Divine Pain as a Missing Piece to the Structure of God’s Holy Love: A Theological Analysis of Forsyth’s Cruciality of the Cross

Abstract This article will engage with the nature and experience of pain as it pertains to the Divine Nature. Acknowledging holiness as a grounding attribute of God, Forsyth’s emphasis of holy love will provide a new lens through which the conception of God’s suffering and the means of humanity’s redemption can be assessed. The Cross as the symbol of divine pain and suffering holds together God’s holiness and love. Holy love logically entails the Cross event as an antidote to the prevalent lightheartedness of American evangelical circles which is oftentimes lopsided on grace and prosperity. As a result, the late and post-Christendom Christianity in the West tends to overlook the other side of the Gospel, that is, the holiness and rigorousness of the divine law as revealed in the Old Testament. Law represents the divine holy nature, without which grace can be cheap, and love can be licentiousness. God never forsakes the divine law, nor His holiness. It is the divine holiness that reveals the depth and height of the divine love. The divine holy love has always been transformative, with holiness as the content and goal of the divine love. The holiness of God bespeaks the fact that God is not pleased with fallen humanity. For a holy God to love fallen humanity, there must be a lot of pain and agony involved. Divine agony found an epitomized expression in the historical event of crucifixion.