But
when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them,
because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd (Matt. 9:36).
And Jesus went forth, and saw
a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and
he healed their sick (Matt. 14:14)
Then Jesus called his
disciples unto him, and said, I have compassion on the multitude,
because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and I
will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way (Matt. 15:32).
So Jesus had compassion
on them, and touched their eyes: and immediately their eyes received
sight, and they followed him (Matt. 20:34).
COMMON GRACE/WELL-MEANT OFFER
ARGUMENT:
“These texts speak of Christ having compassion/pity toward the multitudes of people that thronged Him during His earthly ministry … Christ desired the very best for all men around Him. The texts make no distinction between elect or reprobate, so we should see this as a ‘common’ compassion; something that even the reprobate were recipients of … Christ had a heart of mercy and love toward the reprobate too—He was deeply concerned for their welfare and safety too; and surely this can’t be limited to mere earthly benefits? …
… By extension, this attitude of Christ must also exist within the Father also, for as Christ is the image of the Father (‘God manifest in the flesh’), the one who revealed the Father to humanity, Christ’s compassion and love for these mixed multitudes tells us something of God’s own heart toward them as well: that He also has a compassion, a mercy and a love towards men in general: for the heart of Christ is not at odds with His Heavenly Father’s, but is one, a unity, and in harmony (‘I and the Father are one’). Everything that is in the heart of Christ is in the heart of God; there is nothing ‘un-Christ-like’ in God; for Christ is the express image and reflection of the Father …
… By further extension, this love
and compassion that Christ had toward the multitudes is expressed to (and is
upon) each and every hearer of the gospel whenever it is preached …”
(I)
Prof. David J. Engelsma
The explanation of these texts is the Bible’s describing a large group in terms of the smaller number of persons in the group who are the reality of the larger group of which the smaller group is a part.
The outstanding instance is Israel. In a formal sense, Israel was the entire, physical nation of Jews that descended from father Abraham. But when Scripture speaks of God’s love for Israel and His salvation of Israel in the Messiah, Jesus, the reference is not to all physical Israelites, not to all the members of the nation by physical descent from Abraham. Rather, the reference is to those Jews who shared the faith of Abraham in Jesus Christ. Indeed, the true Israel that God loved and for whom He gave Jesus Christ as the Savior, includes all Gentiles who share in Abraham’s faith in the Messiah. Believing Jews and Gentiles are Israel.
Scripture teaches who the reality of Israel is in Romans 9 and in Galatians 3. According to Romans 9, they are not all Israel which are of Israel (v. 6). They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God, that is, the true Israel (v. 8). Election determines who Israel is.
Galatians 3 is, if anything, even plainer. The seed of Abraham, that is, the real Israel, is Christ and those who are in Christ by faith (vv. 16, 29).
Apply this now to the passages in Matthew ... The multitude, representing Israel, upon whom Christ had compassion, whom God loves and whom Christ would redeem and feed with the bread of life, are the true Israel of God according to election, those who show this election by faith in Jesus as the Messiah. In this compassion, Jesus fed them with material bread, which was a sign of the far more important spiritual bread of eternal life—His crucified body and shed blood. The material bread was only a sign.
Christ had compassion on the multitude with regard to the elect believers among the crowd, the real Israel of God.
Them, He would feed with the true bread from heaven: His crucified body.
The unbelievers among the multitude, received the sign, the earthly bread, which in itself was good, but not the heavenly bread. Although the material bread was a good thing in itself, inasmuch as the unbelievers did not receive it in faith in Christ, that bread became a curse to them, just as the bread of the Lord’s Supper is a curse to the unbeliever in the congregation.
Those who insist that Jesus fed every person in the multitude in love for them all must face the question, Would He also feed them with the spiritual bread of His broken body? If He did not, of what real benefit to them was the compassion of Jesus for them in feeding them with the material bread? With that bread, they perish eternally. Indeed, that material bread only added to their condemnation. If He did also feed them with the heavenly bread that that material bread signified, since the unbelievers perished, Jesus’ heavenly bread, that is, Himself as crucified for sinners, is exposed as a failure.
The trouble with [the arguments for common grace or the well-meant offer] in this case and in all others is that they fail or refuse to allow election its proper place in the work of salvation of Jesus as recorded in the gospels. Election! Election accompanied by reprobation! So long as [the proponents of a universal love of God/Christ] stumble over election, the entire Scripture is darkness and a puzzle to them.
(DJE, 10/03/2021)
Prof. Herman C. Hanko
(a)
[Source: Covenant Reformed News, vol. 7, no. 16 (no date)]
Let there be no doubt about it at all that God has compassion only upon His people.
Compassion is the same as pity or mercy. And mercy is that attribute of God according to which He sees the misery of His people because of their sin, longs to deliver them from their misery, and purposes to make them eternally happy. God’s mercy is, however, always sovereign. That is, God’s mercy is not only a mere attitude while God is unable to accomplish that for which He longs. God’s mercy actually saves.
There is no adequate figure that we can appeal to as an illustration of this truth. But we can come close with the act of saving a drowning man. If a man is drowning in deep water and someone on shore sees the drowning man’s plight, he may be moved with compassion. But true compassion is not to stand on the shore wringing his hands and hoping the man will summon sufficient strength to swim to shore. Compassion is not even throwing the man a lifeline when he knows ahead of time the man is too near death to grab hold. (Although this is what the teachers of the well-meant offer maintain.) No, compassion is to brave the crashing waves, swim out to the man, take hold of him, and drag him to shore.
This is Jesus’ compassion as well as God’s. Jesus’ compassion or mercy actually saves. That is the power of His cross.
But why then does the text speak of compassion on the multitudes?
We must understand, first of all, that the reason for Jesus’ compassion is given in the text: “they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.” These words are a terrible indictment of the wicked scribes and Pharisees who claimed to be the leaders of the people, but who were false shepherds who scattered the flock and only sheared the sheep—for their own profit.
But Jesus is the good Shepherd, Who knows His own and is known by them. He has compassion for those who are scattered abroad, and He purposes to lead them into the green pastures of salvation.
But why the compassion on the multitude? Does not this imply that Jesus has compassion on every one in that multitude, head for head? including the reprobate in the multitude?
No, it does not mean that, and cannot mean that. The answer lies in a great truth of Scripture which, if people would once get a hold of, they would never be Arminian in their thinking. That truth is that God always deals “organically” with men.
I dislike introducing a word which almost no one understands in our days of crass individualism; but it is a crucial term. I can only suggest the ideas here, and our readers may ask more about it and give me opportunity to discuss it in other articles.
The text looks at the multitude from the viewpoint of its *organic unity*. We do this all the time in our own lives. We look at families and nations from the viewpoint of their unity as an organism. We can say, e.g., that England has become apostate. Does that mean that there are no people of God in England? Of course not. But it does mean that the nation, taken as a corporate or organic unity, is apostate.
We may say that in the days following the first General Assembly in Scotland, the nation became Christian. Does that mean that everyone in the nation was elect? Of course not. But it does mean that the nation, taken as a whole, lived according to the Scriptures.
It is this organic idea which Scripture uses when it compares the church with various creatures in God’s world. The church is a vine (Psalm 80; John 15) even though branches are cut off and the vine nearly destroyed. The church is a vineyard (Isaiah 5:1-7) even though it brought forth wild fruit. It is a vineyard because God has His elect there and He looks at His church as a whole from the viewpoint of His purpose with the church, i.e., to take it to glory.
Scripture calls the church in Corinth (or Ephesus, or Colosse, or whatever) the church of Christ, saints, redeemed, etc. Does this mean there were no reprobate in Ephesus? or Corinth? or Colosse? No, but it is the church and it is called the church. The Scriptures speak of the love of God to that church and the compassion of Christ. Does that mean that God loves the reprobate? Of course not.
I suppose that in a way one can speak of the “compassion” a farmer has for his wheat field. He takes good care of it, does what is necessary to see to it that the wheat grows, is deeply concerned that no pests or diseases or hail destroy it, and delights in its well-being. Does that mean that the farmer loves the weeds which are there? has compassion on the weeds? takes good care of the weeds? Of course not. It is his field, and he looks at it and deals with it as his wheat field.
So
Jesus has compassion on the multitude, for they were as sheep without a
shepherd. But that compassion is for the purpose of saving His elect.
---------------------------------------------
(b)
[Source: Covenant Reformed News, vol. 11, no. 20 (Dec. 2007)]
Is Christ’s compassion (love, longsuffering, mercy, grace) for every man to whom the gospel comes? Is Christ’s compassion to be interpreted as if He desired to save all head for head? This is an important issue, because a general compassion or love of Christ for all men that expresses a desire to save everybody is the heresy of the well-meant gospel offer which constitutes the heart of Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism, Arminianism and Amyraldianism which always plague the church. All these heresies are condemned by the creeds of Reformed and Presbyterian churches, the Canons of Dordt and the Westminster Standards.
…
I know the word “organic” is frequently misunderstood, and I know that many people in the church today fail to understand the importance of the concept. But it is crucial to an understanding of the texts, for it shows us how we are to understand and apply Jesus’ compassion correctly, in the light of particular grace, sovereign love (cf. Rom. 9:15) and the justice of God.
A farmer is very sad (and can have compassion) on his cornfield after a hailstorm has destroyed every plant in it—including the weeds. He has no compassion for the weeds, of course, but the field is one organism and its purpose is the growth of corn.
A man may have compassion on a
Christian family in which the father is a drunkard who beats his wife and
children mercilessly. Such a man does not have compassion on the drunk father,
but on the family because of what they suffer, for God’s dear children are in
that family. When the Netherlands, the land of my forebears, was overrun and
cruelly ruled by Nazi Germany, I had compassion on the country—not on everyone
head for head, surely not for those who betrayed their countrymen by
collaborating with the enemy, but I knew God’s people were in that country and
suffered cruelly. And I am but a man who does not know who are God’s people and
who are not. I had compassion on the “organism” of the Netherlands because
God’s people were in it. God had compassion on Israel, for the nation was God’s
people; not head for head, but the elect were there and they suffered under
wicked prophets, priests and kings. So Christ had compassion on the multitudes
for there were many who were His suffering people whom He had come to save.
John Calvin (1509-1564): “But
we must listen to the voice of Christ, who declares that where there are no
labourers there are no shepherds, and that those **sheep** [i.e., the elect;
cf. John 10] are wandering and scattered which are not collected into the fold
of God by the doctrine of the gospel. His being moved with compassion proves
him to be the faithful servant of the Father in promoting the salvation of
**his people** [i.e., His elect], **for whose sake** [i.e., for the elects'
sake] he had clothed himself with our flesh. Now that he has been received into
heaven, he does not retain the same feelings to which he chose to be liable in
this mortal life: yet he has not left off the care of **his church** [i.e., His
elect], but looks after his wandering **sheep** [elect], or rather, he gathers
his **flock** [i.e., His elect people] which had been cruelly chased and torn
by the wolves.” (Comm. on Matthew 9:36; emphasis added. Note how Calvin
interprets the whole passage as referring to the elect. Nothing of any common
compassion, common mercy, or common grace is mentioned!)
More to come! (DV)
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