Righteous Indignation & Human Suffering

It is understood that some of the language used in the Old & New Testament is an adaptation for human understanding. The Bible uses wordage that lends itself to explaining to man the attributes and characteristics of God that would otherwise be nearly impossible or difficult to understand. God is often represented by human emotions or experiences humans would have (anthropomorphisms) and this is done for our benefit. We must be careful to acknowledge the fact that although some of these “emotions” attributed to God are not human when given to Him, it doesn’t mean that they are any less real. Anger, jealousy, love are some of the more common that we approach in God’s Word. Abraham Herschel a Jewish scholar called God the God of feeling. He based his statement off of the ubiquitous anthropomorphisms spread throughout the Old Testament. Anthropomorphisms as mentioned above are human characteristics attributed to God to help describe Him. He said they should not be viewed as feeble human attempts to describe an unknowable God but rather to be welcomed as crucial and critical to our understanding of Him. The most amazing thing about God is not necessarily His infinite power or infinite knowledge but it is His infinite concern for humanity even to the point of allowing Himself to be characterized by human traits and to be crucified in a humiliating death (Philippians 2). Why else would He continue to enter His creation to steer man back onto the straight and narrow?

The most conspicuous examples are the passages of the Bible where God “yearns” or has “compassion” or the fact that God’s love for humanity is long, long suffering and His love is “everlasting”. If Jesus Christ is the last and full revelation of God then Jesus’ emotions and feelings are true reflections of God Himself. Anyone who reads the New Testament, the Gospels in particular cannot walk away believing God is some kind of sadistic, stoic business man looking down His nose at you while puffing on a cigar and blowing the smoke in your face. At least this is not the Jesus that I have read in the Bible. One of my favorite examples of God showing his emotion is at Lazarus’s tomb. He weeps at Lazarus’ tomb and He also “snorts” with indignation In John 11:33. This can also can be understood as a grunt of righteous anger.

When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her {also} weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled...~John 11:33

The English versions really don’t do this verse justice. Most translate this verse “deeply moved" and "troubled" but the Greek is (Strong’s G1690: embrimaomai) the direct translation is “in-thundered”- "move with anger" or “mutter-ing” but a better understanding of this is to understand that “embrimaomai / ἐμβριμάομαι” is a compound word that comes from the words (Strong’s G1722: em- intensifier, intensify, at, by, with) and [brimaomai] which literally means to “to snort with anger” this Greek word is also used in reference to the snort that horses make. Older commentaries seem to downplay the snort and phrase this passage as "He groaned in the spirit". Regardless, the words "in the spirit" are clearly intending that this was affecting Jesus at the very deepest level. He was outraged and sad. It is the outrage, indignation and sadness for the human wreckage from sin.

Jesus was filled with indignation. It is certainly not because Mary and the others were weeping but because of sin which is the underlying cause of all suffering, and sorrow. His righteous anger is direct at the sin. Still this fails to encompass the intense surge of sorrow and emotion that this verse is trying to convey. His weeping would’ve been in sympathy of Mary and the others but His indignation was a righteous anger plain and simple. This profound type of change in Christ’s inner being would most likely would have also manifested in his expression and demeanor as noted “deeply moved in spirit”. He would’ve probably been visibly agitated, the tone in his voice probably would’ve changed, He also sighed/groaned (v. 38) along with the noted snort. In a word Jesus clearly showed His human emotion audibly and because it could be heard it most likely manifested in a visual change of demeanor since Jesus was indeed fully human (and fully divine).

We then see in John 11:35 that Jesus bursts into tears in the famous, “Jesus wept”. The long mentioned, often repeated, and poorly understood shortest verse in the Bible. (Strong’s G1145: dakruo) this is the only place this form of “weeps” is found in the New Testament. This verb does not mean to wail as in crying out loud for a lost loved one but it means to cry out of love for someone or something, a sympathetic love towards those grieving like Mary and Martha and to do it silently (under one's breath so to speak). There is no clearer example of God’s willingness to feel pain and empathize with humanity outside of the cross. It is a sacrificial sympathetic love. Again. we see His absolutely fully human side. A genuine sympathizing High priest (Hendriksen 156). It is ironic that the book of the Gospel's that is most focused on Christ's deity (Gospel of John) has some of the most profound statements of His human nature.

The bottom-line is that we need to understand God is anything but apathetic or passive to His creation, especially humans. For people to stand and mock or demean the suffering of such a man shows either their complete ignorance of the man Himself or the absolute degraded nature of the person doing the mocking. It shows just how little human empathy and feeling THEY have. The best way to confront the world's view or our view of a God that He is impassive is through Jesus on the cross. If the highest example of true love is to be understood as self-sacrifice or self-giving there is a factor of pain involved here. By loving a person we leave ourselves open to the possibility of being rejected as is the case with God and it is also the case with humans. This means that if Jesus would’ve been incapable of pain, then He would’ve also been incapable of love. This is clearly nonsense. Jesus' life as documented in the New Testament (and Old) is replete with examples of pain, happiness, joy, and nearly every other emotion understood by human beings. Aristotle’s image of an impassive and uncaring Deistic God was crushed at the cross and Jesus’ crucifixion.