The God of Our Emotions??

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about emotions.  As I get ready to preach on Exodus, I’m amazed at how open God is over his emotions.  For instance, let’s deal with a difficult emotion for us to admit concerning God, anger:

Ex. 4:14- “Then the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses and he said…”

Ex. 32:6-  “The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness…”

The Hebrew word for anger here conveys “an intense emotional state … To be angry is not simply being upset or indignant at someone or something. It is the type of anger in which the face may turn red and the passions are aroused. This type of anger in humans may indicate an irrational, out-of-control anger (cf. Num 22:27; 1 Sam 20:30). However, the Lord’s anger is rational and controlled.” New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis

These are but a tiny fraction of the Scriptural references to the emotions of God.  To rob God of emotions and make Him and His love for His people into merely actions based on a rational commitment is to make God into something far less than He’s revealed Himself to be.  To be sure, God’s emotions flow from within Himself and His plans- they are not “creaturely” (dependent upon something outside Himself) and do not contain the sinful elements in our own.  This is why the Westminster Divine’s stated that God is “without body, parts, or passions…” (WCF 2.1).  They never meant to rob God of righteous and holy emotions as we have so often done so today.

Understanding that God has emotions is the foundation for understanding our own emotions.  Any good and right emotion within us is a reflection of God’s perfect emotions.  This conviction has a profoundly important implications for our sanctification in Christ: that how we “feel” about something is not out of our control and can be changed!  Listen to how Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones describes how the Holy Spirit’s entrance into a new Christian’s life gives him an ability in comparison to the “natural man” (i.e. non-Christian and still spiritually dead):  

What is so tragically wrong in a Christian is that he should allow himself to be controlled by his temperament.  The natural man is always controlled by his temperament, he cannot help himself; but the difference that regeneration makes is that there is now a higher control even over our temperament.  The moment the Holy Spirit enters in, He controls everything including temperament, and so He enables you to function in your own particular way through your temperament. That is the miracle of redemption. Temperament remains, but temperament no longer controls. The Holy Spirit is in control.” Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and its Cure, p. 101

This means that while we must deal honestly with where our feelings and emotions really are (especially when they are not what they should be!), yet we must not consider them simple as an unchangeable “given.” Brian S. Borgman sums it up well in his excellent book Feelings and Faith:

“A careful reader of the Bible will conclude as indefensible any view that says, ‘The emotions are off-limits.’ Unless we are going to become lexical reconstructionists and change the semantic ranges and meanings of words, we must acknowledge that just as God authoritatively commands our moral decisions, he also authoritatively commands our emotions. God tells us how and what we should and should not feel. Our emotions are a part of our humanity that needs to be sanctified and brought under the authority of God’s Word and into conformity with God’s Word.

The redemptive process is for the whole person; the emotions are an inherent part of what it means to be a person.  There are sinful emotional expressions that need to be repented of and put to death.  There are Christ-like emotions that need to be brought to life and cultivated.  As we grow in grace, our emotions will increasingly reflect our new biblical values and evaluations.  As godly emotions are cultivated, they will exert a powerful influence on our motives and our conduct.” p. 62

Maybe in a future blog post we’ll look more at how that happens, but for now we simply need to start with the Biblical fact that it can, should, and will happen by God’s grace!  Praise God that I am not enslaved to my sinful emotions, but saved even from these to a life of the full range of godly and Christ-like emotional experience!Maybe in a future blog post we’ll look more at how that happens, but for now we simply need to start with the Biblical fact that it can, should, and will happen by God’s grace!  Praise God that I am not enslaved to my sinful emotions, but saved even from these to a life of the full range of godly and Christ-like emotional experience!