What the Bible says about Compassion of Jesus Christ
(From Forerunner Commentary)
Christ's miracle of feeding the five thousand is unique in that it is the only one that all four gospel writers mention (Matthew 14:13-21; Mark 6:30-44; Luke 9:10-17; John 6:1-14). It illustrates Jesus' authority over nature and His divine intervention on behalf of others, showing that He is concerned about both humans' physical and spiritual needs.
Jesus is moved with compassion at the sight of thousands of people who had made a great effort to hear His message of hope. Although He is tired after a long day, He embraces the opportunity to teach them and heal the sick among them. As evening descends, His disciples suggest that the hungry crowd be disbanded to seek necessary food from the surrounding villages, but Jesus has something else in mind.
To test Phillip's faith, He asks him how the people could be fed. Not only does Philip learn a lesson of faith, but all of the disciples learn that true faith must rely on divine resources, not physical and material ones. Phillip begins to tally all of the meager supplies the disciples had among them, and somewhat stymied, says, "Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them." One denari was a day's wage at the time.
Then Andrew tells Jesus, "There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish." Yet, because of their lack of faith, the disciples cannot see any possibility of feeding the great multitude with their scarce funds and the scanty food on hand. However, faith enables us to see that with the omnipotent God, all things are possible.
This miracle is a magnificent act of creative power. No amount of human reasoning can reduce this miracle to a natural phenomenon. Indeed, complete understanding of miracles is beyond human capability to understand. By an act of His own creative power, Jesus revealed proof of His deity to thousands.
Martin G. Collins
The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Feeding the Five Thousand (Part One)Related Topics: Compassion | Compassion of Jesus Christ | Faith, Lack of | Feeding of 5000 | Jesus Christ's Authority | Jesus Christ's Authority over Nature | Jesus Christ's Miracles: Feeding of Five Thousand | Lack of Faith | Miracles of Jesus Christ: Feeding of 5000 | Phillip's Faith | Physical Needs | Spiritual Needs | Testing of Faith | Testing Phillip's Faith
Jesus is "moved with compassion" when He sees the needy multitudes exhausted and wandering like sheep that had been tattered from cruel fleecing. Twice He is "moved with compassion" when He sees the hungry multitudes without food (Matthew 14:14; 15:32). The two blind men (Matthew 20:34) and the leper (Mark 1:41) also stir His compassion, as does the sorrow of the widow at Nain (Luke 7:13).
In addition, Jesus uses the word translated "compassion" in three of His parables: The king has compassion on his bankrupt servant and forgives him his debt, showing how we should forgive one another (Matthew 18:21-35). The Samaritan has compassion on the Jewish victim and cares for him in love (Luke 10:25-37). Finally, the father has compassion on his rebellious son (Luke 15:20).
We, too, should show compassion toward others. Compassion, a fundamental and distinctive quality of God, is literally "a feeling with and for others." It lies at the foundation of Israel's faith in God because, in an act of compassion, He delivered them from slavery and called them to be His own people. His compassion does not fail (Lamentations 3:22). Jesus teaches that it should be extended, not only to friends and neighbors, but to all, even to our enemies.
Martin G. Collins
The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Feeding the Five Thousand (Part Two)
As Jesus walks to Jairus' home, a friend informs Jairus of the sad news, "Your daughter is dead." In the Greek, "dead" is placed first for emphasis; it literally reads, "Dead is your daughter." Such a statement would have been devastating, but being in Christ's presence gave the grief-stricken father hope. Jesus is seen as the Encourager. He is willing, even eager, to help the sick and dying. Though He refuses to flaunt His power, He is quick to glorify the God of powerful healing.
As soon as Jesus overhears the news, He intervenes to curb the fear welling up in the brokenhearted father, countering with encouragement: "Do not be afraid; only believe, and she will be made well." With a word of hope, He changes the father's focus, and with gentleness and compassion, comforts him. In II Corinthians 5:5-7, the apostle Paul assures us that our consolation abounds through Christ.
Martin G. Collins
The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Resurrecting Jairus' Daughter
We each have our own "planks" that distort our discernment of the truth about others. Criticizing others for their faults makes us hypocrites. Indeed, if we try to lead them out of their faults before working to remove our own glaring sins, we will be much like the blind leading the blind into the ditch, which Jesus describes in Luke 6:39. While we are all sinful creatures, we need to make sure that we cast our most discerning gazes on ourselves and, in all humility, refrain from "fixing" others, especially when we have similar problems!
What kind of adjustments can we make to compensate for our innate blindness to see what is really going on in another's life? The physically vision-impaired person may wear glasses or contact lenses or undergo eye surgery to improve his sight problems. But no eyeglasses in the world can help us to see another person's heart. Laser surgery is worthless against our ignorance of another's background or circumstances. Is there anything we can do?
Years ago, a friend came to church services with a patch over his eye. Concluding that he had injured it, I thought little more about it until he showed up a few weeks later with the patch over the other eye. He explained that he was exercising his eyes to improve his vision.
Here is our answer! We must exercise ourselves in the skill of discernment. We must train ourselves in how to "look" at other people. If nothing else, we can "squint," trying to see beyond what we normally and habitually imagine of others. Paul writes in Acts 24:16 (The Amplified Bible, AMP): "Therefore I always exercise and discipline myself [mortifying my body, deadening my carnal affections, bodily appetites, and worldly desires, endeavoring in all respects] to have a clear (unshaken, blameless) conscience, void of offense toward God and toward men."
The apostle Peter provides us some ground rules for our training in I Peter 3:8-12:
Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous; not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing. For
"He who would love life and see good days,
Let him refrain his tongue from evil,
And his lips from speaking deceit.
Let him turn away from evil and do good;
Let him seek peace and pursue it.
For the eyes of the LORD are on the righteous,
And His ears are open to their prayers;
But the face of the LORD is against those who do evil."To begin recovering from our blindness, then, we must start with true, godly love for our brethren. We have to add sympathy and courtesy and a good measure of helpfulness. We must make sure to bite our tongues, bury our hatchets, and swallow our pride. Most of all, we must remember that God the Judge is watching, and He rewards those who do good and punishes those who cause harm.
In summary, unlike God, we cannot know or understand everything that comes within our view; it is far beyond our capabilities. We have great difficulty seeing beyond our prejudices and opinions. So, we must be careful about what we say and how we react to what we think we have seen. Only God sees all and knows all, and He is our righteous judge. We need to get out of His way and out of His business!
We need to take pains to improve our judgment and sincerely try to act and react to others in love. We will not do it well every time; it will take consistent effort and commitment. But if we keep at it, our experiences will begin to develop in us a keener "eye" for what others are really like and what they are going through.
It sounds like a lot of work, a lot to bear in mind. But what is it worth to see the truth?
Dan Elmore
Are You Blind? (Part Two)Related Topics: Compassion of Jesus Christ | Courtesy | Discernment | Hypocrite | Love for Brethren | Mortifying the Flesh | Prejudice | Self Deception | Sin of Self Deception | Spiritual Blindness | Sympathy
In six of the approximately 33 miracles of Christ, His compassion is specifically mentioned as a factor. Besides this one, the miracles that speak of His compassion include the feeding of the 5,000 (Matthew 14:14), the feeding of the 4,000 (Matthew 15:32), the healing of the two blind men (Matthew 20:34), the healing of the leper (Mark 1:41), and the exorcism of the demons in Gadara (Mark 5:19). His compassion is present in every miracle He performed, but only in these six is it mentioned.
Jesus was the most compassionate of all mankind (Hebrews 4:15). Often when things do not go well for some people, they complain that Christ does not care. Yet, that complaint is unjustified: Scripture shows abundantly that He does care—a great deal more than we realize. It is not Christ who is uncaring, but humans. We lack compassion for God the Father, for His Son, and for one another.
When Jesus has compassion on the widow, saying, "Do not weep," He is not merely asking her to cheer up. Instead, it is a foreshadowing of His power. He will remove the cause of her tears and simultaneously give His disciples a preview of God wiping away all tears (Revelation 21:4).
Martin G. Collins
The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Raising a Widow's Son
First, He knows all the specifics of the case. His disciples see only a funeral as they pass, but He understands the circumstances of the corpse stretched out in the coffin. He knows that the deceased is a young man, the only son of his mother, and that she is a widow!
Second, He does not wait for anyone to plead with Him. Isaiah prophesies of this in Isaiah 65:1: "I was found by those who did not seek Me; I was made manifest to those who did not ask for Me" (as quoted in Romans 10:20). Sometimes, before we call for help, He answers—what a special blessing that is (Isaiah 65:24; Daniel 9:20-23).
Third, when He sees the widowed mother, He has "compassion on her." Christ's concern is apparent in His expression of His mercy and tenderness.
Fourth, He says to her, "Do not weep," to provide comfort and encourage her.
Fifth, Jesus is not pretentious when He touches the coffin, but in humility He offers hope (Jeremiah 17:7). The widow thinks that all hope is gone, but even these dire circumstances are not enough to remove the hope found in Christ (Lamentations 3:26). Christ also shows great tenderness when "He present[s] him to his mother."
Martin G. Collins
The Miracles of Jesus Christ: Raising a Widow's Son
The Word of God became a man, Jesus of Nazareth, so that He could completely feel both joy and pain as mankind does. As a God-Being, to that point He knew life only as an eternal, all-powerful Deity. He put on a human form—that of a servant (Philippians 2:7)—to feel our frailty and to know our limitations and weaknesses.
As Creator, God has always had great compassion for His children, but for Jesus Christ to be a perfect High Priest, with perfect compassion—for Him to suffer along with His creation—He had to become a human being. What did He experience to give Him the ability to empathize with us?
During His life, Jesus lived with a large family, interacted with neighbors, and dealt with many different kinds of people. He was a carpenter and had to run a business. He worked hard and became tired and hungry. He paid bills, taxes, and tithes. He had to deal with government. He saw firsthand the death of His friend, Lazarus, and likely the death of His own earthly father, Joseph. Of course, He was hounded by the Jewish authorities, arrested, tried, convicted, scourged, and crucified. Because He experienced these things and many others, He now knows what human life—and its many difficulties—is really like.
Notice what is written in Mark 6:34 about our Savior's compassion: "When [Jesus] went ashore He saw a great crowd, and He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And He began to teach them many things." (English Standard Version)
Jesus' compassion was more than just a feeling. His compassion for others' weaknesses and hardship led Him to exert Himself in positive actions. Whether it was healing the sick, casting out demons, or giving people proper instruction, His compassion motivated Him to work to make peoples' lives better.
Of course, Jesus is our Example to follow, so we need to be expressing this same kind of active compassion to the brethren and to others we encounter. As we saw previously in Colossians 3:12, as Christians, we are to be clothed with compassion. How do we go about putting this superior kind of compassion on?
It is reasonable to assume that the principle of compassion is based on the Golden Rule, "Do to others what you would have them do to you," which Jesus states in Matthew 7:12 (New International Version). In turn, His instruction in the Golden Rule is a summation of the last six of God's Ten Commandments, which outline our duty to our fellow man. Jesus summarizes them in another way in His Second Great Commandment, which appears in Matthew 22:39: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." All that Jesus did throughout His life and ministry provide examples of real compassion.
Because we must love others as ourselves, it may be necessary at this point to define the word "self." Philosopher and psychologist William James wrote, "In its widest possible sense, however, a man's self is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his psychic [mental] powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank account." He called this idea of self "the empirical self." His definition covers a great deal of ground—not just our bodies, but also everything we consider to belong to us. It illustrates how extensive our love needs to be for others. If our love for ourselves is this broad, our love—including our compassion—for others must be equally as broad.
While we can never literally do exactly what Jesus did, we can and should, to the best of our abilities, become that suffering person and make that suffering our own. As much as we can, we must place ourselves in his shoes, as it were, and truly experience and feel his suffering, mentally and emotionally, even physically. Then, continuing in our Savior's example, we need to take whatever steps are in our power to lessen and, if possible, relieve that suffering. When we suffer their pain or suffer from our own hardships, we then need to use our experiences in coping with them to help others make it through their distresses, as we would want others to help us.
John Reiss
Compassion (Part Two)