The Suffering of God

Scripture

In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old.

Isaiah 63:9 KJV

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Big idea

Summary

Keller argues Christianity is regularly caricatured as an idealistic religion promising ease to the faithful, when its actual center — a crucified God — is a harsher, more realistic claim than that. He traces God’s emotional involvement in suffering through the Old Testament, citing Jeremiah, Hosea, and Genesis to show a God who grieves over his people’s condition long before the incarnation, then moves to the Gospels, where Jesus experiences exhaustion, grief, betrayal, and temptation as fully as any human being, culminating in the cross, where he endures not only physical death but the felt abandonment of God the Father.

This paradox — a God who is sovereign over suffering and yet has personally suffered — has to be held in both directions at once, Keller warns, since theologians err either by denying God’s real emotional capacity or by so emphasizing his suffering that his sovereignty disappears. He points to Acts 9, where the risen Jesus asks Saul “why do you persecute me,” identifying so closely with suffering believers that their pain becomes his, and closes with Revelation’s promise of a final, decisive defeat of evil, illustrated by “Andi,” a woman whose divorce nearly broke her faith until she experienced God’s faithfulness in an unexpected, tangible way.

Key points

• Christianity is often mistaken for a religion promising ease; its actual center is a God who has personally suffered.
• The Old Testament (Jeremiah, Hosea, Genesis) already portrays God as emotionally affected by human suffering, well before the incarnation.
• Jesus’s full human experience of exhaustion, grief, betrayal, and temptation, culminating in his felt abandonment on the cross, grounds the claim that God understands suffering firsthand.
• Christians must hold God’s sovereignty and God’s suffering together; emphasizing either alone distorts the biblical picture.
• In Acts 9, the risen Jesus identifies so closely with suffering believers that their persecution is described as persecution of him.
• Revelation promises the eventual, decisive defeat of evil and restoration of creation, not merely comfort within a still-broken world.

Illustrations & stories

• Old Testament passages from Jeremiah, Hosea, and Genesis depicting God’s grief over human sin and suffering.
• Acts 9 and the risen Christ’s words to Saul, identifying with persecuted believers.
• “Andi’s” story of walking through divorce and eventually receiving an unexpected, tangible sign of God’s enduring faithfulness.

Notable line

Because God is both sovereign and suffering, we know our suffering always has meaning even though we cannot see it.

Timothy Keller, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, ch. 7

For reflection and discussion

1. How does it change your view of God to think of him as one who has personally suffered, rather than one who simply permits suffering from a distance?
2. Where in the Old Testament passages Keller cites (Jeremiah, Hosea, Genesis) do you see God’s grief most clearly?
3. Why is it important to hold God’s sovereignty and his suffering together, rather than emphasizing one at the expense of the other?
4. What do you make of Jesus’s words in Acts 9, identifying his own suffering with that of persecuted believers?
5. Andi found an unexpected, tangible reassurance of God’s faithfulness during her divorce. Have you ever experienced something similar?