Our Compassionate Savior!
Meditation for the week of March 25, 2012
Luke 10:33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion.
The Strong’s dictionary says that compassion shows sympathy or pity to someone. The Webster dictionary says, “A suffering with another; painful sympathy; a sensation of sorrow excited by the distress or misfortunes of another; pity; commiseration. Compassion is a mixed passion, compounded of love and sorrow; at least some portion of love generally attends the pain or regret, or is excited by it. Extreme distress of an enemy even changes enmity into at least temporary affection.”
Our Lord had compassion on the multitudes when they were hungry. He had compassion on the sick, the lepers and the blind and He healed them. He had compassion on sinners and died to save them. He set an example of true love and pity. Our Lord showed compassion that had no racial boundaries. He did not show favoritism to the rich, the powerful or the social elite. In many cases, He reached out to those that society had rejected.
One of the objections to the Gospel has to do with God showing absolutely no compassion to nations that had deserted Him and had turned their back on Him in the old testament. We know that what happened to those nations is an object lesson or analogy having to do with those who reject Him today. God has no compassion for an unbeliever or a Christ rejecter. But still, to slay all those people seems cruel until one realizes that the children were spared being raised in cultures that would have biased them against believing in the Living God. Young children that have not rejected the One true God in the old testament and in the new are “safe” should they die even though they are not saved. John 3:18 tells us that the reason people are condemned eternally is because they have not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. I believe this unbelief is a deliberate act of the will. It is not an unbelief caused by ignorance or lack of opportunity to believe. So those children who died when God destroyed the unbelieving nations in the old testament will be in heaven since they couldn’t have rejected Jehovah while those who are critical of God for destroying those nations will likely go to hell. Yes, destroying those nations was an act of kindness to the children who died, and it was an act of kindness to the israelites since then they would not be tempted to serve heathen gods by those who had turned away from Him. At the same time it was an act of judgment on the nations who knew the truth and turned away from it. All of those nations had descended from Noah and knew that God judged those who rejected Him. So was the judgment of those rebellious nations that had been given years to repent of their evil an act of kindness or an act of cruelty? It certainly was a kindness to those who were preserved and saved because of it.
In our passage, the Samaritan represents the Lord and he had compassion on one who was probably a Jew who needed to be rescued. The priest wouldn’t help the man and the Levite wouldn’t help the man, but the Samaritan did. The priest represented the religious leaders of the Jews, the Levite represented the religious workers. Both represented legal religion. Religion and law does not have compassion, but the Lord does.
Today there is a great deal of public professions and displays of religion. Some religions are formal systems that are opposed to the Lord Jesus Christ, but some religion is a so-called Christianity where a proud moral lifestyle characterizes those who claim to be Christians. There is no emphasis on repenting and believing in many of these Christian groups. People in these systems talk a lot about God but seem to be uncomfortable mentioning the name of the Lord Jesus in a reverent way. A legalistic morality based on law rather than a devotional morality based on a love for the Lord seems to be all pervasive. But religion was of no help to the man who had fallen among thieves, and it is of no help to a fallen society or to the sinner in need of the Savior today. A Samaritan, a despised and rejected one by Jews, was the one who met the need of the man who had been beaten and robbed. I am glad my Savior is like this. I wonder if I would have been like the Lord if I had seen a robbed and beaten man that I didn’t know and who was from the wrong part of society on that Jericho road. Would I have stopped and helped him because I had compassion for him?
I believe God was merciful and compassionate in the old testament, but I am still glad to live in new testament times where the Lord is presented as a Samaritan who has compassion. He had compassion on me. Others are going to see His compassion through Christians. Thank God for every Christian who has a real heart of compassion for others.
Bruce Collins