(3) Compassion. — The respect which Jesus has for human nature becomes, in presence of human need, a very passion for helping, healing, saving. The qualities which most deeply impressed the men and women of His day, and which shine most clearly in His portrait, are not His supernatural gifts, but His unwearied goodness. His sincere kindness. His great gentleness. His deep and tender pity. By these He has captivated the iiiKi^'inatioii, and won the reverence of humanity. TIji 11,1 lai i\ r, have felt the throbbing compassion ..I I , and have used the very phrase
XM I , - iM.uotony (Mk l", Mt 2tf« 9*, Lk
:'■■, Mt if- i:. -1.
The compassion of Jesus is manifest in the wonderful works which are ascribed to Him. All of them, with the exception of 'the coin in the fish's mouth' and 'the withering of the fruitless fig-tree,' which have a special didactic aim, are works of mercy. They are, no doubt, proofs of power; but they are essentially instances of the sympathy of Jesus, in virtue of which He enters into the fulness of human need The instinct of one Evangelist has no doubt directed subsequent thought toward the truth. When Jesus wrought Hi^ liealing miracles. He was fultillin" a prophecy \\liirli had special reference to sin (Mt 8"). By iMi ri-v exercise of iwwer did He relieve the dis- n.-^e^of men, but by a real assumption of their sorrow. Every such act stands in organic con- nexion with the deed of the Cross, in which He bare the sin which is the root of all human infirmities.
Yet more conspicuously the compassion of Jesus is to be seen in the method of His ministrij, which led Him to seek the company of sinners, not because their sin was not abhorrent to His nature, but because He loved His vocation, and loved those who were its objects. The disinterestedness which Plato ascribes to the true physician deepens, in the case of this Healer of men, to a pure and
CHAEACTER OF CHRIST
CHARACTER OF CHRIST
burning passion. Twice His compassion found vent in tears : once in presence of man's mortality, once in sight of the city whose abuse of privilege had earned extremity of woe. There are depths here we cannot fathom, since there is mercifully denied us perfect knowledge of the evil which Jesus' knowledge of God fully disclosed to His view. Knowing God, living in unbroken fellow- ship with Him, Jesus knew, as none other could, ■what sin and death were. He lived and died with the spectacle of their power ever before Him. His kiiiiwli'duc is I he measure of His compassion, and
(1) /.,,./".' Without doubt, Jesus believed
lliiiiscit Id Ih- Ihc agent of the Divine love, the mediator of the Divine forgiveness. He had power on earth to forgive sins (Mt 9"^). This forgiveness He announced as the prerogative of His office ; but the actual experience of forgiveness, as the redeem- ing act of God, came through the love which Jesus Himself manifested. His welcome of sinners was their reception into the fellowship of God. This is a fact which no prejudice against doctrine ought to invalidate, which, probably, no doctrine can adequately explain. Hence follow two features of the portrait of Christ, each most signilicant and suggestive. He accepted the gratitude of forgiven sinners as though He were God's own representa- tive (Lk 7«-oii) ; and He regarded sins committed against Himself as committed against God, who in His mission was seeking to save men. His for- giveness of such oH'ences, accordingly, is not measurable in terms of quantity— unto seven times or seventy times .seven ; but has the very qualities of boundlessness and inexhaustibleness which He attributes to the forgiveness of God. There is only one limitation, and that does not belong to the character of God, but to the constitution of human nature. Tliei-e is a sin which hath never forgiveness (Mt 12"- ^-, Mk 3=»- -■>, Lk 12'»). It does not consist, however, in a definite offence against God or His Christ, but in a frame of mind, an liabitude of soul, which is psj'chologically beyond reach of forgiveness. Apart from this limit, which on God's side is none, forgiveness is inlinite.
When, accordingly, we proceed to examine the sins committed against Jesus, we i^eroeive tliat they form an ascending scale of guilt, accordiiit; to the advancing measure of light and privilem' against which they were couiniitted, ancl so also of pain to Him and of peril to the transgressors. First, there is the sin of those who were directly responsiWe for His death. Dark and dreadful though this was, compounded of the vilest qualities of polluted human nature, it was, nevertheless, even in its dea<lliest guilt, not a sin against abso- lutely clear conviction. Hence the victim of so much wronw prays even while the nails rend His flesh : ' Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they do' (Lk 23'*). It is impossible to narrow the scope of this petition to the unconscious instru- ments, the Roman soldiers ; it must extend also to the Jews themselves, to tlie mob, and even to their more guilty rulers. Peter (Ac 3") and Paul (1 Co -2') cannot ha\e been mistaken in their interpretation of the vnum w hich slew their Lord.
Second, there is the sin nf I In .si- \\liii deserted Him in His need, and especially ol him who denied his Master with oaths and curses. Tliu>- were bound to Jesus by every tie of aflection aiid of loyalty. He trusted them, and they failed Him. Yet it could not be said of them that they kitew what they did. Their action was without premedita- tion, wiiliniil i.'-l I'useof its meaning. A sjiasm of ovi-r|"i\\ri iiij I, .11 (confounded their intelligence and dc.^lroyi'il their resolution. Shameful it was, and must ha\e wrung the heart of Jesus with anguish ; yet at its worst it was committed