Does God cry?

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY?

God is described in Scripture as responding to situations with emotional language. While they are real emotions, God’s emotions are not like ours. He does not respond from sin, but with a settled and perfect response. Though God is spirit (John 4:24) and, therefore, does not have a physical body that sheds tears, He can respond to sinful humanity with sorrow over what we have done (Genesis 6:6) or what He must do to punish those He loves (Lamentations 3:31–33).

Jesus, the Son of God, added on flesh such that He was fully human, including the full ability to express human emotions through tears. Indeed, He often cried. He cried when friends died (John 11:35) and when people He loved needed to be punished (Luke 19:41–44). He even expressed deep sorrow and tears over His own impending death (Matthew 26:37–38; Hebrews 5:7). However, because Jesus is perfect, none of His expressions of sorrow were sinful in the slightest. They show us that crying is not inherently sinful and, when done righteously, shows our genuine love and compassion.

FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT

• God’s sorrow is not like our sorrow. First, God never changes (Malachi 3:6a). We often describe our emotions as a change in mood. One moment we’re happy and then something terrible happens and we weep. We change from moment to moment, and our emotions reflect those changes. However, God is eternally the same and cannot change. Therefore, God’s emotions are a response to a situation, but God, Himself, has not changed.
• God is also transcendent (Psalm, 113:5–6). Transcendence means that God is distinct from creation and outside of time. While we often cry because we are overwhelmed, God knows the future perfectly (indeed, He ordains it, Isaiah 46:10). Therefore, His sorrow is never an expression of hopelessness, anxiety, unexpected loss, and so forth.
• God is also perfectly holy (Isaiah 6:2a, 3). Whereas our sorrow might be caused by our sin or become sin in the way we respond, God’s emotions never arise from, lead to, or result in sin because He is holy.
• As sinners, we are apt to pervert justice. For example, we might sorrowfully pity someone who had a hard life and, therefore, suppress justice for something they have done. God, however, remains perfectly just (Deuteronomy 32:4). When He pitties someone, He does not subvert justice. He may delay it or redirect it to a sacrifice, but His emotions never lead Him to pervert justice.
• God’s sorrow is often His holy response to the sin of those He loves. For example, after God created mankind (Genesis 1:26–27), they sinned (Genesis 3). That sin spread to all of mankind, meaning all men and women are born sinful (Psalm 51:5) and God’s enemies (Psalm 5:5). That led to the earth being filled with wickedness. The Bible says, “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). In response to the mass of sinful humanity, “The LORD regretted that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to His heart” (Genesis 6:6). Though God was not caught by surprise, He responded to sin as it unfolded in time, being deeply sorrowful that He had created us.
• In another example of sorrow, the people of Israel had demanded a king (1 Samuel 8:4–6). Though God was displeased because they were rejecting Him as their leader, He allowed it (1 Samuel 8:7–9), selecting and anointing Saul to be that king (1 Samuel 10). However, as God had promised, Saul quickly sinned against God first by offering sacrifices, something only a priest could do (1 Samuel 13:8–14) and then by not completely killing God’s enemies (1 Samuel 15:1–9). In response, God said, “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following Me and has not performed My commands” (1 Samuel 15:11). Though God knew Saul would sin, in response to Saul’s unfolding sin, God expressed regret—a type of sorrow—over allowing Saul to lead His people at all. Regret, in this instance, was God’s perfect response to sin.
• God also expresses sorrow when He must deal with the sin of His people that He is compassionate towards. For example, in Hosea 11, God spoke about how He lovingly led Israel out of Egypt (Hosea 11:1) and took her in His arms (Hosea 11:3b) and kindly fed her (Hosea 11:4c). Yet, despite His love and care for her, she continued to rebel against Him. God described the Israelites as “bent on turning from Me” (Hosea 11:7a). Being holy, God had to punish them, but that brought Him sorrow much like the sorrow of a loving father who has to punish his disobedient child (Hosea 11:8). By “all My compassions,” God was expressing what we would describe as the sorrowful tearing of our insides between doing the right thing and doing the compassionate thing. This does not mean that God would pervert justice to be compassionate but that He was figuratively “torn” by what He had to do against the people He loved.

FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT

• Our emotions, though strong, are often sinful. This is because we are corrupted by sin (Romans 3:23), which taints our entire selves.
• Unlike us, Jesus was a perfect human. As fully God, Jesus is perfect (Hebrews 1:3). As fully human, He is like us but without any sin (Hebrews 4:15). This means that Jesus has the full range of human emotions but never expresses them sinfully. By looking at Him, we get a picture of how all of our emotions, including sadness, can glorify God.
• In His humanity, Jesus cried. One of the most famous examples of this was after Jesus’ friend, Lazarus, died. When He visited Lazarus’ sister, Mary, she said, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32b). We learn that “When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and greatly troubled” (John 11:33). He then went to the tomb and, as the verse puts simply, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). Even though He knew He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead (John 11:43–44), Jesus was so deeply moved with sorrow that He cried.
• Jesus’ sorrow is also an overflow of His compassion. Luke 19 records the account of Jesus arriving in Jerusalem (Luke 19:41–44). Just like God’s sorrow in Hosea 11 (see the Old Testament section), Jesus knew that Israel was about to receive her just punishment for rejecting her Messiah, yet He cried that He and the Father had to bring such a punishment against His beloved people.
• From eternity past Jesus knew that He was coming to die (1 Peter 1:20–21). And yet, when the time arrived, like all humans, He was filled with sorrow at the thought of His impending, horrific death. Arriving in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36), Matthew recorded, “And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, 'My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.’ And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.’”’” (Matthew 26:37–39). Jesus collapsed out of sorrow, asking His Father for a way to escape. But He submitted Himself to the Father, saying that if He wanted Him to continue to death, He would perfectly obey. Even at the end, Jesus’ sorrow did not lead Him to sin.
• The author of Hebrews noted this about Jesus: “In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to Him who is able to save Him from death and He was heard because of His reverence” (Hebrews 5:7). Crying was not uncommon for Jesus because He was given a task that was filled with sorrow (c.f., Isaiah 53:3).

IMPLICATIONS FOR TODAY

When Adam rebelled (Genesis 3), everything about us became corrupt. That included our emotions. We rarely respond in a God-honoring way to what is happening around us. As we’ve seen, sorrow can be a right response to sin and pain. However, our sorrow tends to be filled with sin. When, as believers, we find ourselves in a trial and suffering, rather than remember that God has brought it to grow us (James 1:2–4) or to discipline us (Hebrews 12:4–11), we often cry out of self-pity and in frustration that “our” plans are failing. That self-focused response is sin, and something from which we need to repent.

Jesus is the perfect example of how we are to live. Being fully human, He was a man acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3). He was persecuted (John 15:20) and hunted (John 11:53–54). When He was in the garden, He truly did not want to face the final trial—death. However, He perfectly submitted to the Father’s decision. He accepted what the Father had set before Him (Luke 22:41–42).

Similarly, we also must strive to subject our emotions to Scripture’s teaching and Jesus’ example. We need to remember that everything happens because God brings it, even our suffering (James 1:2–4). He is working out everything for a believer’s ultimate good (Romans 8:28) with the goal of making us exactly like Jesus (Romans 8:29). Cry when crying is called for and you are hurt, but through the tears, remember that God is good all the time, and lean on Jesus who suffered so that He can sympathize with your pain (Hebrews 4:15).

UNDERSTAND

• God expresses real sorrow, but not with physical tears.
• Jesus, fully God and fully human, did cry.
• God’s sorrow and Jesus’ tears reveal holy love and justice.

REFLECT

• How does knowing that God's sorrow is never out of surprise or weakness help you trust His responses in your own suffering?
• How do your tears reflect self-pity or frustration, and how can you repent and grow toward Christlike sorrow?
• What emotions do you need to bring under the lordship of Christ today?

ENGAGE

• How are God’s emotions different from ours?
• How does Jesus’ ability to cry without sin challenge or encourage the way we think about emotional expression today?
• What are some practical ways we can distinguish between godly sorrow and self-centered sorrow in one another’s lives?