To know God rightly you must know his heart.

It might surprise you to know that some theologians believe that God does not feel affection for those he loves. They believe that he is like Spock in Star Trek, that God’s love is solely his will to do good for others and his kind actions, but not something emotional.

Some of these theologians are heavily influenced by philosophical reasoning, and they don’t want to define God as a being who is determined in any way by his creation or susceptible to doing anything but what he freely, dispassionately, chooses to do. (The technical term for this view is the impassibility of God. Thomas Aquinas taught the idea, and the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England affirmed it, describing God in article one as “without…passions.”)

The heart of Jesus

Of course, you could never get that idea from reading the Bible.

The apostle Paul writes to one church, “God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:8). So, Paul says he has affection like the affection Jesus has. Hence, Jesus has affection. He has feelings of pleasure in other people, warmth, fondness, liking, the enjoyment of being together, and when apart having a longing and yearning to be together again.

At the Last Supper, one of the last times he would be together with his twelve disciples, and with the agony of the cross only hours away, Jesus told his friends, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22:15). With all that lay before him what Jesus dearly wanted was to be with his friends. Because he liked them. He loved them.

In the pages of the Gospel of John, the writer referred to himself as the one whom Jesus loved (John 20:2; 21:20). Not that Jesus did not love the others, but John knew in the depths of his soul, by experience, that Jesus loved him, and he could not think of Jesus without an awareness of his love for him. One does not say that about a person as cold as stone or as uncaring as a computer.

The apostle Peter, who of course had firsthand, face-to-face, eye-to-eye experience with Jesus for three years, wrote, “He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).

At the grave of his friend Lazarus, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35).

Affection in his eyes

When a wealthy young man asked Jesus what to do to inherit eternal life, Jesus recited to him several of the Ten Commandments. The man responded, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth” (Mark 10:20).

“And Jesus, looking at him, loved him” (v. 21). That is a telling description. Jesus loved him, even though the man was a sinner who loved his wealth more than God, as the rest of the narrative shows. But it doesn’t just say Jesus loved him; it says, “looking at him” he loved him. Jesus’ look was a knowing look, a thinking look, a seeing-into-the-depths-of-another-person’s-soul-as-only-God-can-do look. Yet, knowing all that he knew, Jesus still loved him. Jesus looked at that man with affection. His eyes revealed holy love.

“Jesus, looking at him, loved him…” This is a microcosm of John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” God the Father looked at our world of fallen, lost people and loved us.

The heart of God, the heart of a dear father

So, Jesus feels love; he doesn’t just do loving actions or will the good. And Jesus said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).

Jesus teaches us to call God our Father, just as he always addressed God as Father, and he even set the example of addressing God as Abba (Mark 14:36), an Aramaic term expressing warm affection and the confidence that a young child has when approaching a father. Weaned children learning their first words called their father Abba, just as we would use Daddy. Eventually Abba gained an expanded use and was used also by adult children, but it always kept the warm, affectionate sense of “dear father,” just as some grown children will continue to use Daddy.

The Holy Spirit leads us likewise to use the term Abba in prayer. “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:15–16). “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Galatians 4:6)

That Father God wants us and leads us by his Holy Spirit within to use the word Abba tells us volumes not only about how he wants us to feel about him but also about how he feels about us.

The heart of a mother and a husband

Elsewhere God even describes his feelings for his people as being like those of a mother for her children: “But Zion said, ‘The LORD has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.’ ‘Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.’” (Isaiah 49:14–15)

God frequently describes his love for his people to be like that of a husband for his wife. “For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name” (Isaiah 54:5) “As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.” (Isaiah 62:5) “And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD.” (Hosea 2:19–20)

God’s marital relationship to his people was not merely a marriage of convenience, a living arrangement marked by a sterile fulfillment of duties and roles. God’s heart was in this relationship. God revealed this by describing his jealous protection of the relationship and his intense feelings of anger and rejection when Israelites worshiped other gods, which God described as adultery. God feels not only warm affection but also intense love for us.

Tender, Trinitarian love

Isaiah says, “He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.” (Isaiah 40:11 ESV) Those are not the actions of a cold God. The God who is our shepherd is a warm God.

God the Father showed his tenderness at the Baptism of Jesus, announcing over him in a voice from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17)

Jesus said that God the Father loves us with the same love that he loves Jesus. Jesus prayed, “I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” (John 17:23) Because of Jesus and his atoning sacrifice on the cross, God the Father speaks over us, These are my beloved children, with whom I am well pleased.

A heart of warm embrace

I have saved my favorite display of the affectionate, tenderhearted love of God till last. Jesus knew his Father perfectly, and when he told the Parable of the Prodigal Son, here is how he described the father’s reaction to his son’s arrival at home after coming to his senses in the pig sty:

“While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.” (Luke 15:20-24 ESV)

That is not the response of a cold, calculating patriarch. Our Father God has the heart of one who runs and embraces and kisses you, who celebrates your relationship, who rejoices to have you home again and with him forever.

Our way and God’s way

Our way: We may think of God as distant, remote, and uncaring. Yet, the great longing of the human heart is for the tender love and concern of the Father.

God’s way: He has feelings, strong feelings. He has affection, not only compassion for the hurting but also warm affection for the people he loves. He feels love.

Life principle: To know God rightly you must know his heart. Until we experience God’s love and know him as Abba and as the Savior who cares for us, we will feel and act like orphans. Knowing God’s heart will satisfy your soul and anchor you emotionally in him.