Tozer on the Son of GodSample

The Compassion of Christ

The word “compassion” is a vital New Testament word. Do you realize that compassion is an emotional identification, and that Jesus Christ had that in full perfection? The man who has this wound of compassion is a man who suffers along with other people. Jesus Christ our Lord can never suffer to save us anymore. This He did, once and for all, when He gave Himself without spot through the Holy Ghost to the Father on Calvary’s cross.

He cannot suffer to save us but He still must suffer to win us. He does not call His people to redemptive suffering for that is impossible; it could not be. Redemption is a finished work! But He does call His people to feel along with those that rejoice and those that suffer. He calls His people to be to Him the kind of an earthly body in which He can weep again and suffer again and love again. For our Lord has two bodies! One is the body He took to the tree on Calvary; that was the body in which He suffered to redeem us. But He has a body on earth now, composed of those who have been baptized into it by the Holy Ghost at conversion. Paul said he was glad that he could suffer for the Colossians and fill up the measure of the afflictions of Christ in his body for the church’s sake. It is in that body now, on earth, that Christ would suffer to win men!

Lord Jesus, thank You for the compassion You have shown me, which was expressed most fully in the cross. Grant that I would become more compassionate and thus more like You. Amen.