08 - God Speaks as a Man

How can we get to grips with the biblical paradox between God’s decree to save his elect, and his expressed desire to save all?

God speaks as though he has the feelings of a man God, at times, reveals himself to us by speaking as a man, and this inevitably leads to paradoxes. For instance: Like a man, God is said to repent, to be sorry, to be grieved, to regret, relent or change his mind (Ex. 32:11-14; 1 Sam. 15:11; 2 Sam. 24:16; Ps. 106:45; Jer. 18:7-10 etc.), yet he cannot repent since he is not a man (Num. 23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29). Again, although God is a Spirit and does not have a body (John 4:24), he speaks of his ear, nostrils, arm, hand and heart (Ps. 18:6,8,15; 31:2; 44:3; 75:8; Jer. 31:20 etc.) Speaking like a man, ‘the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart’, and vowed he would destroy ‘both man and beast’ for, he said, ‘I am sorry that I have made them’ (Gen. 6:6-7). God sorry, grieved? On another occasion, he went further; because of their sin, he would have destroyed the Hebrews, he explained, ‘had I not feared the wrath of the enemy’ for their misrepresentation of his action (Deut. 32:26-27). God afraid? What does it all mean? Why is it that God, as Calvin said, ‘figuratively assumes a human feeling... speaking in the character of a man’? Why this ‘figurative appropriation of human affections’? Why?