God satisfying himself
God satisfying himself
Here, then, are five ways in which theologians have expressed their sense of what is necessary before God is able to forgive sinners. One speaks of the overthrow of the devil by ‘satisfying’ his demands, others of ‘satisfying’ God’s law, honour or justice, and the last of ‘satisfying the moral order of the world’. In differing degrees all these formulations are true. The limitation they share is that, unless they are very carefully stated, they represent God as being subordinate to something outside and above himself which controls his actions, to which he is accountable, and from which he cannot free himself. ‘Satisfaction’ is an appropriate word, providing we realize that it is he himself in his inner being who needs to be satisfied, and not something external to himself. Talk of law, honour, justice and the moral order is true only in so far as these are seen as expressions of God’s own character. Atonement is a ‘necessity’ because it ‘arises from within God himself’.19
To be sure, ‘self-satisfaction’ in fallen human beings is a particularly unpleasant phenomenon, whether it refers to the satisfying of our instincts and passions or to our complacency. Since we are tainted and twisted with selfishness, to say ‘I must satisfy myself’ lacks self-control, while to say ‘I am satisfied with myself’ lacks humility. But there is no lack of self-control or humility in God, since he is perfect in all his thoughts and desires. To say that he must ‘satisfy himself’ means that he must be himself and act according to the perfection of his nature or ‘name’. The necessity of ‘satisfaction’ for God, therefore, is not found in anything outside himself but within himself, in his own immutable character. It is an inherent or intrinsic necessity. The law to which he must conform, which he must satisfy, is the law of his own being. Negatively, he ‘cannot disown himself’ (2 Tim. 2:13); he cannot contradict himself; he ‘never lies’ (Titus 1:2, RSV: apseudēs, ‘free from all deceit’), for the simple reason that ‘it is impossible for God to lie’ (Heb. 6:18); he is never arbitrary, unpredictable or capricious; he says ‘I will not...be false to my faithfulness’ (Ps. 89:33, RSV). Positively, he is ‘a faithful God who does no wrong’ (Deut. 32:4). That is, he is true to himself; he is always invariably himself.
Scripture has several ways of drawing attention to God’s self-consistency, and in particular of emphasizing that when he is obliged to judge sinners, he does it because he must, if he is to remain true to himself.
The first example is the language of provocation. Yahweh is described (and indeed describes himself) as ‘provoked’ by Israel’s idolatry to anger or jealousy or both. For example, ‘they made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols’.20 The exilic prophets, such as Jeremiah and Ezekiel, were constantly employing this vocabulary.21 They did not mean that Yahweh was irritated or exasperated, or that Israel’s behaviour had been so ‘provocative’ that his patience had run out. No, the language of provocation expresses the inevitable reaction of God’s perfect nature to evil. It indicates that there is within God a holy intolerance of idolatry, immorality and injustice. Wherever these occur, they act as stimuli to trigger his response of anger or indignation. He is never provoked without reason. It is evil alone which provokes him, and necessarily so since God must be (and behave like) God. If evil did not provoke him to anger he would forfeit our respect, for he would no longer be God.
Secondly, there is the language of burning. Under this heading may be mentioned the verbs which depict God’s anger as a fire and speak of its ‘kindling’, ‘burning’, ‘quenching’ and ‘consuming’. It is true that human beings are also said to ‘burn with anger’.22 But this vocabulary is much more frequently applied in the Old Testament to Yahweh, who ‘burns with anger’ whenever he sees his people disobeying his law and breaking his covenant.23 In fact, it is precisely when he is ‘provoked’ to anger that he is said to ‘burn’ with it,24 or his anger is said to ‘break out and burn like fire’.25 In consequence, we read of ‘the fire of his anger’ or ‘the fire of his jealousy’; indeed God himself unites them by referring to ‘the fire of my jealous anger’.26 As with the provocation of Yahweh to anger, so with the fire of his anger, a certain inevitability is implied. In the dry heat of a Palestinian summer fires were easily kindled. It was the same with Yahweh’s anger. Never from caprice, however; always only in response to evil. Nor was his anger ever uncontrolled. On the contrary, in the early years of Israel’s national life ‘time after time he restrained his anger and did not stir up his full wrath’.27 But when he ‘could no longer endure’ his people’s stubborn rebellion against him, he said: ‘The time has come for me to act. I will not hold back; I will not have pity, nor will I relent. You will be judged according to your conduct and your actions, declares the Sovereign LORD.’28
If a fire was easy to kindle during the Palestinian dry season, it was equally difficult to put out. So with God’s anger. Once righteously aroused, he ‘did not turn away from the heat of his fierce anger, which burned against Judah’. Once kindled, it was not readily ‘quenched’.29 Instead, when Yahweh’s anger ‘burned’ against people, it ‘consumed’ them. That is to say, as fire leads to destruction, so Yahweh’s anger leads to judgment. For Yahweh is ‘a consuming fire’.30 The fire of his anger was ‘quenched’, and so ‘subsided’ or ‘ceased’, only when the judgment was complete,31 or when a radical regeneration had taken place, issuing in social justice.32
The imagery of fire endorses what is taught by the vocabulary of provocation. There is something in God’s essential moral being which is ‘provoked’ by evil, and which is ‘ignited’ by it, proceeding to ‘burn’ until the evil is ‘consumed’.
Thirdly, there is the language of satisfaction itself. A cluster of words seems to affirm the truth that God must be himself, that what is inside him must come out, and that the demands of his own nature and character must be met by appropriate action on his part. The chief word is kālah, which is used particularly by Ezekiel in relation to God’s anger. It means ‘to be complete, at an end, finished, accomplished, spent’. It occurs in a variety of contexts in the Old Testament, nearly always to indicate the ‘end’ of something, either because it has been destroyed, or because it has been finished in some other way. Time, work and life all have an end. Tears are exhausted by weeping, water used up and grass dried up in drought, and our physical strength is spent. So through Ezekiel Yahweh warns Judah that he is about to ‘accomplish’ (AV), ‘satisfy’ (RSV) or ‘spend’ (NIV) his anger ‘upon’ or ‘against’ them.33 They have refused to listen to him and have persisted in their idolatry. So now at last ‘the time has come, the day is near....I am about to pour out my wrath on you and spend my anger against you’ (Ezek. 7:7–8). It is significant that the ‘pouring out’ and the ‘spending’ go together, for what is poured out cannot be gathered again, and what is spent is finished. The same two images are coupled in Lamentations 4:11, ‘The LORD has given full vent (kālah) to his wrath; he has poured out his fierce anger.’ Indeed, only when Yahweh’s wrath is ‘spent’ does it ‘cease’. The same concept of inner necessity is implied by these verbs. What exists within Yahweh must be expressed; and what is expressed must be completely ‘spent’ or ‘satisfied’.
To sum up, God is ‘provoked’ to jealous anger over his people by their sins. Once kindled, his anger ‘burns’ and is not easily quenched. He ‘unleashes’ it, ‘pours’ it out, ‘spends’ it. This three-fold vocabulary vividly portrays God’s judgment as arising from within him, out of his holy character, as wholly consonant with it, and therefore as inevitable.
So far the picture has been one-sided, however. Because of the history of Israel’s apostasy, the prophets concentrated on Yahweh’s anger and consequent judgment. But the reason why this threat of national destruction is so poignant is that it was uttered against the background of God’s love for Israel, his choice of them and his covenant with them. This special relationship with Israel, which God had initiated and sustained, and which he promised to renew, had also arisen out of his character. He had acted ‘for the sake of his name’. He had not set his love upon Israel and chosen them because they were more numerous than other peoples, for they were the fewest. No, he had set his love upon them only because he loved them (Deut. 7:7–8). No explanation of his love for them could be given, except his love for them.
So there is a fourth way in which Scripture emphasizes the self-consistency of God, namely by using the language of the Name. God always acts ‘according to his name’. To be sure, this is not the only criterion of his activity. He also deals with us ‘according to our works’. By no means invariably, however. Indeed, if he did, we would be destroyed. So ‘he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities’.34 For he is ‘the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness’ (Exod. 34:6). Although he does not always treat us ‘according to our works’, however, he always does ‘according to his name’, that is, in a manner consistent with his revealed nature.35 The contrast is deliberately drawn in Ezekiel 20:44: ‘You will know that I am the LORD, when I deal with you for my name’s sake and not according to your evil ways and your corrupt practices, O house of Israel, declares the Sovereign LORD.’
Jeremiah 14 expresses with emphatic thoroughness the recognition that Yahweh is and always will be true to his name, that is to himself. The situation was one of devastating drought: the cisterns were empty, the ground cracked, the farmers dismayed and the animals disorientated (vv. 1–6). In their extremity Israel cried to God: ‘Although our sins testify against us, O LORD, do something for the sake of your name’ (v. 7). In other words, ‘although we cannot appeal to you to act on the ground of who we are, we can and do on the ground of who you are’. Israel remembered that they were God’s chosen people, and begged him to act in a way which would be consistent with his gracious covenant and steadfast character, for, they added, ‘we bear your name’ (vv. 8–9). In contrast to the pseudo-prophets, who were preaching a lopsided message of peace without judgment (vv. 13–16), Jeremiah prophesied ‘sword, famine and plague’ (v. 12). But he also looked beyond judgment to restoration, convinced that Yahweh would act, he said to him, ‘for the sake of your name’ (v. 21).
The same theme was further developed in Ezekiel 36. There Yahweh promised his people restoration after judgment, but was disconcertingly candid about his reasons. ‘It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name’ (v. 22). They had profaned it, caused it to be despised and even blasphemed by the nations. But Yahweh would take pity on his great name and once more demonstrate its holiness, its uniqueness, before the world. For then the nations would know that he was the Lord, the Living One (vv. 21, 23). When God thus acts ‘for the sake of his name’, he is not just protecting it from misrepresentation; he is determining to be true to it. His concern is less for his reputation than for his consistency.
In the light of all this biblical material about the divine self-consistency, we can understand why it is impossible for God to do what Christ commanded us to do. He told us to ‘deny ourselves’, but ‘God cannot deny himself’.36 Why is that? Why is it that God will not do, indeed cannot do, what he tells us to do? It is because God is God and not man, let alone fallen man. We have to deny or disown everything within us which is false to our true humanity. But there is nothing in God which is incompatible with his true deity, and therefore nothing to deny. It is in order to be our true selves that we have to deny ourselves; it is because God is never other than his true self that he cannot and will not deny himself. He can empty himself of his rightful glory and humble himself to serve. Indeed, it is precisely this that he has done in Christ (Phil. 2:7–8). But he cannot repudiate any part of himself, because he is perfect. He cannot contradict himself. This is his integrity. As for us, we are constantly aware of our human inconsistencies; they usually arouse a comment. ‘It’s so uncharacteristic of him’, we say, or ‘you are not yourself today’, or ‘I’ve come to expect something better from you’. But can you imagine saying such things to or about God? He is always himself and never inconsistent. If he were ever to behave ‘uncharacteristically’, in a way that is out of character with himself, he would cease to be God, and the world would be thrown into moral confusion. No, God is God; he never deviates one iota, even one tiny hair’s breadth, from being entirely himself.