Peter Allison's sermon, 'The Perfect Emotional Life of Christ,' explores the dual emotional extremes of Jesus Christ as depicted in Luke 19:41-46. It emphasizes the fullness of Jesus' humanity through his experience of sinless emotions like compassion and righteous indignation. The sermon highlights Jesus' compassion for Jerusalem despite their rebellion and impending judgment, illustrating the depth of his sorrow and the sincerity of his compassion even for those ordained for destruction. It discusses the theological tension between God's sovereignty and human free will, suggesting that God's decrees coexist with genuine compassion and desire for repentance among all people. The sermon also underscores Jesus' continued human emotional nature as he intercedes for believers, advocating for their understanding of his compassion and the promise of sanctification to grow more like him.

Luke chapter 19. Beginning at verse 41. Beginning at verse 41 Now as He drew near, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, If you had known even you, especially in this your day, the things that made for peace. But now they are hidden from your eyes, for days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you, and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you to the ground, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another because you did not know the time of your visitation." Then he went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in it, saying to them, It is written, My house is a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves. And he was teaching in the temple daily, but the chief priests and the scribes and the leaders of the people sought to destroy him, and were unable to do anything for all the people were very attentive to hear him.

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Almighty Heavenly Father, I pray that you would sanctify my sinful lips and that you would speak to us this morning through your word and by your spirit. May you open our eyes that we might discern and know those things that are spiritually discerned that We cannot know apart from your help. We ask that as we continue to worship, may we be lifted up to heaven, to your throne room, to see you as you have revealed yourself in your scriptures. In Jesus name, Amen.

Well this passage presents a very unique picture of the emotional life of our Savior Jesus Christ. Because it presents side by side two emotional extremes that we often think of as opposites. That is deep pity and compassion to the point of sobbing on the one hand, and righteous indignation and anger on the other. They're both here side by side in these two events. You see because Christ was fully human, He experienced the full range of sinless emotions that we experience, but of course, without sin, because he experienced the full range of human emotions because he was fully human.

Jesus experienced hunger, thirst, fatigue, weariness. In Luke 10, He rejoiced at the end of the sending out of the 72 people to preach and in Matthew 18 he marvels in amazement at the faith of the centurion who said you don't have to come to my house You just say the word because you are a man of authority And in Mark 10 We read that he loved the rich young ruler who went away sorrowful because he loved his wealth more than Christ. He was unwilling to sell it and give it to the poor as Christ told him to do. But Christ loved this man, The Bible says. But his most frequent emotion that's recorded in the scriptures is that of compassion.

Compassion. In Matthew 9, he was moved with compassion for the crowd because they were weary and scattered like sheep without a shepherd. He saw them as sheep that had run around, helter-skelter through brambles and thorns, and wearied themselves out, wearied themselves running from predators. And they were weary, fallen. And he was moved with compassion at that site.

But anger is another emotion that the scriptures record of Jesus such as when he became indignant, angry at the Pharisees because of their cruelty, their callous cruelty toward a man who with a withered hand, when they they would rather that he continue in his disability, continue in his condition rather than be healed because it was the Lord's day and they had a misguided and incorrect view of what was required on that day. They had forgotten mercy. Christ was righteously indignant at that. At their warped view of the Sabbath and their callousness towards somebody who was suffering. His zeal for God's honor causes him to cleanse the temple several times, one of which is in this passage.

He grew in stature and in wisdom and in favor with God and man, growing. It's a human experience. He was fully God, He knew all things, and yet as a human he grew in knowledge and he grew in wisdom. He was subjected to very real temptations. As respects his divine nature, He cannot sin because God cannot sin, God cannot lie.

But as respects his human nature, he was able to fall. But as a sinless man, he didn't. Satan tempted him, yet without sin. He experienced painful emotions, human emotions as well. He wept at the grave of Lazarus.

His soul was troubled as he faced his own crucifixion. And he even underwent extreme emotional distress to the point of death. Hebrews 5 tells us that he prayed with loud cries and tears who in the days of his flesh saying who in the days of his flesh when he had offered up prayers and supplications with vehement cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death and was heard because of his godly fear though he was a son yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered and finally of course he experienced death itself that is the experience of of sinful humans Of course it wasn't a sin for him to experience that. And with that death he experienced all the abandonment, intense abandonment of the Father, as the Father poured on him the wrath, His wrath for all the sins of His people. Of course the spiritual relationships transcended these physical relationships.

He could say when His earthly family came to visit him that whoever does the will, who are my mother and who are my brothers, whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and my sister and my mother. And he could say to you are my friends in John 15, if you do whatever I command you. But he also had the compassion of a human heart for those, for other people in a human sense, even for people that were reprobate, even for people that no faith is recorded of. For example, the woman at Nain. He saw this woman accompanying the coffin of her only son.

And he had compassion on her. Compassion of a human heart. And as Jesus comes into this city, He saw the city. He had compassion for it. He is deeply moved by seeing the city.

As Jerusalem came into sight, as he drew near, he saw the city and he wept over it. Why is he weeping? Well, it's the looming judgment that's coming to them. Is that something that he just learned? No He knew that all along.

He's been he'd said that before But seeing the city seeing the city come into view as he came over the Mount of Olives, brought intense grief to him. See it shows again his human nature that the sight of the city brought to his mind this knowledge of their judgment and with that knowledge a great compassion, a great sorrow. He was convulsed with overwhelming grief. This word for weep here, weeping over, It's not the same word that's used when Jesus wept at Lazarus' grave. This isn't the sorrow of a quiet tear that you might shed at some emotionally powerful scene or something in front of you, or if somebody says something emotionally moving, this is the deep sobbing lament that makes one's whole body shake.

It's a loud wailing, he was moved. He was moved with compassion not because of anything worthy in this city. These weren't people who he saw unrighteously suffering. These weren't people who through no fault of their own were enduring some injustice or some loss, some deprivation. This wasn't like the man with the withered hand or blind or mute, deaf.

This was a city that was obstinate, hardened in their rebellion against him. This is a city that was about to crucify him and he knew that because he's already told his disciples that he's going up to the city and he's told them what the Pharisees are going to do to him and they're going to kill him. This is the city that has been, these are the people, the Jews, the Pharisees that have been trying to trap him to trick him every step of the way these are the people that hate him they despise him They've been trying to kill Him if they could. Here He sees this city and these people. He's moved with compassion.

In some ways Jesus is more moved by compassion, by sin, than by pitiable conditions. When presented with a pitiable man who was deaf and had a speech impediment. Mark 7 says that Jesus sighed. They brought him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech and they begged him to put his hand on him. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said, Ephetah, be opened.

But when he's confronted with the unbelieving and hard-hearted Jews, Seeking a sign, he sighs deeply. The Pharisees came and began to dispute with him, seeking a sign from heaven, testing him, but he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, why does this generation seek a sign? Assuredly I say to you no sign will be given to this generation See Jesus heart and his spirit gravitated to the morally disgusting, the socially reviled, the inexcusable, the undeserving. He is by His own enemy's description, The Pharisees, a friend of sinners. Son of God moves toward, embraces, touches, Heals, forgives those who least deserve it, yet truly desire it.

How do we understand this kind of compassion for lost, calloused, hardened people? Well, imagine an independently wealthy doctor goes to a remote, impoverished land, lacking in basic medical knowledge and care. And at his own expense, he brings medicines. He sets up a clinic. And a man with rotting flesh from untreated wounds comes.

And he has the means to bring help to this person. How would he feel if this person turned it down? Decided He didn't want it. Well, sorrow. There's nothing in it for him.

There's no television cameras or newspaper people here to promote what he's doing. He's not there for that reason. He's there out of simply a compassion. He's not there to make money, buy and sell, make a profit. He's there simply because he cares.

How would he feel if somebody turned him down? Probably great sorrow. I mean he didn't do all this for his own sake. Probably feel great sorrow. What if that person just didn't trust him?

Didn't think he could help him? Was scared? You would feel sorrow. And I think that's something like what the sorrow that Jesus is experiencing. These are the people, sinners are the people that Jesus came to redeem.

Now some have questioned whether his compassion was real. Some have denied either the sincerity or the reality of Christ's compassion. And they've done that reasoning that, well, knowing that God has ordained the reprobate to everlasting destruction. And they have concluded that if God has damned someone eternally, He could not really have a genuine desire for their salvation. He couldn't truly be said to have real compassion for them, for that would supposedly conflict with his eternal decree to destroy them in hell for all eternity.

Eternity. One such author writes, quote, that God is serious in the external call to all who hear. Reprobate as well as elect does not mean or even imply that he wishes all to be saved. And a little later he says quote his purpose will and desire is to give life and salvation to the elect only. He holds or charges all people withholding to an absurdity for believing that God could desire to save a person whom he has ordained to damnation.

In this passage Jesus expresses a certainty. A certainty born of His divine decree. If you had known even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes, there's sorrow, compassion for them. If they had known. If they had known the things that would make for peace, the only way that we can have peace is through faith in Christ, through being reconciled to the Father.

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ. But now they are hidden from your eyes. They were blind to the way of peace. He says, for the days will come upon you. That is Christ speaking with certainty about what would happen in the future because God had ordained it from before the foundation of the world, that their enemies would come and build an embankment around them, that they would surround them and close them in on every side and level you and your children.

Jesus said later in the Olivet Discourse that this wrath was a great wrath and the tribulation that would come was it would be a great tribulation wrath on the wicked tribulation even on the church such that even if the that if the elect would not have made it if God had not shortened those days. But this wrath was also a great wrath. And it came. But Jesus is here speaking of something that is still probably 40 years away. 36 years from the start of it.

But He's speaking with certainty because it's been ordained, foreordained by the decree of God that this judgment will come on them. Indeed, the temple was destroyed. Not one stone was left on another stone in that temple. It was taken all the way down. They were looking for gold and treasure in there and they they tore every stone apart seeking it And what what Jesus says here happened And Jesus is speaking here with the certainty of the divine decree of God.

And yet, it doesn't stop him from compassion. You see, merely denying that God has any desire for the damned person to be saved doesn't relieve that dilemma, the supposed dilemma. It really only changes the dilemma. Because under the scenario that God doesn't desire the damned person to be saved, now God now commands people to do what he doesn't desire them to do. And I don't think that's any solution at all.

God now commands all men everywhere to repent. But if one denies that God desires to save all men, then one is asserting that God doesn't actually want people to do what he's commanding them to do, which is to repent. I believe that the scripture teaches that both are true and this passage brings both together. God is sovereign and we can never soft pedal, we can never back away from God's decree of repubation. That Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated.

That God has ordained the eternal damnation of the reprobate. People that were prepared for destruction. People that were prepared and ordained from before the foundation of the world for destruction. But neither can we deny what the scripture teaches us here that Christ has and God has a compassion even for these people. He has a desire, a desire that was so deep for their good that he was moved to tears and wept at the mere sight of the city.

To those who say this can't be true, I think we simply say that you don't have the mind of Christ. You don't have the mind of Christ as it's revealed in the scriptures throughout the Gospels, the compassion that Christ showed for even the lost, the lost and even the reprobate. See, when sinners stand before God, when the reprobates stand before God in the final judgment, no one will be able to say, well, you ordained me eternally to damnation, that's why I wasn't saved. Nobody can say that. When people stand before the Lord in that day, every mouth will be stopped because Christ was a Savior of great compassion.

Who wept, who wept real tears with real sorrow from a heart that was broken over the obstinacy and callousness of these reprobate people. If we want to have the mind of Christ, then we will also learn to have compassion for the lost. A real heartfelt compassion for the lost. The only reason that we don't have that kind of compassion is because we're sinners and sin blunts and short changes our compassion. Christ the perfect human, the perfect emotional life had deep compassion on all these people.

And as we grow in grace and in knowledge and become more and more like Christ, we will have, we will grow in this compassion for the lost, for the dying, for the hurting. Now Jesus says immediately following this over the exact same people he has great anger. We tend to think of these two emotions as maybe a little bit opposite, being angry and having compassion. If you think about it, they really have to be present in a morally perfect person. Perfect person.

The moral sense is not just a mere faculty of our mind that can discriminate between what we call right and wrong. And that's it. B.B. Warfield in his emotional life of our Lord states, precisely what we mean by a moral being is a being that is perceptive of the difference between right and wrong and reacting appropriately to right and wrong. It's not just perceiving it, but it's reacting appropriately to it.

The emotions of indignation and anger belong therefore to the very self-expression of moral being and cannot be lacking to Him in the presence of wrong. The fundamental psychology of anger always has pain at its root and is a reaction of the soul against what gives it discomfort. There is the pain of the gross manifestation of the hardness of the heart of the Jews inflicted on Jesus. And there is the strong reaction of indignation which sprang out of his pain." I think that beautifully connects these two emotions of compassion and indignation, righteous indignation. The fundamental psychology of anger always has pain as its root and is a reaction of the soul against what gives it discomfort.

Christ was greatly discomforted at the hardness of the Jew's heart. There is the pain of the gross manifestation of the hardness of the heart of the Jews inflicted on Jesus and there is the strong reaction of indignation which sprang out of this pain. See, a perfect man is going to be angry at what is wrong. And if we're not, it's not because we're merciful, it's because we lack the mind of Christ. That we aren't angry at the things that we ought to be angry about.

We're not indignant about the sins and the injustices and the grievances that we ought to be indignant about. We're not angry at the disobedience and rebellion that we ought to be angry about. Jesus says he went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in it, saying to them, it is written, my house is a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves. This was a mafia, a cartel. The Sadducees were the equivalent of the international bankers of today's community, who are largely Jews.

And they had quite a racket, a cartel. There was an immense, immense wealth. Those of you that have been going through this series in Revelation in the afternoon, maybe remember some of Pastor Kaiser's descriptions of the immense, immense wealth that the Sadducees had accumulated, that their immense power over even Rome that they had and this was all centered in this temple. There was a huge system here of oppression where people came and bought animals for sacrifices. Part of coming to Jerusalem was to be able to spend a rejoicing tithe and if they lived too far away the Old Testament allowed for them to sell their stuff, take the money, travel, and buy whatever their heart desired.

So there's an immense need here for merchandise. Some have indicated that there was also some carnivory going on with the sacrifices that people would sell animals that would and then resell for a sacrifice but then that animal wouldn't instead of being sacrificed it would be simply resold to the next person coming to buy a lamb for their sacrifice but whatever the situation the Sadducees that in that controlled this cartel were immensely wealthy. And much of that wealth was ill-gotten. And so Jesus, and all this merchandising had moved right into the temple square. And so Jesus says, my house is a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves.

And he was righteously indignant at this desecration of the temple. But he continued teaching daily in the temple. And the chief priests and the scribes and the leaders of the people sought to destroy him, but they were unable to do anything for all the people were very attentive to hear him this is one characteristic of tyrants they are very sensitive to the public and what and That's why they have to control information and control what people know. They were unwilling, unable to do anything because the people were listening to him and the people were believing that he was God as they had praised him, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord, they had said a few days earlier. And so they had to find, they had to first change the hearts of the people and turn them against him.

Well what can we apply from this to us? Well we want to be like Jesus because he became like us. If Jesus was God, then we couldn't, we'd have no hope of becoming like him. But Jesus became like us. He took our human nature to himself.

And he is our elder brother. He is our Savior, but He's also a human like us. He has experienced all the human emotions that we experience. His emotional life was one of perfect balance and control on one hand, and extensive depth of feeling on the other. See where our sin restrains our compassion and distorts our anger so that we don't feel that compassion that Jesus did and we don't feel angry at the things that Jesus did, we can become like Him.

That's the promise. That is the promise of sanctification. More and more conformed to the image of Christ in his perfect human nature and less and less conformed to this world. But this picture of who Christ is today, this picture of who Christ is here, this human, with these emotions, these perfect emotions, is the picture of who Christ is today as well as he intercedes for us at the throne of grace. You see, Christ didn't take this human nature just while he was on earth and then when he ascended he lost it.

No, he still is, he still has this human nature. Even as he sits at the right hand of the throne of God, even as he makes intercession for us, he has this human nature. He has all of these emotions that are human. He has sorrow. He has anger.

He has compassion. And as we pray to him we can remember that we are praying to someone who has a nature like ours, who has experienced all of the trials and tribulations and temptations, who has experienced all the emotions that we have experienced. There's nothing that we can ever experience that our Savior Christ has not also experienced. He knows what we are knowing. No one else can, but He does.

And so he's able to make intercession for us as someone who can sympathize with our weaknesses. And he has compassion on sinners. He's compassion on us, even when we sin, we can come to him as someone who has compassion, who's ready to forgive. Who is ready to forgive. Matthew describes A very similar situation where in Matthew 23, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her, How often I wanted to gather your children together as hens gather her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.

How often, how often, Jesus says, I wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. This was said of people who were reprobate, who wouldn't come. How much greater his compassion and love for his children. That We can come to him and receive his forgiveness and his grace. We can come to him as a child, not as an orphan, not as somebody outside his desire for compassion.

Do we? Do we? Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word, which is sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing a sundered soul and spirit even to joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of men's hearts. Lord we thank you for your word and we ask that that we we might receive this morning the truth of your word as you communicate to us your human nature, Your compassion and your righteous indignation, your wrath, your just wrath against sin and unrighteousness, but also your great grace to those who desire to come to you. A desire that you have given, but a true desire nonetheless.

Father, may we be Those who come often to your throne of grace. To receive mercy and help. May we come Lord as your children. As those to whom you have given a right to come, as those whom you have promised to hear, as those whom you have loved with an everlasting love, as Lord you delight to show mercy. And you are pleased when your children receive your grace.

And you are pleased when your children believe your word. So Lord, we ask that you would help our unbelief. May we see you as the one who is gentle and lowly of heart. The one who is compassionate with our weaknesses and yes even our sins. We ask in Jesus name.

Amen.