham Research Commentaries. (Edited by Douglas Mangum. Bellingham: Lexham Press, 2014), Ro 3:21-31
[11] Philippians 1:1, 3:9; Galatians 3:26; 1 Peter 5:14; Romans 8:1; Colossians 3:3
[12] Romans 6:5
[13] 1 Peter 4:13; Matthew 16:24; 2 Corinthians 1:5; Philippians 3:10
[14] Philippians 3:10