"The Facts of Faith" - Henry Knapp

The Grief of Our God

If anyone knows me, you know I have a thing for words. I like to read. I like languages. I like etymology (how words originate). One thing I have noticed as I am growing older is how words have very little meaning anymore. Love, in its richest agape form of God’s sacrificial love is used in the same way as my description of dessert: “I love ice cream.” Describing the One who upholds the universe as “awesome” is cheapened when I use the same word to describe last night’s meal. Examples go on and on: “depression” when perhaps it’s a run in with the “blues”; “anxiety” when perhaps it is just “annoying, bothersome overthinking”. The way we use words should mean something—especially when we read the words God uses in His Word.

Genesis 6:6 states that “the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” We need to sit up and pay attention to the words of this passage, to the emotions of this passage.

Grief. Did this text just say that God experienced grief? Does God regret things? What does this mean? One definition of grief is: deep and poignant distress. It is more than just sadness. It’s different than just being really, really upset. It is affliction where the result is great anguish. It is usually associated with the death of someone. I have not lost a spouse, child or parent, so I probably have less experience with real grief than most people. Sadness? Yes. Distress? Yes. Sorrow and lament? You bet. But when I hear of the very poignant, real, and sometimes even physical pain of grief, I am quieted. If grief is the anguish experienced after significant loss, then we need to pause and ask ourselves, “What did God lose?” What was His loss?

Neil Plantiga in his book on sin stresses that because of sin, the world is “not the way it’s supposed to be.” This applies to every aspect of the created order. In Genesis 6:5, “the LORD saw” that the wickedness of man was great in the earth. Doesn’t this “the LORD saw” sound like the earlier chapters of Genesis where God confidently stated, “and God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good!” (1:31) Wow, have things changed in a few chapters! God’s loss, His grief, is bound up in all that is not “the way it’s supposed to be”.

The description of God’s grief reminds us that our God is an emotional God. He is vested in His creation. He is bound up in it, and He has emotions. In fact, the Bible frequently ascribes emotions to God. At various times He is said to be grieved (Psalm 78:40), angry (Deuteronomy 1:37), pleased (I Kings 3:10), joyful (Zephaniah 3:17), and moved by pity (Judges 2:18). But who can really understand the emotions of a God Who is infinite? If God is infinite, then how far is it to the depth of His heart? How big is His heart? How much grief would it take to fill God’s heart?

Understood this way, it is hard to imagine why the Lord expresses love and mercy to the very creation that has grieved Him so. Join us in worship this week as we explore that very thing.

As you prepare, read Genesis 6 (especially verses 5-8).

1. Verse 5 describes how God saw the wickedness of mankind. How do the previous verses (1-4) help attest to that wickedness?

2. “Every intention of his heart was only evil”—is that an exaggeration? If so, what is the Bible trying to say? If not, how can we possibly understand it?

3. Were people inherently more wicked in Noah’s time than they are now? Is that why the Bible can say “every intention is evil”? Because we certainly know that not every intention today is evil… can’t we?

4. When we use the term “regret” with God, what might we mean? Given His omniscience (knowing all things), can He really have “regret”?

5. In verse 7, God proclaims His judgement upon the earth. Why does He include the animals, etc., in His judgement?

6. What does it mean that Noah “found favor” in the eyes of God? Was he an exception to the evaluation of verse 5 that “every heart is evil”?

7. All this is prelude to the flood. So, what is the main point of the flood story for the Bible reader? What does God intend to communicate?