Here is the manuscript for Kevin DeYoung’s T4G breakout session, “Tis Mystery All, the Immortal Dies: Why the Sufferings of Christ are More Glorious Because God Does Not Suffer.”
It’s an examination of whether or not God is “passible”—that is:
- Can God suffer?
- Can God be acted upon by an external force?
If you answer yes (as most do nowadays), then you believe in God’s “passibility.”
If you answer no, then you believe in God’s “impassibility.”
Here’s an outline:
I. Introduction: What is this talk about?
II. Defining Terms
A. Impassibility
B. Theopaschitism
C. Patripassianism
III. Passibility is the new orthodoxy
A. Many have affirmed it: Barth, Bonhoeffer, Moltmann, Stott and other evangelicals
B. Reasons for questioning impassibility.
1. Our culture prizes authenticity, which implies woundedness.
2. Suspicion of anything that sound Greco-Roman.
3. Suffering is though necessary for sincere compassion.
4. Atrocities of the twentieth century.
5. Christ, our Suffering Servant, shows us what God is like.
IV. A defense of impassibility
A. The weight of church history.
B. According to Scripture, God does not change.
C. God’s emotional life is not identical to ours.
D. What can be said of Christ cannot always be said of God.
E. Without impassibility, the incarnation does not make sense.
V. Why impassibility is good news
A. God is not in the mess we are in.
B. And yet, he cares for us, which makes his care more meaningful.
C. God’s loves is freely given.
D. The incarnation is a demonstration of God’s choice to suffer as one of us.
E. God in Christ suffered as one of us and can sympathize with us.
