Tenderness suggests sensitivity. A loving heart, like an exposed nerve, is by definition susceptible to pain. Do we really want to believe in a God who is thus exposed, unshielded from human sin and evil? Not merely as God incarnate, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Man who suffered, bled, and died—but as God, the Eternal Father, the Everlasting One, the Man of Holiness. The Christian church’s first theologian, Origen, was sure this must be so. “The Father, too, himself, the God of the Universe, ‘patient and abounding in mercy’ and compassionate, does He not in some way suffer? Or do you not know
...more
