Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers

by Dane C. Ortlund

It is one thing to know the doctrines of the incarnation and the atonement and a hundred other vital doctrines. It is another, more searching matter to know his heart for you. Who is he?

when the Bible speaks of the heart, whether Old Testament or New, it is not speaking of our emotional life only but of the central animating center of all we do.

Solomon tells us to “keep [the] heart with all vigilance, for from it flows the springs of life” (Prov. 4:23).

The Greek word translated “gentle” here occurs just three other times in the New Testament: in the first beatitude, that “the meek” will inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5); in the prophecy in Matthew 21:5 (quoting Zech. 9:9) that Jesus the king “is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey”; and in Peter’s encouragement to wives to nurture more than anything else “the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit” (1 Pet. 3:4).

The meaning of the word “lowly” overlaps with that of “gentle,” together communicating a single reality about Jesus’s heart. This specific word lowly is generally translated “humble” in the New Testament,

“My yoke is easy,” needs to be carefully understood. Jesus is not saying life is free of pain or hardship. This is the same word elsewhere translated “kind”—as in,

Our natural intuition can only give us a God like us.

When the leper says, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean,” Jesus immediately stretches out his hand and touches him, with the words, “I will; be clean” (Matt. 8:2–3). The word “will” in both the leper’s request and in Jesus’s answer is the Greek word for wish or desire.

The Greek word for “compassion” is the same in all these texts and refers most literally to the bowels or guts of a person—it’s an ancient way of referring to what rises up from one’s innermost core.

The Old Testament Jews, therefore, operated under a sophisticated system of degrees of uncleanness and various offerings and rituals to become morally clean once more. One particularly striking part of this system is that when an unclean person comes into contact with a clean person, that clean person then becomes unclean. Moral dirtiness is contagious.

When Jesus, the Clean One, touched an unclean sinner, Christ did not become unclean. The sinner became clean.

Yet German theologian Jürgen Moltmann points out that miracles are not an interruption of the natural order but the restoration of the natural order.

his heart refused to let him sleep in.

Through his Spirit, Christ’s own heart envelops his people with an embrace nearer and tighter than any physical embrace could ever achieve. His actions on earth in a body reflected his heart; the same heart now acts in the same ways toward us, for we are now his body.

His joy increases to the degree that the sick come to him for help and healing.

We are part of him. This is why the risen Christ asks a persecutor of his people, “Why are you persecuting me?” (Acts 9:4).

Jesus Christ is comforted when you draw from the riches of his atoning work, because his own body is getting healed.

Hebrews 4:15: For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

His human nature engages our troubles comprehensively.2 His is a love that cannot be held back when he sees his people in pain.

He has been “tempted” (or “tested,” as the word can also denote) “as we are”—not only that, but “in every respect” as we are. The reason that Jesus is in such close solidarity with us is that the difficult path we are on is not unique to us.

It is not only that Jesus can relieve us from our troubles, like a doctor prescribing medicine; it is also that, before any relief comes, he is with us in our troubles, like a doctor who has endured the same disease.

He knows what it is to be thirsty, hungry, despised, rejected, scorned, shamed, embarrassed, abandoned, misunderstood, falsely accused, suffocated, tortured, and killed. He knows what it is to be lonely. His friends abandoned him when he needed them most;

in 5:2, as the writer continues to lay out how Jesus is our great high priest, we find the word metriopathein. This is the only use of this verb in the New Testament. It means exactly what is given in the text: to deal gently. The prefix metrio- has the sense of restraint or moderation, and the root patheo refers to passion or suffering.

John Owen. Of the twenty-three volumes that presently make up Owen’s collected works, seven of these

Look to Christ. He deals gently with you. It’s the only way he knows how to be.

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

They that are coming to Jesus Christ, are often times heartily afraid that Jesus Christ will not receive them.

“No, wait”—we say, cautiously approaching Jesus—“you don’t understand. I’ve really messed up, in all kinds of ways.” I know, he responds.

There is only one way to know that we are sinners, and that is to have some dim, glimmering conception of God.