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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 April 2013
The New Testament's two pictures of divine intercession, that of the risen Christ interceding at the right hand of God (Rom 8:34; Heb 7:25) and that of the Holy Spirit interceding from within believers’ hearts (Rom 8:26–7), offer additional perspective on the difficult issue of how God comes in touch with human suffering. Romans 8:26–7 connects the Spirit's intercession with the experience of human suffering, and through its reference to groaning implies that the Spirit communicates something of the believer's felt experience of weakness to God. Hebrews links Christ's high priestly work, including his intercessory activity, with his experience of struggle, thereby implying that he brings the needs of weak and pressured believers to God with an empathy born of direct experience of suffering. These scriptural pictures open a fruitful path for theological reflection, suggesting that God comes to know human suffering not simply by unmediated divine knowledge, or even by the bare fact of the divine Son's incarnation, but also in a mediated fashion, through complementary actions of Christ and the Spirit best described as acts of intercession.
Applying a model of thought which emphasises the intercessory activities of Christ and the Spirit to the problem of divine passibility has a number of advantages. First, it coheres well with New Testament patterns for describing the roles of Father, Son and Holy Spirit: Christ's intercession is rooted in his incarnation and distinctive redemptive mission, while the Spirit's intercession emerges from his redemptive indwelling. Second, its picture of God knowing human suffering through the mediated process of intercession suggests that God maintains his freedom and holiness even as he gets in touch with human suffering. Third, the intercession model may shed additional light on how the sufferings of the incarnate Son touch or otherwise relate to the Father. Fourth, the Bible's pictures of divine intercession suggest that God is brought in touch with two dimensions of human suffering: the objective reality of human affliction (mediated through Christ's intercession) and the subjective experiences of afflicted people (mediated through the Spirit's intercession). Finally, these scriptural pictures of intercession orient our thoughts about the question of passibility in a pastoral direction.
1 An earlier form of this material was presented to the Christian Theological Research Fellowship at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, New Orleans, November 2009.
2 Rom 8:34; Heb 7:25. The Romans passage pictures a forensically directed activity in which Christ defends believers from accusation, while Hebrews, as we shall see, suggests a priestly activity covering a broader range of needs and situations. But both passages contain the same basic elements: an activity of intercession, Christ as the intercessor, and the right hand of God as the place from which he intercedes.
3 Rom 8:26–7.
4 ‘What God Knows When the Spirit Intercedes’, Bulletin for Biblical Research 7/2 (2007), pp. 297–311. This study interacts with scholarly literature on Rom 8:26–7 and presents a detailed exegetical defence of the view that the interceding Spirit brings elements of the felt experience of suffering believers to God.
5 ῾Yπɛρɛντυγχάνω (8.26); ἐντυγχάνω ὑπἐρ (8:27). In v. 26 Paul uses an intensifying pronoun (αὐτò τò πνɛ
μα ὑπɛρɛντυγχάνɛι), further highlighting this intercession as the Spirit's own activity. See Wiarda, ‘What God Knows’, p. 301.
6 A number of commentators understand the intercessory activity described in this passage to include the believers’ own address to God as well as that of the Spirit. Even if this is correct (which I think unlikely) it is important to see that Paul's primary emphasis lies on what the Spirit communicates to God. See Wiarda, ‘What God Knows’, p. 304.
7 Στɛναγμο
ς. In 8:22–3 Paul uses the related verbs στɛνάζ ω and συστɛνάζ ω to describe the groaning of the creation and the believers.
8 E.g. Rom 5:5; 8:9–11, 15–16; 2 Cor 1:22; Gal 4:6. 1 Cor 2:10–11 provides an especially important illustration of a way of thinking conducive to the idea of the Spirit's being in touch with what lies within the hearts of believers. See Wiarda, ‘What God Knows’, p. 307.
9 An alternative explanation for the Spirit's groaning might look to the Spirit's connection to Jesus and his suffering; in this regard we might note the reference to Christ's suffering in 8:17. But the reference to the believers’ suffering in 8:18–25, including specific mention of their groaning, favours seeing their experience of suffering as the key factor leading the Spirit to groan.
10 Though 9:14, which speaks of Christ appearing before God on our behalf, might also be seen as a picture of intercession.
11 Other passages emphasising Christ's priestly role of dealing with human sins and making people holy and acceptable to God include 2:11, 14–15, 17; 6:19–20; 9:7, 11–14; and 10:19–20. The Hebrew text of Isa 53:12 also speaks of intercession specifically on behalf of transgressors; this may lie in the background of Heb 7:25, although the reference to intercession does not appear in the LXX.
12 This last text describes the role of human high priests, but the context shows this to be part of Jesus’ high priestly ministry as well.
13 The use of the word ‘intercede’ (ἐντυγχάνω) in ancient Jewish and Christian literature also provides clues to its sense in Heb 7:25. Craig Koester is able to cite a number of texts in which it is used to describe a plea for forgiveness, but also a number in which it describes a plea for assistance (Hebrews: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 2001), p. 366). He also observes that a few passages in Hebrews mention suffering due to persecution as if such suffering were a genuine threat to the epistle's original audience (p. 361). Harold Attridge cites 2 Macc 15:12 as a text picturing prayer on behalf of God's people as a function of priests (Hebrews (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), p. 211). Though not using the same verb as Heb 7:25, this passage describes a dream in which Judas Maccabaeus sees the former high priest Onias praying (κατεύχομαι) for the Jewish community as they are threatened by enemies.
14 ‘For a person to approach God “through” Jesus means that he or she lodges a request with Jesus, trusting that he will bring it before God for a favorable response’ (Koester, Hebrews, p. 365).
15 E.g. Attridge, Hebrews; Bruce, F. F., The Epistle to the Hebrews, rev. edn (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988)Google Scholar; Koester, Hebrews. Ellingworth, P. seems cautiously to affirm this view The Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), p. 392Google Scholar. Looking to the wider New Testament, Jesus’ prayers for Peter in Luke 22:33–4 and for his disciples in John 17 would supply examples of this pattern of wide-ranging intercession during the period of Jesus’ earthly mission. John 14:16 speaks of Jesus praying for his disciples in the future (which seems to mean after his resurrection and exaltation), asking the Father to send them the Spirit.
16 In light of what we have seen of the Spirit's intercession, this picture of Jesus’ praying with cries and tears is suggestive. The loud cries and tears are conceptually close to groaning even if the vocabulary differs, and they accompany an act of prayer. In this instance Jesus is praying for himself rather than interceding for others, of course. But may not this depiction of Jesus praying for himself inform or in some ways parallel the epistle's portrayal of his prayer for others?
17 Though some commentators see the connection between Jesus’ suffering and his being made perfect in 2:10 and 5:9 as simply a matter of temporal sequence (first he suffered, then he was exalted), others argue that the author is saying that Jesus’ experience of suffering helped make him perfectly suited to carry out his priestly office. Attridge speaks of ‘a vocational process by which he is made complete or fit for office’ (Hebrews, p. 86; see also Bruce, Hebrews, p. 132). This latter interpretation is supported by the comment in 2:10 that Jesus was made perfect ‘through suffering’ (διὰ παθημάτων), which implies more than simple temporal sequence, and by the emphasis in 5:8 on Jesus’ learning from what he suffered.
18 ᾽Eξαπέστɛιλɛν ὁ θɛὸς τὸν υἱον αὐτο (4:4); ἐξαπέστɛιλɛν ὁ θɛὸς τὸ πνɛμα το υἱο αὐτο (4:6).
19 We should also observe that Paul himself refers to Jesus’ intercession in Rom 8:34, just a few verses after his reference to the intercession of the Spirit. Though Rom 8:34 seems to picture a more judicially orientated activity, the fact that Paul uses the same verb to describe the Spirit's intercession and Christ's implies that he saw parallels between the two activities.
20 Though the redemptive works of the Son and the Spirit are complementary, they are not equally balanced. The Spirit's work in believers depends on the Son's prior and foundational work for believers (e.g. Gal 4:4–6; Eph 1:3–14). And though distinct, these works are not separable. We could as easily speak of a single, multifaceted redemptive work.
21 Heschel, Abraham, The Prophets (New York: Harper & Row, 1962)Google Scholar has been influential here; see the discussion in Bauckham, Richard, ‘“Only the Suffering God Can Help”: Divine Possibility in Modern Theology’, Themelios 9 (1984), pp. 9–10.Google Scholar A recent article by Schlimm, Matthew, ‘Different Perspectives on Divine Pathos: An Examination of Hermeneutics in Biblical Theology’, CBQ 69 (2007), pp. 673–94Google Scholar, offers a helpful comparison of Heschel's approach to the language of divine affectivity in the Hebrew prophets with that of two more recent Old Testament theologians, Fretheim, Terence, The Suffering God: An Old Testament Perspective (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984)Google Scholar, and Brueggemann, Walter, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997).Google Scholar Paul Gavrilyuk cites a line of patristic theologians who understood biblical references to God's feelings as pointing to actual emotion in God, although in a qualified sense differing from human emotional reactions: The Suffering of the Impassible God: The Dialectics of Patristic Thought (Oxford: OUP, 2004), pp. 58–63.
22 See e.g. Fiddes, Paul, The Creative Suffering of God (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988), pp. 16–19.Google Scholar
23 See Fiddes, Creative Suffering, pp. 25–31. Mozley, J. K. cites nineteenth- and early twentieth-century theologians who link the atonement with divine passibility: The Impassibility of God: A Survey of Christian Thought (Cambridge: CUP, 1926), pp. 142–66Google Scholar.
24 Noted exponents of this theme include Moltmann, Jürgen, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology (New York: Harper & Row, 1974)Google Scholar and Kitamori, Kazoh, Theology of the Pain of God, 5th edn (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2005), p. 47Google Scholar. Kitamori also speaks of a divine suffering which arises out of the tension between God's love and his wrath: Theology, p. 21.
25 God's passibility has sometimes been related to the doctrine of the Trinity in other ways. E.g. some have proposed that God is impassible with respect to his essence (the ‘immanent Trinity’) but passible with respect to his activities in the created world (the ‘economic Trinity’). See Fiddes, Creative Suffering, pp. 112ff. Moltmann connects the Spirit with what happens between the Father and the Son on the cross, and thus describes his approach as trinitarian, but what he says about the Spirit's role in this regard seems conceptually thin and not closely related to scriptural testimony. He says, ‘What proceeds from this event between Father and Son is the Spirit’ (Crucified God, p. 244); and ‘whatever proceeds from the event between the Father and the Son must be understood as the spirit of surrender of the Father and the Son, as the spirit which creates love for forsaken men’ (p. 245). Somewhat clearer is the statement based on Heb 9:14 in The Trinity and the Kingdom (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981): ‘The surrender through the Father and the offering of the Son take place “through the Spirit”. The Holy Spirit is therefore the link in the separation’ (p. 82).
26 The concept of divine passibility also raises logical challenges with respect to God's attributes of omniscience and omnipresence. See Simoni, Henry, ‘Divine Passibility and the Problem of Radical Particularity: Does God Feel Your Pain?’, Religious Studies 33 (1997), pp. 327–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
27 For a strong recent statement of the traditional view, see Weinandy, Thomas, ‘Does God Suffer?’ First Things 117 (2001), pp. 35–41Google Scholar. He argues that biblical language which appears to speak of God's grief or changing emotions must be understood as a way of depicting the changes which occur in the way people respond to God; God himself remains unchanging and impassible in his passionate love and perfect goodness. See also his comment on 1 Sam 15:11, 35: ‘Thus the statement that God does not change his mind is an expression of God's total otherness, and the statement that God does change his mind expresses this unchangeable mind of God under circumstances which, under ordinary human conditions (if God were a man), would demand that a change of mind take place, but in actual fact need not, because God, as the Wholly Other, is constant in his love, forgiveness, righteousness and justice’: Does God Suffer? (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 2000), p. 61. See as well Castelo, Daniel, ‘Moltmann's Dismissal of Divine Impassibility: Warranted?’, Scottish Journal of Theology 61 (2008), pp. 396–407CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Hart, David Bentley, ‘No Shadow of Turning: On Divine Impassibility’, Pro Ecclesia 11 (2002), pp. 184–206.Google Scholar
28 Heb 1:1–13; 7:26; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2. The writer also stresses Jesus’ entry into the holy place of the heavenly tabernacle (6:19–20; 8:2; 9:11–12, 24).
29 Rom 8:27; cf. 1 Cor 2:10–11.
30 The Old Testament tabernacle offers a somewhat similar symbol of God's holy separateness combined with his presence. The tabernacle is located in the very centre of the camp of Israel, yet is a restricted area with a holy place no one can enter.
31 See e.g. Gavrilyuk, Suffering; O'Keefe, John, ‘Kenosis or Impassibility: Cyril of Alexandria and Theodoret of Cyrus on the Problem of Divine Pathos’, in Livingstone, Elizabeth (ed.), Studia Patristica 32 (Leuven: Peeters, 1997), pp. 358–65.Google Scholar
32 Marcel Sarot defines ‘patrapassianism’ (as opposed to ‘theopaschitism’) as a term used for ‘those theological positions which fail to distinguish between God the Father and God the Son and therefore hold that in the sufferings of Jesus God simpliciter, and not God the Son, was involved’: ‘Patripassianism, Theopaschitism and the Suffering of God: Some Historical and Systematic Considerations’, Religious Studies 26 (1990), p. 372.
33 Theologians have sometimes raised a question about the universality of God's connection with human suffering: is God affected by every instance of human pain or is his knowledge of suffering limited to that experienced by Christ on the cross? (See e.g. Fiddes, Creative Suffering, pp. 3–11.) A distinctive intercessory activity on the part of the Spirit which grows out of the Spirit's indwelling of many believers in many times and places would seem to point in the direction of universality. On the other hand, however, the New Testament portrays the Spirit's indwelling and resulting intercession as realities which pertain exclusively to believers.
34 For discussion of both of these motivations, see Fiddes, Creative Suffering, pp. 16–25, 31–7, and Creel, Richard, Divine Impassibility (Cambridge: CUP, 1986), pp. 113–58.Google Scholar
35 This is not to say theodicy is absent from the New Testament (see e.g. Rom 3:5; 9:14), but that questions relating to God's own experience of suffering do not arise in this connection.
36 That the Father is the specific recipient of the Spirit's praying is shown by Romans 8:15, 31.
37 If knowing human suffering was simply part of God's nature, we would ultimately have to question whether even the incarnation of the Son is necessary in order for God to be in touch with human suffering. See Gavrilyuk's comment in Suffering, pp. 174–5.
38 See the earlier section of this article, p. 162 above. The intercession of the Spirit in Romans 8:26–7’. See the further discussion in Wiarda, ‘What does God Know’, pp. 307–8.
39 Rom 8:9–11, 14–17; 1 Cor 12:12–13; Gal 4:4–6; Mark 1:9–11 and 14:36.
40 Exod 29:43–6; Ps 84; John 1:14; 1 Cor 3:16; 6:15; Eph 2:21–2; Rev 21:3, 22.
41 Already in the Old Testament we find hints that God's special redemptive presence with his people Israel involves a heightened sensitivity to their suffering. Isa 63:7–14, which gives a particularly strong picture of God being moved by his people's suffering (although there is some uncertainty about the proper translation of v. 9), seems to link God's affectivity to the theme of his presence: ‘In all their distress he too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them’ (63:9, NIV; see also the reference to the Spirit's presence in v. 11). In 2 Chron 7:16 God speaks of the temple as a place of emotional involvement with his people: ‘My eyes and my heart will always be there’ (NIV).
42 Moltmann, by way of contrast, ties the Spirit's indwelling and co-suffering with believers and creation simply to God's capacity as Creator: ‘God the Creator, who has entered into his creation through his Spirit, himself holds created being in life (Ps. 104:30), and therefore also suffers with its sufferings’: God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), p. 69.