One of the most visible character attributes of God, as seen in Scripture, is His compassion. Both the Old Testament and New Testament testify to the unconditional love and mercy that arises from His compassion, even and especially when it is viewed alongside those passages that describe God’s just and holy wrath towards sin.
God is always completely who He is. From our human experience, we expect God to be “one or the other,” as we are. Instead, all His attributes are divinely and perfectly in harmony with Himself – never in competition. As the Psalmist reminds us, God is not like us: “You thought that I was altogether like you” (Psalm 50:21).
“God’s essence is one indivisible whole, so that each and all of His perfections actively characterize God’s entire being. God’s perfections must be thought of as always actively present together and mutually influencing each other without any hierarchy, even when they are not all mentioned in a given passage of Scripture.” –John MacArthur
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The dictionary defines compassion as “a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.” It differs from empathy or pity, in that while these words indicate an emotional response to the suffering of others, compassion moves one to act.
The Old Testament Hebrew word for compassion is rāḥami and is often translated “mercy.” In the New Testament, the Greek word is splagchnizomai: to be moved as to one’s inwards. The root word is splagchnon, from which we get “spleen.” The bowels or inward parts were seen to be the seat of inward affection, love, and pity, expressing an intense emotion, a yearning, that deeply moves one inwardly, creating a desire to relieve suffering.
Exodus 33:19 – “And He said, ‘I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.’”
Exodus 34:6 – “Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth.’”
God proclaimed His name to Moses in response to his request to see God’s glory. When we get a glimpse of God’s glory, we are seeing His attributes on display. How comforting to read that God defines Himself as compassionate. His very essence is one of compassion, moved to act because of the suffering of humanity.
Psalm 103:8, 13 – “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness. … Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.”
Isaiah 30:18 – “Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; how blessed are all those who long for Him.”
Lamentations 3:22 – “The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail.”
James 5:10-11 – “As an example, brethren, of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.”
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Matthew 9:10-13 – “Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, ‘Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?’ But when Jesus heard this, He said, ‘It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’”
Philippians 2:1-2 – “Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.”
If we have truly come to faith in Jesus, we have acknowledged the inescapable fact of our own sinfulness. We have tasted personally of God’s compassion and mercy and realized that we have no innate righteousness that merits a place in God’s kingdom. This knowledge should naturally create a humility in us towards others who are suffering both physically and spiritually. Jesus said that He desires compassion, not sacrifice. Religious works without a tender heart of mercy does not please God. Paul admonishes us to imitate and model the same compassion we see in Jesus – compassion that sent Him to the cross.
John 15:13 – “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”
1 John 3:16 – “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”
Here are four practical ways that Jesus taught us to show compassion:
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Matthew 15:32 – “And Jesus called His disciples to Him, and said, ‘I feel compassion for the people, because they have remained with Me now three days and have nothing to eat; and I do not want to send them away hungry, for they might faint on the way.’”
While Jesus’ ultimate work and mission was spiritual, accomplishing eternal salvation for the souls of men, He took much time to address the physical needs of those who came to Him for help. One of His more familiar parables describes “the good Samaritan” who illustrated what it means to “love your neighbor as yourself.” The pious religious priest and Levite passed by the man in need, but the Samaritan saw him and felt compassion (Luke 10:33). Jesus concludes with the moral of the parable:
Luke 10:36-37 – “’Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?’ And he said, ‘The one who showed mercy toward him.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do the same’” (Emphasis added).
We can model the love of Jesus by meeting needs. James puts this principle in terms we cannot fail to understand:
James 2:15-17 – “If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.”
Physical needs are also often manifested in illness and disease. While we do not have the power to heal sickness as Jesus did out of compassion (Matthew 14:14), we should do what we can to alleviate the suffering of the sick, including praying diligently for healing (James 5:14-16), visiting to provide encouragement and practical help (Matthew 25:35-40), and bearing with patience the extra burdens of caring for others with illness (Galatians 4:13-15).
Galatians 6:2 – “Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.”
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Luke 7:11-15 – “Soon afterwards He went to a city called Nain; and His disciples were going along with Him, accompanied by a large crowd. Now as He approached the gate of the city, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a sizeable crowd from the city was with her. When the Lord saw her, He felt compassion for her, and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ And He came up and touched the coffin; and the bearers came to a halt. And He said, ‘Young man, I say to you, arise!’ The dead man sat up and began to speak. And Jesus gave him back to his mother.”
A famous quote attributed to Ben Franklin says, “In this life, nothing is certain but death and taxes.” We all have an appointment with death (Hebrews 9:27). Some are born into extreme poverty and live their whole lives in need. Others come into the world surrounded by great riches and have their every want or desire granted. Yet physical circumstances have no bearing on a man’s ability to escape death; it is the great equalizer.
Jesus came to do away with the fear of death that holds all men captive (Hebrews 2:14-15). As His followers, we can show the greatest compassion towards those who mourn, giving them hope in the reality that Christ has done away with its sting (1 Corinthians 15:54-55). During His earthly ministry, Jesus brought back to physical life several who had died, acting out of compassion (Lazarus, the window’s son, etc.). But all these died a natural death again. Grieving during a time of death provides one of the greatest opportunities to show the compassion of Christ to those who mourn.
Luke 15:20 – “So he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.”
The story of the prodigal son hits home for all of us. Sometimes we are the wayward child gone astray from our Father’s love. But without compassion, we might find ourselves in the place of the self-righteous, jealous brother who resented the outpouring of love and mercy his younger brother found in the father’s welcome.
This parable illustrates the way God responds to us, and how we ought to feel deeply and act intentionally to restore those who are suffering because of their own willful choices. There’s no better way to show the redemptive love of Christ.
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Mark 6:34 – “When Jesus went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and He felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things.”
Matthew 9:35-37 – “Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness. Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.’”
The gospel presents a mission of compassion and mercy. Separated from our Creator by the wide gulf of sin, we were lost and without hope. God’s heart was moved to act to relieve our suffering, sending His only Son as the sacrificial Lamb of God to atone for the sins of the world.
As followers and imitators of our Savior and Lord Jesus, may all our acts of mercy lead to an invitation to receive the good news of salvation and be reconciled to the Father. Sharing the gospel is an act of compassion with eternal results.
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