Matthew 9:36
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. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”
Recall an argument raised by Calvinist, James White, regarding Luke 19:10, which states: “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” There, White asks: “If He actually saves, does this not limit the scope of the ‘lost’?” (Debating Calvinism, p.176, emphasis mine) Now for the sake of consistency, wouldn’t you expect him to feel compelled to maintain the same argument, here at Matthew 9:36, that is, to limit the scope of the people toward whom Jesus felt “compassion”? And yet, the text generically says, “the people.” Wouldn’t that be strange, if Jesus really meant just an “elect” people?
John Calvin comments: “That He is touched with compassion shows Him to be the faithful Minister of His Father, in caring for the salvation of His people, for whose sake He had put on the flesh. And although, now that He is entered into heaven, He may not have the same emotions as He then willed to feel and suffer in this mortal life, He has not cast off His concern for His Church, but looks at His wandering sheep, and gathers in His flock, which the wolves had cruelly scared and ravaged.” (Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, Matthew, Mark and Luke, Vol. I, pp.277-278, emphasis mine)
Just His Church? Seeing the elect, He felt compassion for them? Is that what the verse says?, or is that what the verse really means? Rather, it says, seeing “the people.” Doesn’t that seem to indicate an indiscriminate concern for the lost? He beheld a people that was “distressed” and “dispirited.” A sheep that is distressed and dispirited runs around in circles, calling out, because it is scared and confused. To this, Jesus likened Israel, and felt compassion for it. So the question is whether that same heart of compassion is compatible with the Calvinist doctrine of pass-by, Preterition?
Calvin writes: “The Lord in His unmerited election is free and exempt from the necessity of bestowing equally the same grace on all. Rather, He passes by those whom He wills, and chooses whom He wills.” (Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries: Romans and Thessalonians, p.200, emphasis mine)
Calvin adds: “When God prefers some to others, choosing some and passing others by, the difference does not depend on human dignity or indignity. It is therefore wrong to say that the reprobate are worthy of eternal destruction.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, pp.120-121, emphasis mine)
Calvinist, George Whitefield, explains: “I believe the doctrine of reprobation, in this view, that God intends to give saving grace, through Jesus Christ, only to a certain number, and that the rest of mankind, after the fall of Adam, being justly left of God to continue in sin, will at last suffer that eternal death which is its proper wages.” (Letter from George Whitefield to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, emphasis mine)
“Justly left”? Does that seem compatible with Matthew 9:36? Turn to the discussion on Luke 10:30-37, while keeping in Matthew 9:36.
Question: For whom did Jesus have compassion?
Answer: “The people.” But if you are a Calvinist, it would have to mean the “elect” people. In other words, Jesus saw only “the elect,” and was touched with compassion for them alone. That’s essentially the Calvinist doctrine of Preterition, in which Jesus, allegedly, only has pity towards a select few, while passing by the rest with casual indifference.
Compatible with the concept of Jesus having compassion towards the lost, whom He was sent to seek and to save (Luke 19:10), Mark 10:21 records the following event concerning the rich young ruler: “Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, ‘One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.’”
