2. 1. Compassion and Love.
1. Compassion and Love.
T he emotion which we should naturally expect to find most frequently attributed to that Jesus whose whole life was a mission of mercy, and whose ministry was so marked by deeds of beneficence that it was summed up in the memory of his followers as a going through the land "doing good"
(Acts 11:38), is no doubt "compassion." In point of fact, this is the emotion which is most frequently attributed to him. 1 The term employed to express it 2 was unknown to the Greek classics, and was perhaps a coinage of the Jewish dispersion. 3 It first appears in common use in this sense, indeed, in the Synoptic Gospels, 4 where it takes the place of the most inward classical word of this connotation. 5 The Divine mercy has been defined as that essential perfection in God "whereby he pities and relieves the miseries of his creatures": it includes, that is to say, the two parts of an internal movement of pity and an external act of beneficence. It is the internal movement of pity which is emphasized when our Lord is said to be "moved with compassion" as the term is sometimes excellently rendered in the English versions. 6 In the appeals made to his mercy, a more external word 7
is used; but it is this more internal word that is employed to express our Lord's response to these appeals: the petitioners besought him to take pity on them; his heart responded with a profound feeling of pity for them. His compassion fulfilled itself in the outward act; 8 but what is emphasized by the term employed to express our Lord's response is, in accordance with its very derivation, the profound internal movement of his emotional nature.
This emotional movement was aroused in our Lord as well by the sight of individual distress (Mk. 1:41; Mt. 20:34; Lk. 7:13) as by the spectacle of man's universal misery (Mk. 6:34, 8:2; Mt. 9:36, 14:14, 15:32). The appeal of two blind men that their eyes might be opened (Mt. 20:34), the appeal of a leper for cleansing (Mk. 1:41), — though there may have been circumstances in his case which called out Jesus' reprobation (verse 43), — set our Lord's heart throbbing with pity, as did also the mere sight of a bereaved widow, wailing by the bier of her only son as they bore him forth to burial, though no appeal was made for relief (Lk. 7:13). 9 The ready spontaneity of Jesus' pity is even more plainly shown when he intervenes by a great miracle to relieve temporary pangs of hunger: "I have compassion on" — or better, "I feel pity for" — "the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and if I send them away fasting to their home, they will faint in the way; and some of them are come from far" (Mk. 8:2; Mt. 15:32), — the only occasion on which Jesus is recorded as testifying to his own feeling of pity. It was not merely the physical ills of life, however, — want and disease and death, — which called out our Lord's compassion. These ills were rather looked upon by him as themselves rooted in spiritual destitution. And it was this spiritual destitution which most deeply moved his pity. The cause and the effects are indeed very closely linked together in the narrative, and it is not always
easy to separate them. Thus we read in Mark 6:34: "And he came forth and saw a great multitude, and he had compassion on them" — better, "he felt pity for them," — "because they were as sheep not having a shepherd, and he taught them many things." But in the parallel passage in Mt. 14:14, we read: "And he came forth and saw a great multitude, and he had compassion on" ("felt pity for") "them, and he healed their sick." We must put the two passages together to get a complete account: their fatal ignorance of spiritual things, their evil case under the dominion of Satan in all the effects of his terrible tyranny, are alike the object of our Lord's compassion. 10 In another passage (Mt. 9:36) the emphasis is thrown very distinctly on the spiritual destitution of the people as the cause of his compassionate regard:
"But when he saw the multitude, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were distressed and scattered, as sheep not having a shepherd." This description of the spiritual destitution of the people is cast in very strong language. They are compared to sheep which have been worn out and torn by running hither and thither through the thorns with none to direct them, and have now fallen helpless and hopeless to the ground. 11 The sight of their desperate plight awakens our Lord's pity and moves him to provide the remedy.
No other term is employed by the New Testament writers directly to express our Lord's compassion. 12 But we read elsewhere of its manifestation in tears and sighs. 13 The tears which wet his cheeks 14 when, looking upon the uncontrolled grief of Mary and her companions, he advanced, with heart swelling with indignation at the outrage of death, to the conquest of the destroyer (Jno. 11:35), were distinctly tears of sympathy. Even more clearly, his own unrestrained wailing over Jerusalem and its stubborn unbelief was the expression of the most poignant pity: "O
that thou hadst known in this day, even thou, the things which belong unto peace" (Lk. 19:41)! 15 The sight of suffering drew tears from his eyes; obstinate unbelief convulsed him with uncontrollable grief. Similarly when a man afflicted with dumbness and deafness was brought to him for healing we are only told that he "sighed" 16(Mk. 7:34); but when the malignant unbelief of the Pharisees was brought home to him he "sighed from the bottom of his heart" (Mk. 8:12). 17 "Obstinate sin," comments Swete appropriately, "drew from Christ a deeper sigh than the sight of suffering
(Lk. 7:34 and cf. Jno. 13:20), a sigh in which anger and sorrow both had a part (3:4 note)." 18 We may, at any rate, place the loud wailing over the stubborn unbelief of Jerusalem and the deep sighing over the Pharisees' determined opposition side by side as exhibitions of the profound pain given to our Lord's sympathetic heart, by those whose persistent rejection of him required at his hands his sternest reprobation. He "sighed from the bottom of his heart" when he declared, "There shall no sign be given this generation"; he wailed aloud when he announced, "The days shall come upon thee when thine enemies shall dash thee to the ground." It hurt Jesus to hand over even hardened sinners to their doom.
It hurt Jesus, — because Jesus' prime characteristic was love, and love is the foundation of compassion. How close to one another the two emotions of love and compassion lie, may be taught us by the only instance in which the emotion of love is attributed to Jesus in the Synoptics (Mk. 10:21). Here we are told that Jesus, looking upon the rich young ruler, "loved" 19 him, and said to him, "One thing thou lackest." It is not the "love of complacency" which is intended, but the "love of benevolence"; that is to say, it is the love, not so much that finds good, as that intends good, — though we may no doubt allow that "love of compassion is never" — let us
rather say, "seldom" — "absolutely separated from love of approbation"; 20 that is to say, there is ordinarily some good to be found already in those upon whom we fix our benevolent regard. The heart of our Saviour turned yearningly to the rich young man and longed to do him good; and this is an emotion, we say, which, especially in the circumstances depicted, is not far from simple compassion. 21
It is characteristic of John's Gospel that it goes with simple directness always to the bottom of things. Love lies at the bottom of compassion. And love is attributed to Jesus only once in the Synoptics, but compassion often; while with John the contrary is true — compassion is attributed to Jesus not even once, but love often. This love is commonly the love of compassion, or, rather, let us broaden it now and say, the love of benevolence; but sometimes it is the love of sheer delight in its object. Love to God is, of course, the love of pure complacency. We are surprised to note that Jesus' love to God is only once explicitly mentioned (Jno. 14:31); but in this single mention it is set before us as the motive of his entire saving work and particularly of his offering of himself up. The time of his offering is at hand, and Jesus explains: "I will no more speak much with you, for the prince of this world cometh; and he hath nothing in me; but [I yield myself to him] that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do." 22 The motive of Jesus' earthly life and death is more commonly presented as love for sinful men; here it is presented as loving obedience to God. He had come to do the will of the Father; and because he loved the Father, his will he will do, up to the bitter end. He declares his purpose to be, under the impulse of love, "obedience up to death, yea, the death of the cross."
The love for man which moved Jesus to come to his succor in his sin and misery was, of course, the love of benevolence. It finds its culminating expression in the great words of Jno. 15:13: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends: ye are my friends, if ye do the things which I command you" 23 — rather an illuminating definition of 'friends,' by the way, especially when it is followed by: "Ye did not choose me but I chose you and appointed you that ye should go and bear fruit."
"Friends," it is clear, in this definition, are rather those who are loved than those who love. This culminating expression of his love for his own, by which he was sustained in his great mission of humiliation for them, is supported, however, by repeated declarations of it in the immediate and wider context. In the immediately preceding verses, for example, it is urged as the motive and norm of the love — spring of obedience — which he seeks from his disciples: "Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; and so shall ye be my disciples. Even as my Father hath loved me, I also have loved you: abide ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be fulfilled. This is my commandment, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you" (Jno. 15:8-12). As his love to the Father was the source of his obedience to the Father, and the living spring of his faithfulness to the work which had been committed to him, so he declares that the love of his followers to him, imitating and reproducing his love to them, is to be the source of their obedience to him, and through that, of all the good that can come to human beings, including, as the highest reach of social perfection, their love for one another. Selfsacrificing love is thus made the essence of the Christian life, and is
referred for its incentive to the self-sacrificing love of Christ himself:
Christ's followers are to "have the same mind in them which was also in Christ Jesus." The possessive pronouns throughout this passage — "abide in my love," "in my love," "in his (the Father's) love" — are all subjective: 24 so that throughout the whole, it is the love which Christ bears his people which is kept in prominent view as the impulse and standard of the love he asks from his people. This love had already been adverted to more than once in the wider context (13:1, 34, 14:21) in the same spirit in which it is here spoken of. Its greatness is celebrated: he not only "loved his own which were in the world," but "loved them utterly" (13:1). 25 It is presented as the model for the imitation of those who would live a Christian life on earth: "even as I have loved you" (13:34). It is propounded as the Christian's greatest reward: "and I will love him and manifest myself unto him" (14:21).
The emotion of love as attributed to Jesus in the narrative of John is not confined, however, to these great movements — his love to his Father which impelled him to fulfil all his Father's will in the great work of redemption and his love for those whom, in fulfilment of his Father's will, he had chosen to be the recipients of his saving mercy, laying down his life for them. There are attributed to him also those common movements of affection which bind man to man in the ties of friendship. We hear of particular individuals whom "Jesus loved," the meaning obviously being that his heart knit itself to theirs in a simple human fondness. The term employed to express this friendship is prevailingly that high term which designates a love that is grounded in admiration and fulfils itself in esteem; 26 but the term which carries with it only the notion of personal inclination and delight is not shunned. 27 We are given to understand that
there was a particular one of our Lord's most intimate circle of disciples on whom he especially poured out his personal affection. This disciple came to be known, as, by the way of eminence, "the disciple whom Jesus loved," though there are subtle suggestions that the phrase must not be taken in too exclusive a sense. 28 Both terms, the more elevated and the more intimate, are employed to express Jesus' love for him. 29 The love of Jesus for the household at Bethany and especially for Lazarus, is also expressly intimated to us, and it also by both terms, — though the more intimate one is tactfully confined to his affection for Lazarus himself. The message which the sisters sent Jesus is couched in the language of the warmest personal attachment:
"Behold, he whom thou lovest is sick"; and the sight of Jesus' tears calls from the witnessing Jews an exclamation which recognizes in him the tenderest personal feeling: "Behold, how he loved him!" But when the Evangelist widens Jesus' affection to embrace the sisters also, he instinctively lifts the term employed to the more deferential expression of friendship: "Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus." Jesus' affection for Mary and Martha, while deep and close, had nothing in it of an amatory nature, and the change in the term avoids all possibility of such a misconception. 30 Meanwhile, we perceive our Lord the subject of those natural movements of affection which bind the members of society together in bonds of close fellowship. He was as far as possible from insensibility to the pleasures of social intercourse (cf. Mt. 11:19) and the charms of personal attractiveness. He had his mission to perform, and he chose his servants with a view to the performance of his mission. The relations of the flesh gave way in his heart to the relations of the spirit: "whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother" (Mt. 12:50) and it is "those who do the things which he commands
them" whom he calls his "friends" (Jno. 15:14). But he had also the companions of his human heart: those to whom his affections turned in a purely human attachment. His heart was open and readily responded to the delights of human association, and bound itself to others in a happy fellowship. 31
1. Mt. 20:34; Mk. 1:41; Lk. 7:13; Mt. 9:38, 14:14, 15:82; Mk. 6:34, 8:2. Cf.
Mk. 9:22. Not at all in John.
2. Splagchalzomai: see Bleek, An Introduction to the New Testament, §33, (vol. i, p. 75); J. A. Alexander on Mk. 1:41; Plummer on Mt. 9:38. Buttig's monograph, De Emphasi splagchalzomai, we have not seen.
3. So Lightfoot, on Phil. 1:8.
4. It is found in the LXX in this metaphorical sense apparently only at Prov.
17:5. Cf. Swete on Mk. 1:41.
5. Oikteiro, which does not occur in the Synoptic Gospels, and indeed only once (Rom. 9:15) in the N. T. The adjective, oiktirmon occurs at Lk. 9:38
(also Jas. 5:11 only in N. T.); the noun oiktirmos, occurs in Paul (Rom.
12:1; 2 Cor. 1:3; Phil. 2:1; Col. 3:12; also Heb. 10:28 only).
6. A. V. Mk. 1:41, 6:34; Mt. 9:38, 14:14; R. V. Mk. 1:41; Mt. 9:36, 20:34.
7. 'Eleeo (sometimes, eleao), Mt. 9:27, 15:22, 17:15, 20:30-31; Mk. 10:4748; Lk. 17:13, 18:38-39; cf. Mk. 5:19; Mt. 18:33. This word also is not found in John. In Mk. 9:22 only is splagchnizomai used in an appeal, and even there its more subjective sense is apparent. On eleos and its synonymy see J. H. Heinrich Schmidt, Synonymik der grieschischen Sprache 3:, 1879,
§ 143, pp. 572sq.; and the excellent summary statement by Thayer in Thayer-Grimm, Lexicon etc., sub voc. eleeo. G. Heine, Synonymik des N. T:
-lichen Griechisch, 898, p. 82, states it thus: "eleos is the inclination to succor the miserable, OIKr&p uSs the feeling of pain arising from the miseries of others .. . oiktirmos is the feeling of sympathy dwelling in the heart; eleos is sympathy expressing itself in act." splagchnizomai is a term of feeling, taking the place of oiktiro.
8. W. Lutgert, Die Liebe im Neuen Testament, 1905, thinks it important to lay stress on this side of our Lord's love. "In the Synoptic portrait of Christ the trait which stands out most clearly is the love of Jesus. He not only commanded love, but first himself practiced it. It is not merely his thought but his will, and not merely his will but above all his deed. He therefore not only required it but aroused it. It expresses itself accordingly not merely in his word, but in the first instance in his act. Jesus' significance to the Synoptists does not consist in his having discovered the command of love, but in his having fulfilled it. For them Jesus is not a 'sage' who teaches old truths or new, but a doer, who brings the truth true, that is, acts it out" (p.
53). "His love never remains a powerless wish, that is, an unsuccessful willing, but it always succeeds. The working of Jesus is described in the Gospels as almighty love" (p. 54). "Since his acts are really love, they have primarily no other purpose but to help. Their motive is nothing but the compassion of Jesus" (p. 58). Accordingly, Lutgert insists, no cry to Jesus for help was ever made in vain: "Jesus acts precisely according to his own command, Give to him that asketh thee" (p. 55).
9. Render, not "he had," but "he felt compassion," to bring out the emphasis on the "feeling."
10. J. A. Alexander's note (on Mk. 6:34, repeated verbally at Mt. 9:36 and 14:14) is therefore too exclusive: "What excited his divine and human sympathy was not, of course, their numbers or their physical condition, but their spiritual destitution." It was both. Cf. Liitgert, as above, p. 68: "It is a characteristic trait of Jesus that he feels pity not merely for the religious, but also for the external, need of the people and that he acts out of this pity. The perfection of his love stands precisely in this — that it is independent of gratitude. He helps to help."
11. Cf. Plummer in loc.: "A strong word (eskulmenoi) is used to expresss their distress. . . . Originally it meant 'flayed' or 'mangled,' but became equivalent to 'harassed' or 'vexed' with weariness or worry. . . . 'Scattered' seems to suit shepherdless sheep, but it may be doubted if this is the exact meaning of eppimenoi. . . . 'Prostrated' seems to be the meaning here."
12. According to some commentators, sullupoumenos at Mk. 3:5 expresses sympathetic compassion (so e. g. Meyer, Weiss, Morrison, J. B. Bristow, art. "Pity" in DCG); see note 38. Some commentators also read agathos,
Mk. 10:18, of 'benevolence'; cf. kalos, Jno. 10:11, 14.
13. Cf. James Stalker, Imago Christi, 1890, p. 303. "He not only gave the required help in such cases, but gave it with an amount of sympathy which doubled its value. Thus, he not only raised Lazarus, but wept with his sisters. In curing a man who was deaf, he sighed as he said 'Ephphatha.' All his healing work cost him feeling."
14. Dakruo, silent weeping: see Schmidt, Synonymik der griechischen Sprache, I. 1876, § 26, p. 470sq.
15. Klaio, audible wailing: see Schmidt, as above. Cf. Hahn in loc.:
"eklausen of the loud and violent wailing called out by an inner feeling of pain. . . . The contrast should be observed between the joyful outcry of his disciples, and the inner feeling of Jesus whose spirit saw the true situation of things, undeceived by appearances."
16. Stenazo, "pitying as I think," comments Fritzsche, "the calamities of the human race" and so Euth. Zig., Grotius, Meyer. On the other hand,
DeWette, Weiss, Lagrange think the sigh, a sigh not of sympathy but of prayer (Rom. 8:23, 26).
17. 'Anastenazo, intensive form, here only in the N. T., but found in LXX.
"The Lord's human spirit," comments Swete, "was stirred to its depths."
18. "In both cases," Swete (on Mk. 7:34) suggests, "perhaps the vast difficulty and long delays of the remedial work were borne in upon our
Lord's human spirit in an especial manner."
19. 'Agapase, On the words for "love" see Schmidt, Synonymik, etc. III.
1879; § 136, pp. 474sq; agapao, pp. 482sq.
20. Morrison in loc. Cf. Liitgert, as cited, p. 59: "According to the Gospels, therefore, Jesus loves the needy. When Wemle maintains that the Evangelists have shown us a Christ who leads his life 'in joy over nature and good men' (p. 83), this conception of Christ contradicts the earnestness of the Gospels through and through: it is precisely the characteristic of the Gospels that the motive of Jesus' love according to them, so far as it lies in men, is in the first instance negative. The people called out his compassion
(Mt. 9:36). Jesus' love does not have the character of admiration, but simply of compassion. It is not delight, but deed, gift, help. It required therefore a needy recipient. But the love of Jesus to the people has also a positive motive, which is, however, nowhere expressed, — that is, pleasure in their good." Cf. what Liitgert says, pp. 92sq., of the coexistence with Jesus' love of hate, directed to all that is evil in men.
21. The negative side of the exposition is stated very well by Wohlenberg in loc.: "It would contradict fundamental elements of Jesus' preaching if those were right who hold that Jesus was inwardly of the young man's mind, and, looking upon him, conceived an affection for him, precisely because he had already made so much progress in keeping the divine commandments, and showed himself burning with enthusiasm for undertaking more. And how would this harmonize with what is afterwards said in verses 23 and 24sq." .
. . The positive side is given excellently by J. A. Alexander in loc.: "Most probably, love, as in many other places, here denotes not moral approbation,
nor affection founded upon anything belonging to the object, but a sovereign and gratuitous compassion, such as leads to every act of mercy on God's part (compare Jno. 3:18; Gal. 2:20; Eph. 2:4; 1 Jno. 4:10, 19). The sense will then be, not that Jesus loved him on account of what he said, or what he was, or what he did, but that, having purposes of mercy towards him, he proceeded to unmask him to himself, and to show him how entirely groundless, although probably sincere, was his claim to have habitually kept the law. The Saviour's love is then mentioned, not as the effect of what precedes, but as the ground or motive of what follows."
22. For the construction, see Westcott in loc. The term is, of course, agapao.
23. The term is agapa — although its correlative is oi philoi.
24. Cf. Meyer in loc.: "The agapa ha ema is not love to me, but: my love to you, as is clear from agapasa humas and from the analogy of ha chara ha ema verse 11, cf. verses 12, 13." This instance carries the others with it.
Westcott, if we understand him, wishes to take this phrase undifferentiatedly as including both the subjective and objective senses:
"The meaning of the words cannot be limited to the idea of Christ's love for men, or to that of man's love for Christ: they describe the absolute love which is manifested in these two ways, the love which perfectly corresponds with Christ's being." "His love," he apparently takes objectively, of love to God.
25. Westcott: "to the uttermost": so Godet, etc. Lutgert, as cited, p. 154 note: "eis telos means, not 'until the end' but 'to the utmost,' absolutely; cf.
I Thess. 2:16; Lk. 18:5, and besides the parallels from Hennas adduced by Jiilicher, Gleichnisreden Jesu, II. p. 282, also Barnabas 4:6, eis telos apoleson autan and 19:11, eis telos misaseis ton ponaron. Therefore John too has the conception of complete, purified love." In the text he had
written: "The word 13:1 is a parallel to 12:28. According to the one word the life of Jesus hitherto is described as a glorification of God, according to the other as love to his people. The love which he practiced in his death, the Apostle places by the side of the love which he had hitherto practiced: on the other hand it is distinguished from his love hitherto as an especial, new manifestation of love. By the love which he practiced in his death, he loved them to the uttermost. Now his love is become an absolute, purified love, for his love first becomes absolute when he gives his soul. The death of Jesus serves therefore for John not only as the last and highest proof of his love, but as its perfecting."
26. 'Agapao: 11:5, 13:23, 19:26, 21:7, 20. Cf. Mk. 10:21.
27. Phileo: 11:3, 36, 20:2.
28. Jno. 20:2, not "the disciple whom Jesus loved," but "the other disciple whom Jesus loved." Jesus loved both Peter and John. Cf. Westcott in loc.
Hence Westcott says (on 13:23) that the phrase "the disciple whom Jesus loved," "marks an acknowledgment of love and not an exclusive enjoyment of love."
29. 'Agapao: 13:23, 19:26, 21:7, 20; phileo: lat. 2.
30. Cf. Meyer on Jno. 11:5: "agapa: an expression chosen with delicate tenderness (the more sensuous philein is not again used as in verse 4), because the sisters are mentioned": and Westcott: "The Evangelist describes the Lord's affection for this family as that of moral choice (agapa. .)."
31. Cf. Mt. 11:19, Lk. 7:34 (12:4), Jno. 11:11 (15:14, 15).