11. The Emotional Life of Christ

Picture the scene at Bethany. Mary reaches Jesus, falls at his feet, and says what many of us have said in a hospital hallway: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Then John tells us something striking. Jesus “was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.” A few lines later: “Jesus wept.”

This chapter of Ortlund's book starts with a question underneath that scene. Is Jesus' inner life still human? The book argues that the Son took on a real human nature and keeps it forever. So the picture of Jesus as “half God, half man” is wrong. He is fully God and fully human, and he did not set his humanity aside at the ascension. When the risen Jesus shows his disciples his hands and feet in Luke 24, he is showing a body that is still his. The feelings recorded in the Gospels are not a costume. They show who he is.

The book surveys the emotions Jesus shows, and compassion is the one that appears most. The Greek word behind many of those moments is splanchnizo, which comes from the word for the inner organs. It describes a gut-level response, not a polite decision to help. When Matthew 9:36 says Jesus saw the crowds and had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, the picture is of a man moved in his insides.

Then the chapter turns to B. B. Warfield, who points out a problem with our feelings. Ours miss the target. We boil over at small insults and stay cold toward real evil. Our emotions over-react or under-react. Look at John 11 again. Jesus' emotions are the right size. The book counts this scene among the places where his anger shows, alongside the temple cleansing and his words in Matthew 23. A good way to read it is that he is not shocked at Lazarus's death only as a sad event. He is stirred against what death has done to people he loves. Anger and tears sit side by side, and neither is a sin. He weeps even though he is about to raise Lazarus. Hope does not cancel grief.

Notice the crowd too. Some say, “See how he loved him!” Others say, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?” Both questions are still asked today. Jesus does not argue with either. He walks to the tomb, still moved.

The chapter ends with help for anyone who is angry right now. Psalm 4:4 tells us to be angry and not sin. The command assumes you will feel anger and gives it somewhere to go. Take it to the one whose own anger is always aimed rightly. He will not flinch at yours.

If your anger or grief comes from being hurt badly by someone, or has become too heavy to carry alone, please talk to a pastor, counselor, or trusted friend. Jesus' tenderness never asks you to stay near someone who harms you.