Jesus came and kept the law in every respect so that He was said to be without sin. He was pure in mind and heart, yet the whole time He was on this earth He didn’t hang around the lovely, the good, the “holy” – he hung out with the worst of sinners, the “unimaginable and egregious” abusers of mankind (to use a phrase in today’s news).
We aren’t pure yet we recoil in horror from such wicked characters yet here was Jesus being affectionate towards them, a “friend of sinners” (Luke 7:34). The morally clean mixed with the morally unclean and He wasn’t contaminated. In fact, the reverse happened—when the sinner was touched by the Clean One, they became clean.
While Jesus was on earth He gave back to undeserving sinners their humanity. Whereas we have sin, sickness and decay in this fallen world, Jesus restored creation to the way it had been originally designed. He performed miracles, expelled demons from the demon-possessed and showed the world His lordship over creation.
Jesus did this because He was pure love. Thomas Goodwin puts it as, “Christ is love covered over with flesh.”[1]
Jesus continues, today, to show us that compassionate heart, and He is actually closer to us than He was when He walked on the earth. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to join us to the body of Christ, to live in us, to teach us continually, and to wash us with unending love (1 Cor. 6:15-16; John 14:26; Rom. 5:5).
With the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, we have now become the hands and feet of Jesus, and can carry on His work of showing love to the unlovable, commanding demons to leave and praying for miracles.
Having accepted Jesus as our Lord and Saviour we move with the Holy Spirit to extend Jesus’ kingdom on earth. Billy Graham sums up our position when he wrote, “Jesus does not allow us to be neutral about Him. He demands that we decide about Him.”[2]
So to answer our opening question: no, we can't over-exaggerate Jesus' love and compassion towards us.
[1] Thomas Goodwin, The Heart of Christ (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2011), 61. [2] Cited in https://billygraham.org/answer/what-if-i-dont-make-a-decision-for-christ-before-i-die/ accessed 25.1.22.
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