How does Reformed Theology consider passages that may imply that God is the "subject of sufferings"? In A Dissertation Concerning the End for which God Created the World, John Edwards makes the following statement,


  Because it is evident, by both Scripture and reason, that God is infinitely, eternally, unchangeably, and independently glorious and happy: that he cannot be profited by, or receive anything from, the creature; or be the subject of any sufferings, or diminution of his glory and felicity, from any other being.


It is however not immediately evident by either Scripture or reason to me that God is infinitely and unchangably happy, nor that God is not subject to any sufferings. In fact, numerous passages in the scriptures describe instances in which God is angry or wrathful and is thus unhappy, and also instances when God is greiving or sorrowful and is thus subjected of suffering. 

For me personally, the sufferings of God, especially the contrast between those sufferings caused in him by the Acuser, Man, and those caused in him by the ministry of Jesus, is a central theme of the narrative of redemption. 

How are passages that contain these themes handled by Edwards and other Reformed teachers that follow him, in the context of his statement here?
The point Edwards makes here is that since God accomplishes his purposes in all things, even evil things, he cannot be said to be carried away by emotions and thus experience involuntary ecstasy or distress.  But Edwards clearly admits that God can feel pleasure – the crucial point being that God, not the creature, is its ultimate source:

Though he has real pleasure in the creature's holiness and happiness; yet this is not properly any pleasure which he receives from the creature.  For these things are what he gives the creature.1

Similarly, Edwards refers to God's &quot;hatred&quot;2 and &quot;indignation&quot;3 toward sin, but contends that since he wills that it occur, and that it ultimately glorifies him, it does not distress him:

There is no inconsistence in supposing, that God may hate a thing as it is in itself, and considered simply as evil, and yet that it may be his Will it should come to pass, considering all consequences.4
The judgments God executes on the wicked, are spoken of as being for the sake of his name, in like manner as for his glory.5

This is often referred to as the doctrine of impassibility, that is, that God does not have passions.  J. I. Packer explains:

Not impassivity, unconcern, and impersonal detachment in face of the creation; not insensitivity and indifference to the distresses of a fallen world; not inability or unwillingness to empathize with human pain and grief; but simply that God's experiences do not come upon him as ours come upon us, for his are foreknown, willed and chosen by himself, and are not involuntary surprises forced on him from outside, apart from his own decision, in the way that ours regularly are.6

In this light, some passages in which God is said to experience negative emotions (grief, jealousy, etc.) are often said to be anthropomorophisms.  Millard Erickson argues that stories of God experiencing pain &quot;are simply descriptions of God's actions and feelings in human terms, and from a human perspective,&quot;7 and A. A. Hodge writes:

When [the Scriptures] speak of his repenting, of his being grieved, or jealous, they use metaphorical language also, teaching us that he acts toward us as a man would when agitated by such passions.  Such metaphors are characteristic rather of the Old than of the New Testament, and occur for the most part in highly rhetorical passages of the poetical and prophetical books.8

(Specifically on the similar issue of God &quot;repenting,&quot; see How have Calvinist theologians dealt with statements about God repenting?)
Many in the Reformed tradition desire to carefully safeguard the idea that God can experience emotions.  For example, John Frame argues that scriptural references to God's compassion, delight, jealousy, and grief are examples of emotions, and that emotion is inseparable from intellect and will.  Like Edwards, he appeals to God's ordaining will to reconcile God's emotional responses with his impassibility:

God responds (both transcendently and immanently) only to what he has himself ordained.  He has chosen to create a world that often grieves him.9

That said, some Reformed thinkers, while still accepting the immutability of God, don't find the doctrine of impassibility helpful.  For example, Wayne Grudem:

I have not affirmed God's impassibility in this book.  Instead, quite the opposite is true, for God, who is the origin of our emotions and who created our emotions, certainly does feel emotions.10

Summary
Some recent Reformed theologians are less committed to the traditional doctrine of God's impassibility, suggesting that it does not align with scriptural references to God's pity, grief, and regret.  But Jonathan Edwards and the general Reformed tradition tend to interpret such passages as anthropomorphic or analogical – not in order to deny that God is relational, but to argue that he is never carried away by passions or altered in any way by his creatures.  As Richard Muller summarizes early Reformed thought:

In the usages found in the Christian tradition, immutability (or, indeed, impassibility, when the term is actually used) in no way implies an absence of relatedness, love, long-suffering, compassion, mercy, and so forth.  Impassibility, when attributed to God in the Christian tradition and, specifically, in medieval and Protestant scholastic throught, indicates, not a Stoic notion of apatheia, but an absence of mutation, distress, or any other sort of negative passiones.11


References:

Edwards, Works, v2, 212
Ibid., 197
Ibid., 380
Ibid., 162
Ibid., 238; emphasis in original
Packer, &quot;Theism for Our Time,&quot; quoted in Robert Reymond, Systematic Theology, Chapter 7
Erickson, Systematic Theology, Chapter 11
Hodge, The Westminster Confession of Faith: A Commentary, Chapter 2, 74
Frame, Systematic Theology, 412–14; emphasis in original
Grudem, Systematic Theology, 166
Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, v3, 310; emphasis in original