It is no doubt true that Christ, being fully man, righteously displayed every legitimate human emotion. Yet there is one vocabulary term of emotion which the New Testament writers assign to him above all others. God sovereignly selected to emphasize this facet of our Savior's emotional life in the inspired portrait provided by Scripture. It may be possible to be compassionate without being Christlike, but it is impossible to be Christlike without being compassionate. A Definition of Compassion Compassion is an emotion that moves a man internally, affecting the very depth of his being.
Dictionaries define it as a sympathetic response to another's distress.
This visceral verb occurs only 12 times in Scripture, yet every occurrence depicts godly compassion. Interestingly enough, its every occurrence either directly or indirectly describes the character of our Lord. Space does not permit a full study of the narratives which describe our compassionate Savior. Yet even briefly surveying the various accounts yields a number of practical truths related to both the objects and results of Jesus' compassion. It is important to note that the object of Jesus' compassion was always a person.